Atlanta (Ga)

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      In Georgia, a G.O.P. Primary Tests the Power of a Trump Vendetta

      by

      Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is fending off a challenger fueled by Donald J. Trump’s election lies. But do voters still care about 2020 as much as the former president does?ATLANTA — An anti-Trump Republican advocacy group recently organized a focus group of G.O.P voters in Georgia to get their take on perhaps the most competitive and consequential primary election in the state. They heard a lot of indecision.Most of the voters, convened by the group, the Republican Accountability Project, knew little about the race between Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, and his leading challenger, Representative Jody Hice. Mr. Raffensperger seemed to get the benefit of the doubt — until the voters were reminded of the back story.As the state official responsible for certifying the 2020 presidential election results, Mr. Raffensperger rejected President Donald J. Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat. Mr. Trump recruited Mr. Hice to seek revenge.“Go Jody, I guess?” said one voter.Three out of six others agreed.The exchange offered a glimpse into why the Republican primary race for the office that oversees elections remains a dogfight just days from Election Day, on May 24. Two years after Mr. Trump lost Georgia by the slimmest of margins and Democrats captured both of the state’s open Senate seats, wounds from the 2020 election have still not completely healed for some partisans.But marshaling that residual anger to unseat an incumbent is not an easy feat. Mr. Raffensperger has worked to win back Republicans by casting himself as a defender of “election integrity,” even as he has spent hours debunking a laundry list of false claims about the 2020 election. Some voters’ memories and passions have faded. Many never had strong opinions about their secretary of state.It all has made the race one of the purest tests yet of whether the 2020 election lie can be weaponized to win elections. While polls have shown that leagues of Republican voters in Georgia and elsewhere largely embraced the fiction that the 2020 election was “stolen” in its immediate aftermath, it is not clear those concerns alone, or Mr. Trump’s personal vendetta, are enough to drive voters’ choices.“I think 2020 was really a turning point in how closely people looked at things,” said Salleigh Grubbs, chairwoman of the Cobb County Republican Party. “Before, people might not have even realized that the secretary of state was in charge of running the elections for the state. But now they’re keenly aware of it.”Mr. Hice, whom Mr. Trump endorsed last year, is one of more than a dozen candidates running for secretary of state under the America First banner, alongside others in battleground states like Arizona, Michigan and Ohio. They share an unflinching loyalty to Mr. Trump and a belief that the 2020 election was marred. Some are calling for a law enforcement arm to more aggressively prosecute violators of election laws.Representative Jody Hice, who is running to be Georgia’s secretary of state, at an event of Atlanta Young Republicans on Thursday.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesPolls show large numbers of undecided voters in the race, with Mr. Hice and Mr. Raffensperger neck and neck, each with about one-third of the vote. Both campaigns are braced for a runoff.Mr. Trump’s attempt at payback for 2020 in Georgia is floundering in the state’s other marquee primary on Tuesday. Former Senator David Perdue, his pick to challenge Gov. Brian Kemp after the governor refused to overturn the election results, is trailing Mr. Kemp in polls and fund-raising. Mr. Trump has hardly weighed in publicly on Mr. Perdue’s prospects since hosting a “tele-rally” for the former senator in April. His former vice president, Mike Pence, is set to visit the state to campaign for Mr. Kemp on the eve of the primary election.Mr. Kemp has been adept at using his office to win over skeptical Republicans, passing a slew of conservative policies on elections, law enforcement and education. For voters still enthralled with false claims of fraud, Mr. Kemp can point to the Election Integrity Act of 2021, which limits provisions like ballot drop boxes and mobile voting centers.“When voters see that kind of activity around the concern they have, it just becomes difficult to drive an argument that people who are in office are being inattentive to the issue,” said Brad Alexander, an Atlanta-based political consultant and Raffensperger supporter, who was among several who argued that the potency of the “stolen” election debate has started to wane.In January, 43 percent of Georgia Republican voters said they were confident that the November elections would be fair and accurate, according to a University of Georgia poll. By April, that number had increased to nearly 60 percent. And a record number of voters have already participated in the state’s primary elections, topping more than 700,000 voters on the final day of early voting.Mr. Hice, a four-term congressman, was one of the 147 House Republicans who voted against certifying the election results for President Joe Biden. He later took part in a White House meeting alongside Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene to try to determine how the election results could be flipped in Mr. Trump’s favor. He has claimed, falsely, that Mr. Trump would have won in Georgia if the election had been “fair.”At a meeting with the Atlanta Young Republicans on Thursday, Mr. Hice made unsupported claims about “ballot harvesting,” said he no longer wanted to use Dominion Voting machines and slammed Mr. Raffensperger for sending out unsolicited absentee ballots ahead of the last election. The voice of the people had been “violated” in 2020, he said.County officials in Georgia identified 64 cases of potential fraud out of the state’s roughly 5 million votes in the 2020 election, according to an Associated Press survey of all but 11 of the state’s 159 counties.Fulton County election workers in Atlanta counting ballots after the 2020 election.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesBut Mr. Hice has tried to make his case about more than just 2020 — raising the prospect of fraud in the future.“The issue is not who wins an election, but the issue is absolutely, Was it a fair election?” he said. “If the election itself is compromised or violated, then all the effort out there really doesn’t matter anymore. And that’s what we’ve got to defend. That’s what we’ve got to protect at all costs.”Most of the young Republicans in the room said they wanted to hear what Mr. Hice would do differently from Mr. Raffensperger in elections should he be elected.“Even if you’re not a dogmatic, election-was-stolen person, there are a lot of people with reasonable doubt, and that reasonable suspicion is fair,” said Chris Campbell, 39, a national accounts manager at SmartFeeds. “Raffensperger didn’t address those concerns well, and people don’t have confidence in him. But I do have confidence in Hice and trust that he would run the office with integrity.”The Trump InvestigationsCard 1 of 8Numerous inquiries. More

    • 50 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Your Tuesday Evening Briefing

      by

      Here’s what you need to know at the end of the day.(Want to get this newsletter in your inbox? Here’s the sign-up.)Good evening. Here’s the latest at the end of Tuesday.President Biden and Jill Biden, at a memorial outside the Tops supermarket in Buffalo, today.Doug Mills/The New York Times1. In a speech in Buffalo today, President Biden called white supremacy “a poison” and Saturday’s racist massacre “domestic terrorism” and shared each victim’s name and story.Biden and his wife, Jill, met with victims’ families before the speech, in which Biden denounced “replacement theory” and condemned those “who spread the lie for power, political gain and for profit.” Biden added, “I don’t know why we don’t admit what the hell is going on.” But he stopped short of naming influential proponents of the conspiracy theory, like Tucker Carlson.Not all residents welcomed his words: “I could care less about what Biden said. I want to see action,” one resident said. “I want to see our community actually get help.”Biden voiced support for getting assault weapons off the streets but, before leaving, said he could do little on gun control via executive action and that it would be hard to get Congress to act.The Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, on Sunday.Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters2. By early Tuesday, more than 260 Ukrainian fighters at the Mariupol steel mill had surrendered to Russia. Their fate is uncertain, as is that of hundreds more still in the plant.The soldiers laid down arms under orders from their country’s military, after very secretive negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. The surrender seems to end the war’s longest battle so far, solidifying one of Russia’s few major territorial gains.What happens next is unclear. The evacuated soldiers were taken to Russian-controlled territory, where Ukrainian officials said the fighters would be swapped for Russian prisoners. But the Kremlin did not confirm the swap and signaled that it might level war-crimes charges against the soldiers.Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine appear farther apart than ever on peace negotiations.Voters in Asheville, N.C., cast their ballots today.Logan R. Cyrus for The New York Times3. Five states held primaries today.No state is more closely watched than Pennsylvania. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who spent the day recovering from a stroke, is the front-runner for the Democratic Senate nomination over Representative Conor Lamb. Three candidates are neck and neck in the Republican Senate race; Dr. Mehmet Oz, a celebrity physician endorsed by Donald Trump, was slightly ahead in polls. The former president also endorsed Doug Mastriano, a far-right loyalist who has promoted conspiracy theories and is the leading Republican candidate for governor. Officials said that final election results might not come tonight.Madison Cawthorn, the controversial G.O.P. representative, is in a closely watched race in North Carolina. In Idaho, an extreme far-right candidate is running against its conservative governor. Oregon and Kentucky also held primaries; check in with us for results.Attorney General Merrick Garland in the White House Rose Garden.Sarah Silbiger for The New York Times4. The Justice Department is requesting transcripts from the Jan. 6 committee.The House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol has interviewed more than 1,000 people so far. And the Justice Department has asked the committee to send transcripts of any interviews it is conducting — including discussions with Trump’s inner circle, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.The transcripts could be used as evidence in potential criminal cases or to pursue new leads. The move comes amid signs that Attorney General Merrick Garland is ramping up the pace of his painstaking investigation into the Capitol attack, which coincided with the certification of the election that the former president lost.Capistrano Unified School District, in Orange County, Calif., has lost over 2,800 students since 2020.Alisha Jucevic for The New York Times5. America’s public schools have lost at least 1.2 million students since 2020.Experts point to two potential causes: Some parents became so fed up with remote instruction or mask mandates that they started home-schooling their children or sending them to private schools that largely remained open during the pandemic. Other families were thrown into such turmoil by pandemic-related job losses, homelessness and school closures that their children dropped out.While a broad decline was underway as birth and immigration rates have fallen, the pandemic supercharged that drop in ways that experts say will not easily be reversed.Elon Musk, chaos agent.Susan Walsh/Associated Press6. Is he in or out?The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, raised further doubts about his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, saying (on Twitter) that “this deal cannot move forward” until he gets more details about the volume of spam and fake accounts on the platform.Musk has latched onto the issue of fake accounts, which Twitter says make up fewer than 5 percent of its total, in a move that some analysts figure is an attempt to drive down the acquisition price, or walk away from the deal.The social media company is pressing ahead. In a lengthy regulatory filing, Twitter’s board urged shareholders to vote in favor of the deal, and provided a play-by-play view of how the board reached an agreement with Musk last month.A baby formula display shelf at Rite Aid in San Diego, Calif. on May 10, 2022.Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times7. More baby formula may be on the way.As a national shortage of infant formula put many parents on edge, the F.D.A. announced an agreement with Abbott Laboratories to reopen the company’s shuttered baby formula plant.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4In Mariupol. More

    • 150 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Kemp and Perdue Debate, Looking Back at 2020 and Ahead to Abrams

      by

      Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and his Republican primary opponent, former Senator David Perdue, bickered over the previous election — and over who would be more likely to defeat Stacey Abrams in November. ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and former Senator David Perdue, a former ally who is challenging him in the Republican primary next month, met in an explosive first debate on Sunday night that was marked by a lengthy rehashing of the 2020 election’s outcome and testy attacks each other’s veracity.During the hourlong exchange, the candidates sparred over their conservative bona fides, a handful of policy issues popular on the right and who would ultimately be the stronger candidate against Stacey Abrams in November.Mr. Perdue, who was defeated in a runoff last year by Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, repeatedly echoed former President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claim that the 2020 election had been “stolen and rigged” against the two of them, though multiple ballot recounts confirmed they had lost fair and square. Mr. Perdue, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump to challenge Mr. Kemp in the May 24 primary, assailed Mr. Kemp for refusing to call a special Georgia legislative session to try to overturn the election’s results.Mr. Perdue insisted he would still be a sitting United States senator if Mr. Kemp hadn’t “caved.”But when Mr. Perdue claimed that he had repeatedly asked Mr. Kemp to call such a special session, the governor pushed back forcefully, reminding voters of the many days he and his family had spent on Mr. Perdue’s campaign bus, trying in vain to help him win a second term. “Folks, he never asked me,” Mr. Kemp said. And when Mr. Perdue repeatedly accused the governor of lying, Mr. Kemp challenged him to produce witnesses to back up his claims.Each man portrayed the other unfavorably in light of 2020: Mr. Perdue said Mr. Kemp had betrayed Republican voters by failing to overturn the election, and Mr. Kemp pointed to Mr. Perdue’s loss to Mr. Ossoff as proof that he is too weak to defeat Ms. Abrams, the Democrat who narrowly lost to Mr. Kemp in 2018 and is making a second run for governor this year.Ms. Abrams’s candidacy loomed large over the entire evening, as both men underlined the danger they said she posed to Georgia if she wound up in the governor’s mansion. While Mr. Kemp holds a double-digit lead over Mr. Perdue in several polls, Mr. Perdue sought to remind voters of Mr. Kemp’s 1.4-percentage-point victory margin in 2018.“He barely beat Stacey Abrams in ’18, when I helped him secure President Trump’s endorsement, which he still today doesn’t think helped him at all,” Mr. Perdue said. The slugfest never let up, as a focus on Georgia policy issues in the debate’s second half-hour devolved into a fight over who was more authentically conservative, each candidate seeking to outflank the other from the right on education, public safety and jobs. Mr. Kemp doubled down on his support for a bill that prohibits teaching of “divisive concepts” on race and history, saying that Republicans in the state “passed this piece of legislation to make sure that our kids are not going to be indoctrinated in our schools,” and that curriculums should focus on “the facts, not somebody’s ideology.”But Mr. Perdue accused Mr. Kemp of abrogating his responsibility to protect students, parents and teachers alike. “They need to make sure that the woke mob’s not taking over the schools, and you’ve left them high and dry,” he said, asserting that the Atlanta schools were “teaching kids that voter ID is racist.”Answering a question about Latino voters, Mr. Perdue criticized Mr. Kemp’s record on immigration, recalling a 2018 campaign ad in which Mr. Kemp promised to use his own pickup truck to “round up illegals.” “Governor, what happened? Your pickup break down?” Mr. Perdue asked.Mr. Kemp said that the Covid-19 pandemic had intervened, saying that “picking up” people would only have helped spread infection in the state — and then reminded voters, for the umpteenth time, of Mr. Perdue’s defeat last year.“The fact is, if you hadn’t lost your race to Jon Ossoff, we wouldn’t have lost control of the Senate, and we wouldn’t have the disaster that we have in Washington right now,” Mr. Kemp said.A few clear-cut policy rifts did come into view over Georgia-specific issues.The two took opposite views of a new factory to produce electric trucks that is being built by Rivian Automotive in the state. Mr. Kemp exalted the project for the thousands of jobs it is expected to create, while Mr. Perdue cited an investment by the Democratic megadonor George Soros to dismiss Rivian as a “woke company,” saying that the project would redirect Georgians’ tax dollars into Mr. Soros’s pocket.Mr. Perdue attacked Mr. Kemp from several angles over rising crime in Atlanta, saying the governor had shrunk the size of the Georgia State Patrol and faulting him for failing to get behind an effort by some residents of Atlanta’s wealthy Buckhead neighborhood, alarmed about the surge in violent crime, to secede from the city. He accused the governor of staying out of the fray over the Buckhead secession movement for the sake of the “big company cronies downtown that are his big donors, that are desperate to not let that happen.”Mr. Kemp said he had raised troopers’ salaries, enhanced their training, created a crime suppression unit and deployed more troopers in metro Atlanta. And he pointed to his signing this month of a law allowing Georgians to carry concealed firearms without a permit.That was another way of fighting crime, he said.“The bad people already have the guns,” Mr. Kemp said. “We’re trying to give law-abiding citizens the ability to protect themselves, their family and their property.”Right to the end, both candidates were on message, and the message was largely a dim view of each other.In his closing, Mr. Perdue called Mr. Kemp a “weak governor trying to cover up a bad record.”Mr. Kemp, in his own summation, said Mr. Perdue was attacking his record in office “because he has none of his own, which is why he didn’t win his Senate race.” More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Local Election Officials in Georgia Oppose G.O.P. Election Bill

      by

      As Republicans rush to pass a second round of new voting and election rules, a bipartisan group of election officials is fighting back.ATLANTA — A year ago, when Georgia Republicans passed a mammoth law of election measures and voting restrictions, many local election officials felt frustrated and sidelined, as their concerns about resources, ballot access and implementation went largely ignored.This year, Republicans have returned with a new bill — and the election officials are pushing back.A bipartisan coalition of county-level election administrators — the people who carry out the day-to-day work of running elections — is speaking out against the latest Republican measure. At a legislative hearing on Monday, they warned that the proposal would create additional burdens on a dwindling force of election workers and that the provisions could lead to more voter intimidation.“You’re going to waste time, and you’re going to cause me to lose poll workers,” said Joel Natt, a Republican member of the Forsyth County board of elections, referring to a provision in the bill that he said would force workers to count hundreds of blank sheets of paper. “I have 400 poll workers that work for our board. That is 400 people that I could see telling me after May, ‘Have a nice life,’ and it’s hard enough to keep them right now.”Among other provisions, the bill would expand the reach of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation over election crimes; limit private funding of elections; empower partisan poll watchers; and establish new requirements for tracking absentee ballots as they are verified and counted.The bill passed the Georgia House this month, roughly two weeks after it was first introduced. Initially, the State Senate appeared set to pass the measure at a similar speed. The state’s legislative session ends on April 4, giving lawmakers less than a week to pass the bill.But county-level election officials worked behind the scenes, in letters and phone calls to legislators, expressing their concerns about the bill and dissatisfaction that they had not been consulted in the drafting process.The pushback comes as the impact of the wave of election laws passed by Republicans last year is beginning to be felt. In Texas, where a new law altered the absentee ballot process, election officials dealt with widespread confusion among absentee voters in the March primary. Mail ballot rejections surged, and county officials worked around the clock to help voters fix their ballots. Still, more than 18,000 voters had their ballots tossed out.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.The vocal opposition from Georgia election officials represents a shift from a year ago, when some individual officials, mostly Democrats, spoke out against the first Republican bill. But many local officials simply felt ignored by lawmakers who were eager to appear to be addressing Republican voters’ false beliefs about fraud in the 2020 election.The statewide association of local election officials is now working to “start taking stances on legislation like this, where the association would have a view that represents a majority of our members,” said Joseph Kirk, the elections supervisor for Bartow County, which is deeply Republican, who serves as a secretary for the association. He added that the group had not taken a stance on the election bill but that many members were voicing their opinions individually.At a conference this month, Ryan Germany, general counsel for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, encouraged members to speak up.“They really need to know what you guys think about this stuff because they hear from a lot of people, but I don’t think they hear from a lot of election officials,” said Mr. Germany, who spoke favorably about several provisions in the bill, according to audio of the event obtained by The New York Times.Dozens of voting rights advocates and county election officials crowded the State Senate Ethics Committee hearing on Monday afternoon, saying the bill would make it harder for election administrators to do their jobs.From left, State Senators Sally Harrell, Butch Miller and Jeff Mullis listened as Cindy Battles, right, testified during the hearing on Monday. Nicole Craine for The New York Times“There are so many unfunded mandates being passed by this body. You are not giving county election officials the budget that they need to run their elections,” said Cindy Battles, the policy and engagement director at the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a civil rights group. “And then you are making it more difficult to get what they need.”Several officials pointed to a provision that would require elections administrators to account for all elections-related documents, including the pieces of paper that ballots are printed on. Mr. Natt, the vice chair of elections for Forsyth County’s board of elections, held up a ream of paper to represent one of the hundreds of blank sheets of paper that his office would need to count under the law.“That is a lot of counting. That is a lot of time and waste management,” he said.State Representative James Burchett, a Republican from southeastern Georgia and sponsor of the bill, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. He told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution this month that “the intent of the bill is to address issues that we’ve seen in the elections process.”During the hearing on Monday, State Senator Butch Miller, a Republican and member of the State Senate Ethics Committee, appeared to consider some of the officials’ concerns.“I think we’ll probably have additional work to be done,” he said. While Mr. Miller said he was not interested in sweeping changes to the bill, he also said he was not opposed to “tweaking them and accommodating certain issues.” The committee has not yet scheduled a vote on the bill.Election officials warned about language they considered too broad in a provision that restricts third-party donations to election offices. The proposal is popular among Republicans who believe grants from an organization tied to Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, had undue influence in the 2020 election. Some Georgia election officials said the legislation would require any organization that makes a donation to receive approval from the state board of elections. That could include churches or other local groups that offer their buildings as polling locations.“By a strict interpretation of this particular provision, that would be a grant of gift or donation,” Milton Kidd, the elections director in Douglas County, a deeply Democratic county, said in an interview.Mr. Kidd added that many churches did not have staff to handle the application process, which could threaten his ability to maintain enough polling locations.Officials also took issue with a provision requiring partisan poll watchers to be given “meaningful access” to observe the ballot-counting process. The language might jeopardize the privacy of the ballot, they said.“I am a big fan of poll watchers, of being observed, I want my polling places to have observation, it’s a very important part of the process,” said Mr. Kirk, the administrator in Bartow County, which is northwest of Atlanta. “But it’s also very important to have guardrails on that observation, to keep it from becoming disruptive, to make sure a person’s information stays safe.”A provision that gives the Georgia Bureau of Investigation the power to subpoena election records for fraud investigations has also stirred opposition, mostly among Democratic local officials, who view it as both unnecessary — the secretary of state’s office currently handles election investigations — and intended to scare off voters.“That just smacks of voter intimidation,” said Dele Lowman Smith, the chair of the DeKalb County board of voter registration and elections. “And that’s a big concern.” More

    • 113 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      In Georgia, Trump Tries to Revive a Sputtering Campaign

      by

      The former president held a rally in rural Georgia on Saturday in an attempt to jump-start David Perdue’s campaign to unseat Gov. Brian Kemp.COMMERCE, Ga., — When Donald Trump recruited David Perdue to run for governor of Georgia, Mr. Trump’s allies boasted that his endorsement alone would shoot Mr. Perdue ahead of the incumbent Republican governor, Brian Kemp. Georgia Republicans braced for an epic clash, fueled by the former president’s personal vendetta against Mr. Kemp, that would divide the party.But two months out from the Republican primary election, Mr. Perdue’s campaign has been more underwhelming than epic. In an effort to boost Mr. Perdue and put his own stamp on the race, Mr. Trump came to Georgia on Saturday for a rally for Mr. Perdue and the slate of candidates the former president has endorsed. Thousands of Trump supporters turned out in the small city of Commerce, 70 miles northeast of Atlanta and about 20 miles outside of Mr. Kemp’s hometown, Athens.Early polls have steadily shown Mr. Perdue, a former senator, trailing Mr. Kemp by about 10 percentage points. The governor has the backing of many of the state’s big donors and remains far ahead of Mr. Perdue in fund-raising. After pursuing a deeply conservative legislative agenda, Mr. Kemp has secured support from most of the top state leaders and lawmakers, even those who have, until now, aligned with Mr. Trump.Mr. Perdue’s sputtering start may hint at a deeper flaw in Mr. Trump’s plan to punish the governor for refusing to work to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results: Mr. Trump’s grievances may now largely be his alone. While polls show many G.O.P. voters believe lies about fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election, there is little evidence that Republicans remain as fixated on the election as Mr. Trump. The challenge for Mr. Perdue, as well as for other candidates backed by Mr. Trump, is to make a case that goes beyond exacting revenge for 2020.“When you’re running against an incumbent governor, it’s a referendum on the incumbent,” said Eric Tanenblatt, a chief of staff to former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, the former senator’s cousin. “And if the incumbent has a good track record, it’s going to be hard to defeat him.”Mr. Tanenblatt backed David Perdue’s past Senate campaigns, including his losing bid last year. But Mr. Tanenblatt is now among the Republicans worried that Mr. Perdue is merely distracting the party from its top goal: fending off the likely Democratic nominee, Stacey Abrams.“Donald Trump’s not on the ballot. And there has to be a compelling reason why you would vote out an incumbent,” Mr. Tanenblatt said. “I don’t think there is one.”Former President Donald J. Trump listens as David Perdue speaks in Commerce, Ga., on Saturday.Audra Melton for The New York TimesAll seven of Mr. Trump’s endorsed candidates spoke at the rally. Nearly every speaker echoed Mr. Trump’s false election claims, placing the blame on Dominion voting machines and Democratic lawmakers for Republicans’ 2020 losses in Georgia. Mr. Perdue took things further, however, placing the blame for his Senate campaign loss and Mr. Trump’s defeat on Mr. Kemp.“Let me be very clear. Very clear,” Mr. Perdue said to the crowd. “In the state of Georgia, thanks to Brian Kemp, our elections were absolutely stolen. He sold us out.” How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Midterms Effect: Mr. Trump has become a party kingmaker, but his involvement in state races worries many Republicans.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.Mr. Perdue’s allies argue that Governor Kemp’s track record is forever tainted by his refusal to try to overturn the election results or call a special legislative session to review them, even though multiple recounts confirmed Joe Biden’s win.“That’s the wound with the salt in it right now that hasn’t healed,” said Bruce LeVell, a former senior adviser to Mr. Trump based in Georgia. “David Perdue is the only one that can unify the Republican Party in the state of Georgia. Period.”Michelle and Chey Thomas, an Athens couple attending the rally, said they were unsure whether they would support Mr. Perdue in the primary or vote to re-elect Mr. Kemp as they knew little of Mr. Perdue before Saturday. Like many attendees, they were unsure if they could trust the results of the 2020 election. And Mr. Kemp, they believe, did not exercise the full extent of his power in November 2020.“A lot of candidates say they are going to do something and don’t,” Ms. Thomas said. Mr. Kemp, she added, “could’ve done a lot better job.”The candidates endorsed by Mr. Trump include Herschel Walker, a former Heisman Trophy winner running for Senate; U.S. Representative Jody Hice, a candidate for secretary of state; Vernon Jones, a former Democrat now running for Congress; and John Gordon, a conservative lawyer who helped Mr. Trump defend his false election claims in court. Mr. Trump this week endorsed Mr. Gordon’s bid for state attorney general.Mr. Kemp has had years to guard himself against a challenge from the party’s Trump wing. He was one of the first governors to roll back Covid-19 restrictions in early 2020, drawing the support of many on the right who were angry about government-imposed lockdowns. Last year, he signed into law new voting restrictions that were popular with the Republican base. And in January, the governor backed a law allowing people to carry a firearm without a permit and another banning mailed abortion pills.That record, Kemp supporters argue, won over Republican base voters, even those who agree with Mr. Trump that Mr. Kemp did not do enough to fight the election results in Georgia.“I think they’ve turned the page on the election,” said State Senator Clint Dixon, a Republican representing the Atlanta suburbs. “And folks that may have been upset about that, still, they see that Governor Kemp is a proven conservative leader that we need.”Of Mr. Trump’s rally, he added: “I don’t think it does much. And the polls are showing it.”In early March, a Fox News poll of Georgia Republican primary voters showed Mr. Kemp ahead of Mr. Perdue by 11 percentage points.Mr. Kemp has amassed a war chest of more than $12.7 million, compared with the $1.1 million Mr. Perdue has raised since entering the race in December. The Republican Governors Association has also cut more than $1 million in ads supporting Mr. Kemp — the first time the organization has taken sides in a primary race. (Since December, Ms. Abrams has been raising more than both men, bringing in $9.3 million by January.)Mr. Kemp has worked to line up key Republican leaders — or keep them on the sidelines. Earlier this month, he appointed Sonny Perdue chancellor of the state’s university system. The former governor intends to remain neutral in the primary, according to people familiar with his plans.Since losing Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020, Mr. Trump has tried to turn the state’s politics into a proxy war over his election grievances. He blamed Mr. Kemp for his loss, saying he did not win Georgia because the governor refused to block certification of the results. Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the results is under criminal investigation.Mr. Trump saw Mr. Kemp’s refusal as disloyal, in part because Mr. Trump endorsed the governor in a 2018 primary, helping to propel him to a decisive win.“It is personal,” said Martha Zoller, a Georgia-based conservative radio host and former aide to both Mr. Kemp and Mr. Perdue. “President Trump believes that he made Brian Kemp.”Gov. Brian Kemp spoke to supporters at the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta this month.Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressNow Mr. Perdue’s campaign is looking for the same boost from Mr. Trump. Although Mr. Perdue’s ads, social media pages and campaign website note that he is endorsed by Mr. Trump, Mr. Perdue’s campaign aides believe many voters are not yet paying attention and do not know that he has Mr. Trump’s support. The former corporate executive has been a Trump ally, but he hardly exuded the bombast of his political benefactor during his one term in the Senate.Mr. Perdue is now running to the right of Mr. Kemp. He recently campaigned with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene at a rally in her rural northwest Georgia district, even after the congresswoman appeared at a far-right conference with ties to white supremacy.At the rally, Mr. Perdue lamented the “assault” on Georgia’s elections and reminded the crowd that he “fought for President Trump” in November 2020. At the time, he said, he asked not only for Mr. Kemp to call a special legislative session, but also for the resignation of Georgia’s current secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger — remarks received with loud applause.Although Mr. Perdue’s campaign has largely focused on the 2020 election, he and Mr. Kemp have split over other issues. Mr. Perdue opposed construction of a Rivian Automotive electric truck factory in the state, saying that the tax incentives it brings could benefit wealthy liberal donors. Mr. Kemp embraced the deal as a potential economic boon.Mr. Perdue also split with Mr. Kemp when Mr. Perdue gave his support to a group of residents in Atlanta’s wealthy Buckhead neighborhood who are seeking to secede from the city. The idea gained traction among some who were concerned about rising crime rates in Atlanta, but the effort is now stalled in the state legislature.If Mr. Trump was concerned about the campaign, he didn’t show it at the rally. Before bringing Mr. Perdue onstage later in the evening, he promised supporters that the former senator would champion election integrity and defeat Stacey Abrams.“That’s a big crowd of people,” he said. “And they all love David Perdue.” More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Andre Dickens Is Elected Mayor of Atlanta

      by

      Mr. Dickens and Felicia Moore had advanced to the runoff election by beating former Mayor Kasim Reed.ATLANTA — Andre Dickens, a veteran City Council member, was elected mayor of Atlanta in an upset on Tuesday night after promising voters that he would help guide the city in a more equitable direction.Mr. Dickens, 47, will step into one of the most high-profile political positions in the South after defeating Felicia Moore, 60, the City Council president, in Tuesday’s runoff election.In a first round of voting, Ms. Moore had bested Mr. Dickens by more than 17 percentage points. But on Tuesday, Mr. Dickens had about 62 percent of the vote when The Associated Press declared him the winner at about 10:30 p.m.Mr. Dickens, a church deacon, delivered an upbeat, roof-raising victory speech to supporters, noting his humble upbringing in the working-class neighborhood of Adamsville, his engineering degree from Georgia Tech and the daunting problems he has promised to tackle.“We are facing some generational problems in our city,” he said. “Atlanta is growing in population and in wealth. Businesses are flocking to the city, yet we still have people living on our streets. We have people working at our airport just to meet last month’s rent. People are still fighting to stay in their homes in the city that they love.”But if there was “any city in the world” that could face these issues, he added, “it’s Atlanta.”Voting at the Church at Ponce & Highland in Atlanta on Tuesday.Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressThe mayor’s race unfolded at a time of promise and peril for Atlanta. The city’s population grew 17 percent in the past decade, to about 499,000 people, and a number of major technology companies are expanding their footprint in the city in hopes of increasing diversity, given that nearly half of city residents are Black.But like many U.S. cities, Atlanta has been struggling with spikes in a number of violent crime categories, including murder. In May, the city’s political future was thrown into doubt when Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced she would not run for re-election after a first term in which she was forced to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, a high-profile police shooting of a Black man, Rayshard Brooks, and racial justice protests that occasionally became violent.As other killings rocked the city, public safety emerged as the key issue in the mayor’s race, giving an early boost to former Mayor Kasim Reed, who argued that his experience made him uniquely qualified to solve the crime problem. But Mr. Reed, who left office in 2018, also brought significant political baggage, with numerous members of his administration convicted or indicted on federal corruption-related charges.Mr. Reed’s complicated past was a likely factor in the surprise outcome in the initial balloting, when Mr. Dickens nudged out the better-known Mr. Reed to secure a spot in the runoff against the first-place finisher, Ms. Moore.Since then, Mr. Dickens and Ms. Moore endeavored to distinguish themselves in the nonpartisan race, despite the fact they are both liberal Democrats who share many of the same policy goals.Both supported hiring more police officers, encouraging the reform of police culture and increasing Atlanta’s stock of affordable housing.Felicia Moore campaigning in Atlanta in September.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesBoth candidates also opposed a controversial effort to allow Buckhead, an upscale, majority-white neighborhood, to secede from Atlanta, taking with it a substantial chunk of the city’s tax base. This potential divorce, which has been fueled by crime concerns, would require approval by the Republican-dominated State Legislature and a subsequent vote by the neighborhood’s residents. To derail the plan, the next mayor will need to deploy the bully pulpit and engage in nimble and strategic lobbying of Republicans who control the Statehouse.During the campaign, Ms. Moore, a real estate agent, leaned into her reputation as a thorn in the side of previous mayors, including Mr. Reed. Before he left office, she argued that he should be held accountable for the corruption on his watch. She reminded voters that she backed legislation creating a new inspector general for City Hall as well as an independent compliance office, both in reaction to the scandals that dogged the Reed administration.“I am actually like the outsider that’s on the inside, fighting against corruption, fighting against the status quo, sometimes fighting the established order of things,” Ms. Moore told a recent audience at a mayoral forum.Mr. Dickens is the chief development officer at TechBridge, a nonprofit organization that uses technology to help amplify the work of other nonprofits. During the campaign he emphasized his role in increasing the minimum wage for city employees, as well as spearheading the creation of a city transportation department. Mr. Dickens, who was endorsed by Mayor Bottoms and former Mayor Shirley Franklin, argued in recent weeks that Ms. Moore had spent more time criticizing others than racking up her own achievements over the course of her long career.“She does nothing and I do a lot,” Mr. Dickens said in a recent interview.Both Ms. Moore and Mr. Dickens are Black. Tuesday’s election extends a streak of Black mayors in Atlanta since the election of Maynard Jackson in 1973 despite a recent influx of white residents that caused the share of Black residents to decline from a slight majority to 47 percent of the population, according to an analysis of 2020 Census figures. More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Felicia Moore, Andre Dickens Will Compete for Atlanta Mayor; Kasim Reed Falls Short

      by

      ATLANTA — The mayoral election in Atlanta produced a surprise result, as Kasim Reed, a former two-term mayor once considered a front-runner in the race, failed to finish in either first or second place, denying him the chance to compete in the Nov. 30 runoff and ending his surprising political comeback bid.Felicia Moore, the City Council president, finished first in Tuesday’s race with about 41 percent of the vote, followed by Andre Dickens, a city councilman, who narrowly bested Mr. Reed with about 23 percent of the vote. Both Ms. Moore and Mr. Dickens had attacked Mr. Reed for the series of corruption scandals that unfolded on his watch at City Hall, resulting in numerous indictments and guilty pleas from high-ranking city officials.Amid the controversy, Mr. Reed, who had been one of the most high-profile politicians in the state, virtually disappeared from the political stage after leaving office in January 2018. He officially returned to the scene in June, announcing that he would seek a third term after the current mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, declared she would not run for a second term.Mr. Reed led a crowded field of contestants in early polling with a message heavily focused on a promise to fix the city’s violent crime problems. In a statement on Thursday afternoon, he thanked Atlanta voters and congratulated Ms. Moore and Mr. Dickens.“When I declared my candidacy for mayor in June, I had one goal: to restore safety in every neighborhood across our city,” Mr. Reed said. “Like many others, I witnessed the tapestry of diverse communities that make up our city be torn apart by surging levels of violent crime.”Kasim Reed, a former two-term Atlanta mayor, failed to make it to the runoff.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesBut the corruption concerns appeared to have dragged him down, even as he reminded voters that he had never been charged or indicted after a lengthy federal investigation of his administration.Like Mr. Reed, both Ms. Moore, 60, and Mr. Dickens, 47, have promised to get a handle on violent crime. Both candidates have also focused on affordable housing, an increasingly hot topic in a rapidly gentrifying city.Because so much of the race leading up to the election was focused on Mr. Reed and questions about his fitness for office, it is unclear how Ms. Moore and Mr. Dickens will seek to differentiate themselves in the runoff phase, and which lines of attack they might try against each other.On Tuesday night, after The Associated Press had projected that Ms. Moore would advance to the runoff, she hugged and shook hands with supporters and volunteers as “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas played. Ms. Moore said the election was about “a new Atlanta — an Atlanta where everyone’s going to feel safe.”“An Atlanta,” she continued, “where when you spend your money for your taxes and your services, you’re going to get them.”Ms. Moore, center, celebrated with her supporters on Tuesday night.Kendrick Brinson for The New York TimesOn Thursday afternoon, Mr. Dickens pushed a message of unity and urged supporters of the candidates who did not make it to the runoff to support him. “I’m a bridge builder, I’m inclusive, I will bring this city together because I draw circles, I don’t draw lines to separate people,” he said. “I will bring us together and we will get things done.”Mr. Dickens, who joined the City Council in 2013, is a product of Atlanta’s public school system who earned an engineering degree from Georgia Tech. In recent years he has focused on ways to help disadvantaged people find jobs in the city’s growing technology sector.Ms. Moore has served on the City Council for more than two decades after serving as head of her neighborhood association. During the current campaign, she has emphasized good-government reforms she championed at City Hall, where she was an outspoken critic of perceived excesses in the Reed administration.Both Mr. Dickens and Ms. Moore are Black. Their advancement into the runoff ensures that the city’s streak of electing African American mayors, which stretches back to 1973, will be unbroken, despite a significant influx of white residents in recent years. More