There are still more than two weeks until the May 24 primary, but with early voting underway the candidates for Georgia’s top offices put new urgency behind their weekend messages. And your Insiders hit the trail to hear them.
Let’s start with the Fulton GOP, where a crowd of mainstream Republicans mixed with die-hard Donald Trump fans gathered at the Buckhead Club on Saturday to hear from dueling contenders.
Perhaps the most controversial line came from John Gordon, the Trump-backed candidate for attorney general. He said if he ousted incumbent Chris Carr, he would focus his office’s attention on the state’s education apparatus.
“I’m gonna protect your children. We’re not going to allow CRT and gender identity to be teached (sic.) and propagated in our schools. I will enjoin them. I will prosecute them as child abusers if they try to do it.”
Gordon, who only recently renewed his law license after decades to push Trump’s election conspiracies in court, is referring to critical race theory, a GOP buzzword that’s not being taught in the state’s public k-12 classrooms.
We also caught Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black at the same event, when he warned that GOP Senate frontrunner Herschel Walker is doomed if he wins the party’s nod to take on Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.
“We’ve got to have this discussion as a family right now. It’s better to say, ‘Oh my,’ right now than ‘Oh no’ in June,” said Black. “Because if he’s a candidate of this party, he will lose. The race will be about him and his deficiencies.”
Up the road at the Battery, Walker joined WSB’s Shelley Wynter for a lengthy Q&A where he made clear his focus is squarely on Warnock and not Black or any of his other GOP rivals.
>@HerschelWalker tells @shelleywynter1 he’ll never vote to have US “boots on the ground” in Ukraine. He asks why the US hasn’t sent “better equipment” to help stave off the Russian invasion. “We need to be more proactive than reactive.” #gapol #gasen pic.twitter.com/bzUo1GfnoH
— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) May 7, 2022
Case in point, when he was asked his top priority upon taking office, he gave the sort of answer you don’t hear Republicans in heated primaries invoke: Bipartisanship.
“I gotta be a uniter. What I mean by that is I gotta go and cross the line,” he said “I’ve got to be able to cross the aisle because we’ve got to quit fighting … We’ve got to work to get this economy back together again.”
In Gainesville on Friday, former U.S. Sen. David Perdue seized on the leaked Supreme Court opinion on abortion to sharpen a divide with Gov. Brian Kemp. Perdue has called for a special session to outlaw all abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned – a stance Kemp has so far refused to take.
“I actually call for the governor to step where I am and let’s get shoulder to shoulder on this issue. This should be all of us protecting life and that sort of thing. I didn’t do this for a political reason. I did it because I felt morally correct.”
As for Warnock, he met with older Georgians to tout his healthcare proposals, including one that promotes Medicaid expansion and the other that would cap the price of insulin. Of the latter, he told us it has a “fighting chance” of passing.
“Some 20 states already have these bills on the books, states like Utah and Oklahoma and Alabama. So we have a bipartisan chance. And the only thing that could get in the way of this quite frankly, is politics.”
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Stacey Abrams doesn’t have a primary, but she was out this weekend headlining the Human Rights Campaign’s gala in Atlanta Saturday night.
In her remarks, Abrams said she’d been speaking with her mother earlier in the day when they saw a commercial from state Sen. Butch Miller, who is a GOP candidate for lieutenant governor.
Miller released the ad last week focusing on the new state law he pushed through the Senate to keep transgender girls from competing in girls’ sports. “It’s called ‘girls sports’ for a reason,” Miller says in the ad. “It’s for girls.”
Thats right! I'm proud I got this bill over the line and this is how I feel about it! If you agree, I hope you'll chip in to my campaign for Lieutenant Governor here: https://t.co/ccKZNmzZsy https://t.co/x7of7lYxd6 pic.twitter.com/pL95NslRG5
— Butch Miller (@butchmillerga) May 4, 2022
“How dare they tell us who we are and whose we are and who we can be?” Abrams said. “I am here tonight because I intend to be a governor of a state of grace and a state of opportunity and a state of transformation. I am here tonight because I was raised better than that.”
Abrams also took up the topic of the leaked opinion that could signal the end of Roe v. Wade. “Let’s understand what this is really about. They are working their hardest to strip our federal government of any dominion over our rights.”
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One candidate missing from a 7th Congressional District forum last week was U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, who was a no-show at the NAACP Gwinnett candidates forum ahead of the contested Democratic primary there.
U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux and state Rep. Donna McLeod were both at the event-- and McBath’s absence did not go unnoticed by organizers.
Penny Poole, the president of the Gwinnett NAACP, had this to say at the end of her remarks: “We must note that Representative McBath, previously of the 6th Congressional District, declined our invitation on today to personally address the Black community and other people of color in Gwinnett tonight. We are not standing on legacies; we are standing on integrity. Representative McBath, we challenge you to bring your voice to the people of Gwinnett and meet the real Gwinnettians who work for and are vested in the people of Gwinnett.”
A spokesman for McBath declined to comment on the event.
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How confident is Herschel Walker in his GOP primary victory on May 24? This morning, he issued an invitation to his Senate GOP rivals to bring their staff and top donors to a “unity celebration” on primary night.
Writes Walker’s campaign:
“If the 2020 election showed us anything, it’s that Republicans need to put aside differences and come together. Now more than ever, it’s time to unite—not divide.
“Once the primary is over, we can’t waste any time fighting among ourselves. Regardless of the outcome, I think it is important to focus on what brings us together — we can all agree that we need to defeat Raphael Warnock in November.”
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With a wide lead in most polls, Herschel Walker may no longer feel the need to constantly get into the weeds of traditional campaign topics-- and GOP voters don’t seem to feel the need to hear them.
Here is the Marietta Daily Journal’s write up of Walker’s Thursday visit to the Acworth Business Association, where the mayor’s opening prayer included thanks for bringing Walker as a speaker:
“Hit with a standing ovation at the top of his freewheeling remarks, Walker stayed clear of politicking on the National Day of Prayer. He instead opined far and wide on the merits of vampires versus werewolves, the Christian undertones of Rocky V, his adventures jet-setting with the Trump family and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, and his ventures into the business world.
Closing with a parable about the existence of baseball in the afterlife, Walker received yet another standing ovation, before heading into the arms of a dozens-long autograph line."
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U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock will be in Atlanta Monday to again focus on reducing the cost of insulin for patients. He’ll hold a roundtable discussion downtown with medical experts and diabetes advocates to talk about his bill to cap the monthly cost of insulin at $35/ month.
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Today in Washington:
- The Senate convenes for an early evening nomination vote;
- The House is out of session;
- Look for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to file cloture on a bill, likely up for a vote Wednesday, to guarantee a woman’s right to access abortion through federal statute. The bill is unlikely to have the votes to pass, but is seen as a must-do for Democratic campaigns heading toward November.
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POSTED: Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger accepted a recommendation from Judge Charles Beaudrot last week to clear U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to stand for election in 2022.
Five of Greene’s constituents had filed to have her removed from the ballot based on their contention that she violated the 14th Amendment by participating in an insurrection against the government. More:
The decision wasn't surprising. The judge had signaled frustration with the challengers' case throughout an April 22 hearing.
“Whether the invasion of January 6 amounted to an insurrection is an issue of tremendous importance to all Americans and one that may yet be addressed," he wrote. “However, it is not a question for this court to answer at this time."
Greene, a Rome Republican, supported then-President Donald Trump's attempts to overturn his general election loss by rejecting Electoral College ballots in Georgia and other contested states.
But her attorneys argued that her remarks and actions were protected free speech.
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Along with the bus tours, phone banks, and other get-out-the-vote tactics that most campaigns are using, the New Georgia Project launched a gaming app over the weekend to engage younger voters in voting and activism.
The This is Not a Game game features an interactive 50-level puzzle, along with links to connect players to information about registering, voting in Georgia and volunteering for the group.
Live with Restream https://t.co/TH1zUFYxWk
— New Georgia Project (@NewGAProject) May 7, 2022
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As always, Jolt readers are some of our favorite tipsters. Send your best scoop, gossip and insider info to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com and greg.bluestein@ajc.com.
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