The Economist May 14th 2022 21
United StatesThemid-terms
Voting wars
T
he centralschism of the Republican
Party is not particularly wellcon
cealed. In the first primary debate to be the
party’s nominee for governor of Georgia,
held on April 24th in Atlanta, it came into
stark relief from the opening sentence.
“First off, let me be very clear tonight. The
election in 2020 was rigged and stolen,”
said David Perdue.
The exsenator, who lost a pivotal run
off election in January 2021, is now trying
to resurrect his fortunes by playing Donald
Trump’s anointed avenger against Brian
Kemp, the incumbent governor. Mr Kemp
is hardly a weakwristed moderate. In 2018
he was the politically incorrect (and
Trumpendorsed) candidate who won his
primary by running ads pledging to gather
up “criminal illegals” in his pickup truck
and exhibiting an impressive gun collec
tion to a nervous suitor of his daughter. Yet
in 2022 he is being denounced by Mr
Trump as a “rino [Republican in name on
ly] sellout”. His sin: not overturning the
2020 election after the former president’s
spurious claims of voter fraud.
Mr Trump’s preeminence in the party
is clear, even in the aftermath of the attack
by his supporters on Congress on January
6th 2021. But the extent of his kingmaking
powers is being closely scrutinised in the
midterm party primaries. Among Repub
licans, the main prerequisite for securing
Mr Trump’s approval is not any policy com
mitment but perceived fealty to him and
his lost cause. He has solicited primary
challengers against many of the ten Repub
lican members of the House of Representa
tives who voted to impeach him after the
January 6th attack—most will probably be
out of office by year’s end. In Michigan, ac
olytes of his “stop the steal” faction have already won the party’s nomination to be at
torneygeneral and secretary of state (the
chief elections officer).
Georgia is perhaps the most important
case of the nationwide intraparty struggle.
In 2020 the presidentialelection results
were the tightest in the country. Just 0.24%
of the vote separated President Joe Biden
from Mr Trump, a remarkable upset in a
state which no Democrat had won since- Mr Trump and his proxies waged an
intense pressure campaign on fellow Re
publicans like Mr Kemp and Brad Raffens
perger, the secretary of state, to manufac
ture evidence to overturn his loss. When
multiple audits failed to turn up any such
evidence, Mr Trump, in a now infamous
phone call, asked for Mr Raffensperger to
help “find 11,780 votes”.
For refusing his overtures, the presi
dent placed both men on his enemies list.
As early as December 2020, Mr Trump was
encouraging primary challenges to Mr
Kemp. Defying the president was thought
to have doomed both as dead men walking,
politically speaking. In the immediate af
termath, state and local Republican com
mittees booed both and passed resolutions
of censure. And yet, remarkably, both are
standing again—and have a reasonable
chance of survival. The polls show Mr
Kemp leading by enough to win an outright
majority on May 24th and avoid a runoff.
“My job is to make sure that Brad can
look in the mirror every day, knowing that I
fought for integrity. And I have walked the
line to make sure that I followed the con
ATLANTA
Georgia will again be the scene of explosive battles over electoral fairness
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