Despite the urgings of wannabe kingmaker Donald Trump, the big, statewide races in Tuesday's Georgia primary look like snoozefests that don't favor his candidates, but a House race in northwest Georgia may be a sleeper.
First, the statewide races. Trump's obsession with the lie that he actually won Georgia's vote in 2020 led him to endorse former Sen. David Perdue, who keeps repeating the lie, over incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. Trump blames Kemp for failing to prove the voter fraud that Trump alleges. Trump did this even though Kemp had been about as Trumpy a governor as humanly possible — and even though Kemp engineered voting reforms in 2021 that would help guarantee the integrity of future elections.
Despite Trump's efforts, Perdue has made no headway. He has stopped running TV ads and trails by more than 30 points in most polls. But Trump just this morning sent out yet another statement reconfirming that he is "with David all the way." That means Trump will go with him all the way to ignominious defeat. Likewise, Trump probably will fail to knock off, in this round at least, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who bluntly told Trump during the transition that Trump's information was wrong. Raffensberger appears headed to a runoff with the Trump-endorsed Rep. Jody Hice.
The Republican Senate nomination will go to former football superstar Herschel Walker in a landslide. The Democratic nominations for governor and Senate are foregone conclusions for 2018 candidate Stacey Abrams and incumbent Raphael Warnock, respectively.
All of which leaves as the real battleground the Republican race in the 14th Congressional District pitting radical incumbent Marjorie Taylor Greene against healthcare executive Jennifer Strahan and four other candidates. Greene has regularly given aid and comfort to white supremacists and bizarre conspiracy theorists, but Trump and a large group of House conservatives continue to endorse her. By some accounts, though, she could be in political trouble against Strahan, a strong conservative of the sane variety.
Greene led significantly in all polls taken through April. The recent momentum in the race, such as it is, seems to be in Strahan's favor, while Greene continues to do politically strange things — such as, for example, being one of just nine House members to vote (on Wednesday) against the 413 members in favor of allowing needy families to use federal benefits to buy baby formula, even as a formula shortage grips the nation, and cheering the release from prison of a man well known for price-gouging a life-saving medicine.
If endorsements matter, Strahan received two important ones this week. On Friday, it was from the conservative flagship publication National Review, which wrote that "Greene has been a disgrace to her office and a disservice to her constituents …. Greene serves on no committees, does no apparent legislative work, and rarely appears in a district she moved into in order to run for office. ... The district's voters should choose Strahan."
Perhaps of more influence locally, Georgia-based radio host Erick Erickson, nationally known as a conservative media leader from his days arguing against the liberals at CNN, endorsed Strahan on Tuesday. Speaking of her conservative vote-getting potential, he has called Strahan "Marjorie with a brain." Against Greene, he says Republicans "need to clean up the crazy on our side."
Redistricting added a big swath of Atlanta suburbs, people not thought to be Greene-friendly voters, to the otherwise largely rural district. As May began, Strahan clearly had a long way to go to overtake Greene's celebrity. Her attempted late rush is the only real drama in Georgia's election.