ATLANA – In a convincing victory, which was a huge reproach to Donald J. Trump, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp won the Republican nomination for a second term on Tuesday, reversing a major challenge nurtured by Trump and giving the former president his biggest election choice a failure in the 2022 primary.
Mr Trump has made victory over Kemp and his allies a top priority, seeking revenge for the decision by Governor and Secretary of State Brad Rafensperger to certify the 2020 elections in Georgia. After his subversive efforts were thwarted, Mr Trump personally recruited former Senator David Purdue to run for governor, and his support for Mr Rafensperger was one of the earliest since his presidency.
Both Mr. Kemp and Mr. Rafensperger won anyway – and Mr. Kemp led by about 50 percentage points with more than 90 percent of the votes counted, a breakthrough that easily avoided the run-off.
Mr Purdue had backed his candidacy by promoting lies about fraud in the last election, blaming Mr Kemp for both Mr Trump’s defeat and his own loss of the run-off in 2021, which gave Democrats control. over the Senate. Mr Trump has moved all-in for Mr Purdue: he is working to clear the field for him, record television commercials, hold a rally and even transfer $ 2.64 million from his political accounts to help him.
The unilateral result revealed the limits of Mr Trump’s power on the basis of his party, noting for the third week in a row that a candidate he backed for governor was losing. It was also a sign of the waning power of Mr Trump’s mania to make up for his loss in 2020 two years later.
Chris Christie, a former governor of New Jersey and a former Trump adviser who campaigned with Mr. Kemp, celebrated on Twitterstating that voters had rejected the DJT Vendetta Tour.
The victory for Mr Kemp, 58, marks the start of a rematch of his 2018 fight with Stacey Abrams, 48, who won the Democratic Resistance nomination on Tuesday, in what will be one of the most closely watched contests. for governor of the country this fall. His most urgent imperative is the reunification of the Republican Party, shattered by divisive primary elections.
Standing on artificial turf on the football field in the Chick-fil-A College of Fame in downtown Atlanta, Mr. Kemp rhetorically refused to step up football. He thanked his opponent “for the lively debate” and said Mr Perdue had backed him up on a phone call.
Highlighting the bitterness of the race, Mr Purdue said in a briefing on concessions in Atlanta that “everything I said about Brian Camp is true”, while calling on his supporters to unite against Mrs Abrams, calling Mr. Kemp “a much better choice.”
While Georgia received the highest fees on Tuesday, several other states held primary elections, including Texas, where a mass shooting at a primary school killed at least 19 children and a nation in mourning. Mr Kemp postponed his victory speech until President Biden addressed the White House on the tragedy.
In the race for the Senate of Georgia, Herschel Walker, a former football star at the University of Georgia, who was also nominated by Mr. Trump, won the Republican nomination and will face Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, in November. The clash in the fall, which could change control of the Senate, is a rare general election in the South in which two black candidates face each other.
As Mr Walker runs through the primary election, his turbulent past – including allegations of domestic violence and exaggerated and false allegations of his business success – is expected to have a deeper coverage of the general election.
Both sides expect Mr Walker to be the subject of forthcoming advertisements questioning his competence and authority. His Democratic opponent, Mr Warnock, 52, one of the nation’s best fundraisers, has been on television for months, focusing mainly on positive messages.
With nearly 200 approvals so far, Mr Trump has appointed the primary season in 2022 as a continuous referendum on his influence in the party. He achieved remarkable great success, such as JD Vance in Ohio, and suffered defeats in Nebraska and Idaho. But no state has so far been as focused on Mr Trump as Georgia, where he has not only set out to oust the governor, but also Mr Kemp’s allies in other offices across the state.
Mr Trump’s election as attorney general was lost in a landslide, and his election as insurance commissioner was also far behind. His election as open lieutenant governor was a priority, but he probably turned to a runoff.
In the race for Secretary of State, Mr. Rafensperger, the incumbent Republican whom Trump pressured to “find” enough votes to cancel the election in early 2021, prevented a run-off against MP Jody Hayes, who led by about 200,000 votes early. on Wednesday morning.
The Secretary of State is serving as a senior official in Georgia’s election, and the winner in the fall will have much power over how the 2024 presidential campaign will be conducted in a key state on the battlefield.
Georgia’s right-wing fire chief, Marjorie Taylor Green, cleverly rejected a more moderate contender, carrying more than two-thirds of the vote in her county.
In Texas, the last descendant of the Bush political dynasty, Land Commissioner George P. Bush, was defeated in the race for Attorney General, losing to scandalous incumbent Ken Paxton. And in a democratic race on the border, the representative Henry Cuelar, one of the most moderate Democrats in the House, was at a standstill against a a progressive challenge by Jessica Cisneros that attracted national attention.
In Alabama, three Republican candidates fought for the runoff to succeed retired Sen. Richard Shelby: Representative Mo Brooks; Mike Durant, the helicopter pilot portrayed in Black Hawk Down; and Katie Britt, former Shelby’s chief of staff. Mr Trump was initially supportive of Mr Brooks in early 2021, but as Mr Brooks weakened in the polls, he withdrew that approval. Mr Brooks qualified for the runoff with Mrs Britt, who had won the most votes.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey won his primary election against two right-wing contenders.
And in Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former White House spokeswoman and daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee, easily won the Republican primary election for governor. Arkansas Sen. John Buzman is avoiding a run-off against Jake Beckett, a former football star, in a race that has seen more than $ 7 million in television commercials.
In Georgia, Mr. Kemp had methodically blocked the support of the country’s biggest political players and donors in anticipation of Trump’s primary battle. He signed a law with a number of conservative priorities, including a restrictive new law on voting in 2021 and a gas tax holiday that extends just after the primary election. He also expanded gun rights, increased teachers’ salaries and sent checks for tax rebates that have come out in recent weeks.
All these and other maneuvers left Mr Purdue isolated, with nothing to rely on but the support of Mr Trump, who has been in turmoil for 18 months over Mr Kemp’s refusal to try to overturn the 2020 election. in his state.
“His approval is still important, but it comes with an asterisk,” said Stephen Lawson, a Georgia-based Republican strategist, adding that the failure of Perdue’s campaign was “proof that your message should be more than that.”
Even before the election was over, Mr Perdue’s own allies began to openly criticize Perdue’s efforts as weak. And many national Republicans have united behind Mr Kemp as the Association of Republican Governors has taken the unusual step of intervening to spend more than $ 5 million on advertising in the primary. Ambitious potential Republican presidential candidates in 2024 campaigned for him, including Mr. Christie and on the eve of the election, former Vice President Mike Pence.
Despite Mr Trump’s anger and public attacks, Mr Kemp never responded to the former president. “I have never said anything bad about him,” Mr Kemp said on Monday. “I do not intend to do that. I’m not angry with him. I think he’s just mad at me. “
Now Mr Kemp has to hope that discipline pays off and that Mr Trump – who was thinking at a rally in Georgia last autumn – that Mrs Abrams “could be better than having your current governor” – does not work actively to torpedo him in November.
Mr Walker tried to remain neutral in the primary election of the governor, refusing to support or even say who he was voting for. The 60-year-old political newcomer avoids any debate during the primary election and mostly ignores rivals in an area that included Georgian Agriculture Minister Gary Black.
Mr Black has repeatedly warned that the untested Mr Walker will be ineligible – “he will never win”, Mr Black said in a recent interview – and that Republicans will regret his anointing.
One of the ways Mr Trump tried to ease Mr Purdue’s path was to push another ally, Vernon Jones, out of the gubernatorial race and enter open competition in Congress. This race was aimed at the runoff.
Georgia Republicans reshaped the district lines before 2022, cramming two Democrats into the House of Representatives in the same Atlanta suburbs and eroding democratic power elsewhere in the southwest corner of the state, held by Representative Sanford Bishop. Mr Bishop, a Democrat, is facing his first serious challenge in years this autumn.
As a result, Republicans were able to increase their share of the congressional delegation from 8-6 to 10-4.
In the primary election, which pitted two incumbent Democrats against each other, Lucy McBatt defeated Carolyn Bourdain on Tuesday.
Richard Fauset contributed to the reporting.