Can Republicans Replace Their Nominee for President Even if the Current President Is Running Again

Former President Donald Trump held a rally in Commerce, Ga., last Saturday with candidates he's backing in the country's May principal elections. Megan Varner/Getty Images hide explanation

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Megan Varner/Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump held a rally in Commerce, Ga., last Saturday with candidates he'south bankroll in the state's May chief elections.

Megan Varner/Getty Images

When Donald Trump took the stage at a windy rally lxx miles northeast of Atlanta on Saturday, he promised Republicans would win big in November.

Just start, he said, there was more pressing business.

"We have a big primary coming up right here in your state. We're going to throw out a very, very sad state of affairs that took place, your RINO Gov. Brian Kemp," he said before calling Kemp a "turncoat," "coward" and "a complete and total disaster." (RINO is a pejorative acronym, continuing for "Republican in name only.")

The governor'due south race is one of seven in Georgia where Trump has endorsed insurgent candidates to unseat incumbents — or stamp his brand of conservatism on a race — from U.Due south. Senate down to the relatively obscure insurance commissioner.

Virtually of these candidates are running to challenge Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and their allies afterwards they certified President Biden'south narrow victory in 2020.

"Let'southward get one thing straight, let me be very clear — very clear: In the state of Georgia, thanks to Brian Kemp, our elections in 2020 were absolutely stolen," said former Sen. David Perdue, Kemp's master challenger who spoke at the Trump rally.

Georgia's elections were not "stolen" — in fact the outcome was verified past three separate counts of the results.

Trump's endorsement has been a gilded ticket for many Republicans seeking to stand out in contested primary elections, and the sometime president has made more than 120 endorsements in the 2022 election cycle across the land, so far. Kemp himself was a beneficiary of Trump'southward endorsement that helped him win the GOP nomination for governor in 2018.

Only after 2020, the former president has embraced more longshot candidates and is seeking to oust incumbents who did not overturn his defeat. In improver to the governor'southward race, Trump recruited challengers to unseat Georgia's sitting secretary of country, chaser full general and insurance commissioner, along with choices for leader of the state Senate, a wide-open up Republican congressional principal and a battleground U.S. Senate race.

Georgia Republicans seem less sure Trump-backed candidates will win this twelvemonth

As governor, Kemp's tape on issues similar abortion, voting laws, the COVID-nineteen pandemic and the economy are about as conservative as it gets. A frequent target of the left for these policies, Kemp now finds himself trying to defend his Republican bona fides to the party's base confronting attacks from the party's leader.

Brian Robinson, a Republican strategist in Georgia, said Kemp's record speaks for itself and will be front of listen when voters head to the polls, especially given the way he handled the pandemic and despite the pregnant power a Trump endorsement has carried.

"Georgia voters know that Kemp stood up confronting mask mandates, that he cut their taxes, that he's strongly pro-life, that he's passed gun rights expansions," he said. "You lot tin can't give them a half story — because they know the full story. It's got to lucifer upwards with what they already believe to some degree."

At a recent Kemp campaign stop in heavily conservative northeast Georgia, voters like John Ford said current Republican incumbents have delivered for voters, and then information technology's still possible to support them — and Trump.

"He was the president, Brian Kemp is our governor," Ford said. "He'south my governor, and he has my vote, and I experience similar David Perdue running as a principal candidate is divisive to the cause. We need all the help we can get pulling in the same direction."

Perdue lags backside Kemp in fundraising and polling, and one-time football star Herschel Walker, who is running for Senate, is the only clear frontrunner among Trump'due south Georgia picks.

That leads to a business organisation among Republicans here that the primary infighting could harm them in November, peculiarly in a state that will likely be decided by razor-thin margins.

Information technology's not just Georgia where Trump'southward picks have struggled

In Pennsylvania, Senate candidate Sean Parnell dropped out last November later corruption allegations. And last week, Trump un-endorsed Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks for the Senate race there afterward Brooks' entrada stumbled in the polls.

Even Trump himself seemed to leave the door open up that his endorsements wouldn't be as successful equally they one time were, in an interview with Real America'southward Vox this week.

"These are not sure things," he said. "And if I lose i along the way — and you have to, right? — they're going to say, 'This was a humiliating experience.' "

At the rally in Georgia, country Sen. Burt Jones, who is running with Trump's back up to be lieutenant governor, reiterated that the outcome of Georgia'due south May 24 master ballot affected more than than just the vii candidates on the ballot.

"It will set the stage for '24, because all optics will exist on Georgia this yr," he said. "And if we don't win big — if nosotros don't have a red moving ridge — and then it doesn't play well for us to put Donald Trump back in the White House in 2024."

That sentiment was echoed past Trump at his rally, who said he hoped Perdue would become governor, otherwise he "wasted a hell of a lot of time hither this night."

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/04/01/1089958980/trump-is-struggling-again-in-georgia-with-2022-endorsements-driven-by-his-2020-l