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      How McConnell Hopes to Thwart Trump in the Midterms

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      Senator Mitch McConnell is working furiously to bring allies to Washington who will buck Donald J. Trump. It’s not going according to plan.PHOENIX — For more than a year, former President Donald Trump has berated Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, savaging him for refusing to overturn the state’s presidential results and vowing to oppose him should he run for the Senate this year.In early December, though, Mr. Ducey received a far friendlier message from another former Republican president. At a golf tournament luncheon, George W. Bush encouraged him to run against Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, suggesting the Republican Party needs more figures like Mr. Ducey to step forward.“It’s something you have to feel a certain sense of humility about,” the governor said this month of Mr. Bush’s appeal. “You listen respectfully, and that’s what I did.”Mr. Bush and a band of anti-Trump Republicans led by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky are hoping he does more than listen.As Mr. Trump works to retain his hold on the Republican Party, elevating a slate of friendly candidates in midterm elections, Mr. McConnell and his allies are quietly, desperately maneuvering to try to thwart him. The loose alliance, which was once thought of as the G.O.P. establishment, for months has been engaged in a high-stakes candidate recruitment campaign, full of phone calls, meetings, polling memos and promises of millions of dollars. It’s all aimed at recapturing the Senate majority, but the election also represents what could be Republicans’ last chance to reverse the spread of Trumpism before it fully consumes their party.Mr. McConnell for years pushed Mr. Trump’s agenda and only rarely opposed him in public. But the message that he delivers privately now is unsparing, if debatable: Mr. Trump is losing political altitude and need not be feared in a primary, he has told Mr. Ducey in repeated phone calls, as the Senate leader’s lieutenants share polling data they argue proves it.In conversations with senators and would-be senators, Mr. McConnell is blunt about the damage he believes Mr. Trump has done to the G.O.P., according to those who have spoken to him. Privately, he has declared he won’t let unelectable “goofballs” win Republican primaries.History doesn’t bode well for such behind-the-scene efforts to challenge Mr. Trump, and Mr. McConnell’s hard sell is so far yielding mixed results. The former president has rallied behind fewer far-right candidates than initially feared by the party’s old guard. Yet a handful of formidable contenders have spurned Mr. McConnell’s entreaties, declining to subject themselves to Mr. Trump’s wrath all for the chance to head to a bitterly divided Washington.Last week, Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland announced he would not run for Senate, despite a pressure campaign that involved his wife. Mr. Ducey is expected to make a final decision soon, but he has repeatedly said he has little appetite for a bid.Mr. Trump, however, has also had setbacks. He’s made a handful of endorsements in contentious races, but his choices have not cleared the Republican field, and one has dropped 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.Trump vs. DeSantis: Tensions between the ex-president and Florida governor show the challenge confronting the G.O.P. in 2022.Midterms Effect: Mr. Trump has become a party kingmaker, but his involvement in state races worries many Republicans.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.If Mr. Trump muscles his preferred candidates through primaries and the general election this year, it will leave little doubt of his control of the Republican Party, build momentum for another White House bid and entrench his brand of politics in another generation of Republican leaders.If he loses in a series of races after an attempt to play kingmaker, however, it would deflate Mr. Trump’s standing, luring other ambitious Republicans into the White House contest and providing a path for the party to move on.“No one should be afraid of President Trump, period,” said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who won in 2020 without endorsing the then-president and has worked with Mr. McConnell to try to woo anti-Trump candidates.While there is some evidence that Mr. Trump’s grip on Republican voters has eased, polls show the former president remains overwhelmingly popular in the party. Among politicians trying to win primaries, no other figure’s support is more ardently sought.“In my state, he’s still looked at as the leader of the party,” Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri said.The proxy war isn’t just playing out in Senate races.Mr. Trump is backing primary opponents to incumbent governors in Georgia and Idaho, encouraged an ally to take on the Alabama governor and helped drive Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts into retirement by supporting a rival. The Republican Governors Association, which Mr. Ducey leads, this week began pushing back, airing a television commercial defending the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, against his opponent, former Senator David Perdue. It was the first time in the group’s history they’ve financed ads for an incumbent battling a primary.“Trump has got a lot of chips on the board,” said Bill Haslam, the former Tennessee governor.Mr. McConnell has been careful in picking his moments to push back against the former president. Last week, he denounced a Republican National Committee resolution orchestrated by Mr. Trump’s allies that censured two House Republican Trump critics.As the former president heckles the soon-to-be 80-year-old Kentuckian as an “Old Crow,” Mr. McConnell’s response has been to embrace the moniker: Last week, he sent an invitation for a reception in which donors who hand over $5,000 checks can take home bottles of the Kentucky-made Old Crow brand bourbon signed by the senator.Mr. McConnell has been loath to discuss his recruitment campaign and even less forthcoming about his rivalry with Mr. Trump. In an interview last week, he warded off questions about their conflict, avoiding mentioning Mr. Trump’s name even when it was obvious to whom he was referring.If Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who is an outspoken Trump antagonist running for Senate this fall, wins her primary, it will show that “endorsements from some people didn’t determine the outcome,” he said.Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska at the Capitol last week. Senator Mitch McConnell and Mr. Trump are at odds over her reelection bid.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesMs. Murkowski appears well-positioned at the moment, with over $4 million on hand while her Trump-backed rival, Kelly Tshibaka, has $630,000.“He’s made very clear that you’ve been there for Alaska, you’ve been there for the team and I’m going to be there for you,” Ms. Murkowski said of Mr. McConnell’s message to her.Even more pointedly, Mr. McConnell vowed that if Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the second-ranking Senate Republican, faces the primary that Mr. Trump once promised, Mr. Thune “will crush whoever runs against him.” (The most threatening candidate, Gov. Kristi Noem, has declined.)The Senate Republican leader has been worried that Mr. Trump will tap candidates too weak to win in the general election, the sort of nominees who cost the party control of the Senate in 2010 and 2012.“We changed the business model in 2014, and have not had one of these goofballs nominated since,” he told a group of donors on a private conference call last year, according to a recording obtained by The New York Times.Mr. McConnell has sometimes decided to pick his battles — in Georgia, he acceded to Herschel Walker, a former football star and Trump-backed candidate, after failing to recruit Mr. Perdue to rejoin the Senate. He also came up empty-handed in New Hampshire, where Gov. Chris Sununu passed on a bid after an aggressive campaign that also included lobbying from Mr. Bush.In Maryland, Mr. Hogan was plainly taken with the all-out push to recruit him, although he declined to take on Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat.“Elaine Chao was working over my wife,” Mr. Hogan recalled of a lunch, first reported by The Associated Press, between Ms. Chao, the former cabinet secretary and wife of Mr. McConnell, and Maryland’s first lady, Yumi Hogan. “Her argument was, ‘You can really be a voice.’”Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, left, with Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland in Baltimore. Mr. McConnell has tried to recruit Mr. Hogan as a Senate candidate.Al Drago for The New York TimesMr. McConnell also dispatched Ms. Collins and Senator Mitt Romney of Utah to lobby Mr. Hogan. That campaign culminated last weekend, when Mr. Romney called Mr. Hogan to vent about the R.N.C.’s censure, tell him Senate Republicans needed anti-Trump reinforcements and argue that Mr. Hogan could have more of a platform in his effort to remake the party as a sitting senator rather than an ex-governor.“I’m very interested in changing the party and that was the most effective argument,” said Mr. Hogan, who is believed to be considering a bid for the White House.Mr. Romney lamented Mr. Hogan’s decision and expressed frustration. He claimed most party leaders share their view of the former president, but few will voice it in public.“I don’t see new people standing up and saying, ‘I’m going to do something here which may be politically unpopular’ — in public at least,” Mr. Romney said.At Mar-a-Lago, courtship of the former president’s endorsement has been so intense, and his temptation to pick favorites so alluring, that he regrets getting involved in some races too soon, according to three Republican officials who’ve spoken to him.In Pennsylvania’s open Senate race, Mr. Trump backed Sean Parnell, who withdrew after a bitter custody battle with his estranged wife. And in Alabama, the former president rallied to Representative Mo Brooks to succeed Senator Richard Shelby, who’s retiring. But Mr. Brooks, who attended the rally that preceded the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, is struggling to gain traction.One Republican strategist who has visited with Mr. Trump said the former president was increasingly suspicious of the consultants and donors beseeching him.“He has become more judicious so not everybody who runs down to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend gets endorsed on Monday,” said Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, another Trump ally.Mr. Trump has made clear he wants the Senate candidates he backs to oust Mr. McConnell from his leadership perch, and even considered making a pledge to do so a condition of his endorsement. Few have done so to date, a fact Mr. McConnell considers a victory. “Only two of them have taken me on,” he crowed, alluding to Ms. Tshibaka in Alaska, and Eric Greitens, the former Missouri governor running for an open seat.But Mr. McConnell’s biggest get yet would be Mr. Ducey.Mr. Trump, right, has supported Representative Mo Brooks’s run for a Senate seat in Alabama.Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesWith broad popularity and three statewide victories to his name, the term-limited governor and former ice cream chain executive would be a strong candidate against Mr. Kelly, who has nearly $19 million in the bank — more than double the combined sum of the existing Republican field.To some of the state’s Republicans, Mr. Ducey could send a critical message in a swing state. “It would say we’re getting tired of this,” said Rusty Bowers, speaker of the Arizona State House, who encouraged Mr. Ducey to stand up to Mr. Trump’s “bully caucus.”Mr. Ducey also has been lobbied by the G.O.P. strategist Karl Rove, the liaison to Mr. Bush, who sought to reassure the governor that he could win.Mr. Ducey said he believed that this year’s “primaries are going to determine the future of the party.” However, he sounded much like Mr. Hogan and Mr. Sununu when asked about his enthusiasm for jumping into another campaign.“This is the job I’ve wanted,” he said.He noted there was one prominent member of the Trump administration, though, who has been supportive. Former Vice President Mike Pence “encouraged me to stay in the fight,” Mr. Ducey said. More

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      Before Elections, Georgia Republicans Again Consider Voting Restrictions

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      A sweeping 2021 law drew a legal complaint from the Justice Department. Legislators in the state are considering several new measures focused on ballot access and fraud investigations.ATLANTA — Butch Miller, a Republican leader of the Georgia State Senate, is running for lieutenant governor and faces a tough fight this spring against a primary opponent backed by former President Donald J. Trump.So perhaps it is no surprise that Mr. Miller, a co-sponsor of a sweeping and restrictive state voting law last year, has once again jumped into the fray, promoting a new measure to prohibit the use of drop boxes for absentee ballots, which he says would increase security — though no problems with their use by voters have been verified.“Drop boxes are the weakest link in our election security,” Mr. Miller said in a statement. “This change removes that weakest link without doing anything to prevent access. It’s actually easier to vote early in person — and we provide far more days than most states for that.”Georgia was a key to President Biden’s victory as well as the Democratic takeover of the Senate, and this is the second year that the state’s Republicans are focused on voting restrictions. Mr. Miller’s proposal is among a raft of new bills that underscore how much Republicans have embraced Mr. Trump’s false narrative that voter fraud cost him the 2020 election.One measure under consideration would allow Georgians to use paper ballots if they have concerns about the recently purchased touch-screen voting machines that were the subject of fantastical fraud claims promulgated by some of Mr. Trump’s supporters.Another proposal would allow the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to open inquiries into allegations of voter fraud. Yet another would create a constitutional amendment to prevent noncitizens from voting — even though they are already barred from voting under existing state law.An absentee ballot box in Atlanta before the 2020 general election. Republicans have zeroed in on the Democratic stronghold with an investigation into the Fulton County election board. Lynsey Weatherspoon for The New York TimesAt the same time, the elections board in Fulton County, the most populous in the state and a Democratic stronghold, is the subject of a state investigation of its management practices. In theory, this investigation could lead to a Republican-directed takeover of the local election board — one that was made possible by the 2021 election law.The investigation, and the new proposals before the Republican-controlled legislature, has triggered fresh anger among Democrats who believe that the measures could contribute to an already unfair playing field in a state where numerous Trump-backed candidates are running for statewide offices.“The most disturbing thing is that the people who have an iron grip on power in the General Assembly believe that they have to continue to suppress voting in order to maintain that iron grip,” said David Worley, a Democrat and former member of the state elections board. “And they’re willing to try any method at hand to do that.”Though Republicans dominate the state legislature, some of the proposals may prove to be, at most, performative gestures by lawmakers eager to show the party’s base that they are responsive to Trump-fueled concerns about voter fraud. The measure that would expand the role of the state investigations bureau, backed by the powerful House speaker, David Ralston, may have the greatest chance of success.Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, sounded a less than enthusiastic note this week about going much further than the 2021 voting law, which he called “the No. 1-ranked elections integrity act in the country.”More than any other state, Georgia was the linchpin of Democrats’ fortunes in 2020, said Larry Sabato, a veteran political analyst and the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. The Republican stronghold not only flipped for Mr. Biden but delivered the Senate to him.“That’s why the new voting rules in Georgia and elsewhere matter so much,” he said. “Will they shave just enough votes from the Democratic column to put Republicans firmly back in the driver’s seat? If the G.O.P. sees that no penalty is paid for voter suppression, surely that will encourage Republicans to do it wherever they can get away with it.”He added: “In both 2022 and 2024, Georgia is going to be the canary in the coal mine. And it’s a pretty damn big canary.”State Senator Mike Dugan of Georgia shook hands last year with a fellow Republican state senator, Jeff Mullis, after the passage of a bill that would enact new voting restrictions. Ben Gray/Associated PressIn a year that saw Republican-led legislatures nationwide pile new restrictions on voting, the elections law that Georgia lawmakers passed last spring was less notable for its severity than for its specificity. The measure took dead aim at the record 1.3 million absentee votes cast the previous November, disproportionately by Democrats. It did so by sharply reining in the use of drop boxes that were favored by mail-in voters, imposing ID requirements on absentee ballots and raising stiff barriers to the distribution of mail-in ballot applications by both local officials and voting drives.Atop that, the law allowed for state takeovers of county election boards, banned mobile voting sites in heavily Democratic Atlanta and even barred residents from providing food and water to voters waiting in line at the polls.The 2021 statute drew a number of legal challenges, including by the U.S. Department of Justice, which argues that the law violates the federal Voting Rights Act by making it harder to vote and that it was racially motivated. Major League Baseball moved its All-Star Game out of the state in protest.The state law, as well as federal voting rights legislation praised by Mr. Biden in a visit to Atlanta this week, is expected to be front and center in upcoming statewide campaigns. The governor’s race is likely to pit the country’s best-known voting rights advocate, Stacey Abrams, a Democrat, against either Mr. Kemp, whom Ms. Abrams has openly accused of voter suppression in her 2018 race against him, or former Senator David Perdue, Mr. Kemp’s Republican primary challenger, who has echoed Mr. Trump’s baseless fraud claims.In Atlanta on Tuesday, President Biden urged passage of federal legislation to protect the right to vote and the integrity of elections.Doug Mills/The New York TimesOn Tuesday, Mr. Kemp, in a news conference preceding Mr. Biden’s speech, defended the 2021 election law, saying that the Biden administration had “lied” about it — a reference to Mr. Biden’s untrue assertion that the law “ends voting hours early.”He blamed Mr. Biden, Ms. Abrams and Vice President Kamala Harris for the backlash to the law, including the loss of the All-Star Game, which he said had cost the state $100 million. He warned that the federal voting rights laws Mr. Biden was pushing for amounted to a political grab by Democrats.“Make no mistake,” he said, “Georgia is ground zero for the Biden-Harris assault on election integrity, as well as an attempt to federalize everything from how hard-working Georgians run their businesses, to what our kids are taught in school, to how we run elections.”Mr. Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, have both earned places atop Mr. Trump’s list of enemies for defying the former president’s demands that they help overturn his narrow electoral loss in Georgia.The Trump InvestigationsCard 1 of 6Numerous inquiries. More

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      Will Trump Undercut a Red Wave?

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      Former Senator David Perdue knows how to crash a party. When he announced that he would seek the 2022 Republican nomination for governor in Georgia, challenging the incumbent, Brian Kemp, he did more than enter a primary race. He illustrated the dangers facing the G.O.P. in the coming year.Georgia Republicans are divided over former President Donald Trump and torn between mainstream credibility and the conspiratorial fringe. Mr. Perdue — an ally of Mr. Trump — has made these divisions worse. The beneficiary? The Democrat Stacey Abrams.Republicans worry about internal strife and outlandish messages that turn off swing voters because everything else is going their way. The party did well in last month’s elections. President Biden’s low approval ratings endanger Democrats in Congress, where Republicans must net only five seats in the House and one in the Senate to seize control.Republican strength at the state level gives the party an advantage in drawing new maps of congressional districts, which will amplify their slim lead in the FiveThirtyEight estimate of the congressional generic ballot.Yet history shows how expectations can be thwarted. Republicans have experienced hopeful times before — only to have the moment pass. They believed that disapproval of President Bill Clinton’s conduct would expand their majorities in 1998. They ended up losing five House seats. They believed that Mr. Trump would rally the base to support two incumbent senators during runoffs in Georgia last January. They lost both seats and control of the Senate.Time and again, the biggest obstacle to a red wave hasn’t been the Democratic Party. It’s been the Republican Party.Republican victories in the midterms next year are far from preordained. Glenn Youngkin’s win in Virginia may be much harder to replicate elsewhere than it looked on election night. Republican leaders continue to fear Mr. Trump and his supporters, and they are divided over candidate selection, message and agenda. The result is a unique combination of external strength and internal rot: an enthusiastic and combative Republican Party that despite its best efforts may soon acquire power it has done nothing to deserve.It will be hard for the party to appeal to the suburban independents who decide elections, though Mr. Youngkin’s success suggests a path. He is the first Republican elected governor of Virginia in over a decade because of his emphasis on kitchen-table issues like rising prices and school closures. He ignored immigration, encouraged vaccination while opposing government mandates and stayed clear of Mr. Trump during the general election. He focused on parental involvement in education and planted himself firmly in the center-right of the political mainstream. When asked about a Trump rally where the Pledge of Allegiance was recited to a flag supposedly connected to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, Mr. Youngkin called it “weird and wrong.” One Republican senator joked in private that Mr. Youngkin had figured out how to hold Mr. Trump’s hand — under the table and in the dark.Other candidates won’t be as skilled or as lucky as Mr. Youngkin. Republicans lost winnable Senate seats in 2010 and 2012 because of flawed nominees like Sharron Angle in Nevada, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana. Past may be prologue if Republicans nominate Trump allies whose record or rhetoric are questionable and extreme. Last month, one Trump-endorsed candidate for Senate, Sean Parnell of Pennsylvania, suspended his campaign after he lost a custody battle against his estranged wife. The Trump endorsees Kelly Tshibaka of Alaska and Herschel Walker of Georgia are untested on the campaign trail. In races where Mr. Trump hasn’t yet endorsed, Blake Masters of Arizona, Eric Greitens of Missouri and J.D. Vance of Ohio may secure the MAGA base by forfeiting viability in the general election.Mr. Trump remains the central figure in the G.O.P. Party elites try to ignore him as he spends many days fighting Republicans rather than Democrats and plotting his revenge against the 10 Republican House members who voted for his second impeachment, the seven Republican senators who voted to convict him and the 13 House Republicans who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Mr. Trump targets his enemies with primary challenges, calls for “audits” and “decertification” of the 2020 presidential results and howls at Mitch McConnell for not being “tough.” His imitators within the party are a font of endless infighting and controversy, and they undermine the authority of the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy. Mr. Trump would have it no other way.The former president was content to keep a distance in this year’s races for governor. He won’t be so quiet next year — especially if he concludes that a successful midterm is a key step to his restoration to power in 2024. A more visible and vocal Trump has the potential to help Republicans in solid red states but doom them in purple or blue ones. Yet control of the Senate hinges on the results in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire — states Mr. Trump lost in 2020.Mr. Youngkin showed that a positive message attuned to middle-class priorities repels Democratic attacks. If Republicans campaign on a unified message that applies conservative principles to inflation, the border, crime, education and health care, they might be able to avoid being tagged as the party of extremism, conspiracy and loyalty to Mr. Trump. Their problem is that they have no such message.Mr. McConnell has reportedly told Senate Republicans that they won’t release an agenda before the midterms. He’s worried that specific proposals are nothing but fodder for Democratic attacks. What should worry him more are rudderless Republican candidates who allow their Democratic opponents to define them negatively — and then, if they still win, take office in January 2023 with no idea what to do.In an ideal world, more Republicans would think seriously about how best to provide individuals and families with the resources necessary to flourish in today’s America. They would spend less time attacking one another and more time offering constructive approaches to inflation and dangerous streets. They would experiment with a ranked-choice primary system that played a role in Mr. Youngkin’s nomination in Virginia and in the law-and-order Democrat Eric Adams’s win in New York City’s mayor’s race. Interested Republicans would declare today that Mr. Trump won’t deter them from seeking the presidency — reminding him that renomination is not guaranteed.But that’s not the world we live in. Republicans appear either unwilling or unable to treat the former president as a figure from the past whose behavior has done the party more harm than good. They take false comfort in the idea that midterm elections are “thermostatic,” the inevitable repudiation, climatic in nature, of the governing party. They assume they will win next year without doing anything of significance. And they may be right.Matthew Continetti is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of the forthcoming “The Right: The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The Upcoming Elections That Could Shake Both Parties

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      Election Day 2022 is still many months off, but already the primary season is shaping up to be a lulu. So much at stake. So many electrifying candidates — albeit some less evidently qualified than others. (Dr. Oz? Seriously?) And scads to be learned about the unsettling state of American democracy.High-profile races in two crucial swing states promise to be especially enlightening, offering a handy guide to the existential issues roiling the parties. The contrast could hardly be starker.In Pennsylvania, the Democratic fight for a Senate seat features an array of contenders slugging it out over a slew of knotty questions involving policy and ideology, progressivism, populism, centrism and how — or even if — to woo blue-collar whites in deep-purple places.In Georgia, the Republican battle for governor has been reduced to the singular, defining question looming over the whole party: Does the G.O.P. still have room for leaders who aren’t Trump-addled invertebrates?The outcomes of these contests will shake the parties well beyond the states in play.It’s tough to overstate the importance of the Pennsylvania Senate race. With Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican, retiring, the state is considered the Democrats’ best hope for picking up a seat and retaining their whip-thin majority. But there is much debate over what kind of candidate has the best shot at victory.The current front-runner is the lieutenant governor, John Fetterman. The former mayor of a busted steel town on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, Mr. Fetterman has been on the national political scene for a while as a champion of Rust Belt populism. His profile shot way up in the wake of last year’s elections, with his frequent media appearances smacking down Donald Trump’s election-fraud lies.When the lieutenant governor talks, it’s hard not to listen. Standing 6-foot-8, he is bald, hulking, goateed and tattooed. He wears work shirts and cargo shorts and radiates an anti-establishment, anti-elitist vibe that his supporters say helps him connect with the rural and blue-collar types who have abandoned the Democrats in recent years. He presents more as a guy you’d see storming the Capitol with his biker pals than a candidate espousing progressive policies like Medicare for all and criminal justice reform.He’s known as a bit of a loner, and not all of his positions play well with progressives. (For instance, he opposes an immediate ban on fracking.) But he was a Bernie backer in 2016, and he is not above poking at his party’s more conservative members. He vows that, if elected, he will not be “a Joe Manchin- or Kyrsten Sinema-type” centrist obstructing President Biden’s agenda.Such criticisms are seen as indirect slaps at Mr. Fetterman’s closest opponent in the race, Representative Conor Lamb. A Marine Corps veteran and former federal prosecutor, Mr. Lamb shocked and thrilled his party by winning a special election in 2018 in a conservative western district that went for Mr. Trump by nearly 20 points in 2016.Mr. Lamb is an unabashed moderate, and his politics and personal style are decidedly more buttoned-down than Mr. Fetterman’s — more high school principal than pro wrestler. He has expressed frustration with his party’s left flank for “advocating policies that are unworkable and extremely unpopular,” such as defunding the police. He speaks kindly of Mr. Manchin, with whom he did a fund-raiser this year. He contends that Mr. Fetterman leans too far left, and he characterizes himself as “a normal Democrat” who can appeal to working-class voters and suburban moderates alike.There are other, lesser-known Democrats in the mix, too. A state lawmaker, Malcolm Kenyatta, hails from North Philly. Young, Black, progressive and gay, with a working-poor background, he has pitched himself as the candidate to energize the party’s base voters, especially those who tend to sit out nonpresidential elections.Commissioner Val Arkoosh of Montgomery County is based in Philadelphia’s upscale, voter-rich suburbs. She leans liberal on policy and has been endorsed by Emily’s List. An obstetric anesthesiologist, she hopes to position herself as a sensible alternative to Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician who jumped into the Republican primary contest about two weeks ago. She is also betting that the growing threat to abortion rights will help her rally suburban women, whom she sees as a natural base.Wherever this race ultimately leads, there will be lessons for other Democrats looking to compete in tough battleground areas.The Georgia primary for governor could prove even more clarifying about the state of the G.O.P. — though not in a good way. The Republican incumbent, Brian Kemp, is running for re-election. But he is high on Mr. Trump’s drop-dead list for refusing to help overturn the results of last November’s election.Desperate to see Mr. Kemp unseated, Mr. Trump lobbied former Senator David Perdue, who also lost his re-election bid last cycle, to challenge the governor. Last week, Mr. Perdue entered the race. Mr. Trump promptly endorsed him, slagging Mr. Kemp as “a very weak governor” who “can’t win because the MAGA base — which is enormous — will never vote for him.”This contest is not about Mr. Kemp’s politics or governing chops. Both he and Mr. Perdue are staunch conservatives and fierce partisans. And Mr. Perdue is not some hard-charging outsider looking to overthrow the establishment or push the party to the right or redefine conservatism in some fresh way. In his announcement video, Mr. Perdue blamed Mr. Kemp for dividing Republicans and costing them Georgia’s two Senate seats. “This isn’t personal. It’s simple,” said Mr. Perdue. “He has failed all of us and cannot win in November.”Mr. Perdue is correct that this is simple. But it is also deeply personal — for Mr. Trump. This matchup is about the former president having reduced the G.O.P. to an extension of his own ego, redefining party loyalty as blind fealty to him and his election-fraud lies. Whatever his personal aims, Mr. Perdue is just another tool in Mr. Trump’s vendetta against Republicans he sees as insufficiently servile. The race is expected to be bloody, expensive and highly divisive — all the things parties aim to avoid in a primary.The G.O.P. is already hemorrhaging Trump-skeptical, independent-minded officials at all levels. Just this month, Charlie Baker, the popular Republican governor of deep-blue Massachusetts, announced that he would not run for re-election. If Georgia Republicans take the bait and throw Mr. Kemp over for Mr. Trump’s preferred lickspittle, it will send a clear message to the party’s dwindling pockets of principle and rationality: Get out. Now. While you still have a soul.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Echoing Trump, David Perdue Sues Over Baseless Election Claims

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      The legal action by Mr. Perdue, a Republican candidate for governor of Georgia, was the latest sign that 2020 election falsehoods will be a main focus of his bid.Former Senator David Perdue of Georgia, a Republican who is running for governor with the backing of former President Donald J. Trump, filed a lawsuit on Friday seeking the inspection of absentee ballots in the 2020 election, reviving long-debunked claims in the latest sign that Mr. Trump’s election grievances will be central to his candidacy.The lawsuit draws on Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud in Georgia and across the country, which culminated in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. In the months since, many Republican elected officials have pivoted from rebuking election conspiracy theories to embracing them vocally in an effort to win the affections of Mr. Trump and his supporters.Mr. Perdue, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump soon after announcing his candidacy on Monday, is running against Gov. Brian Kemp, a fellow Republican who is a staunch conservative but has come under withering attacks from the former president and his allies over Mr. Kemp’s unwillingness to help them overturn President Biden’s victory in Georgia. Mr. Perdue told news outlets this week that he would not have certified the results if he had been governor instead of Mr. Kemp.Republicans in states across the country have continued to cast doubt on the 2020 election’s legitimacy by trying to carry out partisan reviews of the results, which they often misleadingly label “audits” to lend them a greater sense of authority. G.O.P. lawmakers in at least five states are pursuing reviews, and Republicans in states including Oklahoma, Tennessee and Florida have introduced bills to begin new ones next year.Mr. Perdue’s suit, which The Atlanta Journal-Constitution earlier reported and which was filed in the Superior Court of Fulton County, argues that through unlawful “acts and omissions,” election officials in Fulton, the state’s most populous county and a major source of Democratic votes, “circumvented the majority vote of the people of the State of Georgia and thereby affected the outcome of the statewide General Election on Nov. 3, 2020 in several races.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}In the complaint, Mr. Perdue names a county election official and workers underneath him, claiming that they “negligently, grossly negligently or intentionally engaged in and/or permitted multiple unlawful election acts.”“David Perdue wants to use his position and legal standing to shine light on what he knows were serious violations of Georgia law in the Fulton absentee ballot tabulation,” Bob Cheeley, a lawyer for the candidate, told The Journal-Constitution.Georgia election officials have reviewed the 2020 results three times and have come to the same conclusion: Mr. Biden won the state, narrowly but decisively.Mr. Perdue lost his re-election bid in January to Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat.The legal effort by Mr. Perdue follows a similar lawsuit this year by a group of voters led by a known conspiracy theorist. That case, which sought to inspect all 147,000 absentee ballots in Fulton County, was thrown out after Judge Brian Amero of Henry County Superior Court ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing and could not show any specific injury or harm.Mr. Perdue’s lawsuit could work around at least part of Judge Amero’s ruling, because he was a candidate in the 2020 elections.Several Republicans in Georgia criticized the suit.“David Perdue is so concerned about election fraud that he waited a year to file a lawsuit that conveniently coincided with his disastrous campaign launch,” Cody Hall, a spokesman for Governor Kemp’s campaign, said. “Keep in mind that lawsuit after lawsuit regarding the 2020 election was dismissed in part because Perdue declined to be listed as a plaintiff.”Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state — who, like Mr. Kemp, has come under attack from fellow Republicans for resisting Mr. Trump’s election pressure — said in a statement: “Fake Trumpers like Perdue are trying to curry favor with the Trump base by pushing election conspiracy theories that everyone — including the voters they are hoping to attract — knows they don’t really believe.”Georgia continues to be a hub of litigation and national attention over elections and voting rights. Two election workers in the state filed a defamation lawsuit last week against Gateway Pundit, a right-wing news outlet that falsely claimed they had manipulated ballots. On Friday, Reuters reported that one of the workers said she had been pressured by a publicist for Kanye West, the rapper who ran for president and previously supported Mr. Trump, to acknowledge manipulating votes.The Georgia Democratic Party, whose likely nominee for governor, Stacey Abrams, announced her campaign last week, reveled in the high-profile clash of Republicans and sought to lump them together.“It is reprehensible that David Perdue is peddling those same dangerous lies in a sad ploy for attention,” the party said in a statement. “From David Perdue’s frivolous lawsuit to Brian Kemp’s voter suppression laws — both based on the same fabricated lies — nobody who sows distrust in our free and fair elections deserves to lead our state.”Sheelagh McNeill More

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      Can the Press Prevent a Trump Restoration?

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      There is a school of thought that holds that if Donald Trump sweeps back into power in 2024, or else loses narrowly but then plunges the United States into the kind of constitutional crisis he sought in 2020, the officially nonpartisan news media will have been an accessory to Trumpism. It will have failed to adequately emphasize Trump’s threat to American democracy, chosen a disastrous evenhandedness over moral clarity and covered President Biden (or perhaps Vice President Kamala Harris) like a normal politician instead of the republic’s last best hope.This view, that media “neutrality” has a tacit pro-Trump tilt, is associated with prominent press critics like Jay Rosen of New York University and the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan (formerly this newspaper’s public editor) and it recently found data-driven expression in a column by The Post’s Dana Milbank. In a study “using algorithms that give weight to certain adjectives based on their placement in the story,” Milbank reported that after a honeymoon, Biden’s media coverage has lately been as negative, or even more negative, than Trump’s coverage through most of 2020. Given the perils of a Trump resurgence, Milbank warned, this negativity means that “my colleagues in the media are serving as accessories to the murder of democracy.”I think this point of view is very wrong. Indeed, I think it’s this view of the press’s role that actually empowers demagogues, feeds polarization and makes crises in our system much more likely.To understand why, let’s look at a case study where, at one level, the people emphasizing the press’s obligation to defend democracy have a point. This would be the Georgia Republican primary for governor, which will pit David Perdue, a former senator who lost his re-election bid in a 2021 runoff, against Brian Kemp, the conservative incumbent who is famously hated by Donald Trump.That hatred is the only reason this primary matchup exists: He is angry at Kemp for fulfilling his obligations as Georgia’s governor instead of going along with the “Stop the Steal” charade, he’s eager to see the incumbent beaten, and he’s hoping that either Perdue or Vernon Jones, a more overtly MAGA-ish candidate, can do the job for him.As a result, the Georgia governor’s primary will effectively be a referendum not just on Trump’s general power in the G.O.P. but also on his specific ability to bully Republican elected officials in the event of a contested election. And reporters have an obligation to cover the campaign with that reality in mind, to stress the reasons this matchup is happening and its dangerous implications for how Republican officials might respond to a future attempt to overturn a presidential vote.But now comes the question: Is that the only thing that a responsible press is allowed to report during the campaign? Suppose, for instance, that midway through the race, some huge scandal erupts, involving obvious corruption that implicates Kemp. Should Georgia journalists decline to cover it, because a Kemp loss would empower anti-democratic forces? Or suppose the economy in Georgia tanks just before the primary, or Covid cases surge. Should civic-minded reporters highlight those stories, knowing that they may help Perdue win, or should they bury them, because democracy itself is in the balance?Or suppose a woman comes forward with an allegation of harassment against Perdue that doesn’t meet the normal standards for publication. Should journalists run with it anyway, on the theory that it would be good for American democracy if Perdue goes the way of Roy Moore, and that they can always correct the record later if the story falls apart?You can guess my answers to these questions. They are principled answers, reflecting a journalistic obligation to the truth that cannot be set aside for the sake of certain political results, however desirable for democracy those results may seem.But they are also pragmatic answers, because a journalism that conspicuously shades the truth or tries to hide self-evident realities for the sake of some higher cause will inevitably lose the trust of some of the people it’s trying to steer away from demagogy — undercutting, in the process, the very democratic order that it’s setting out to save.I think this has happened already. There were ways in which the national news media helped Trump in his path through the Republican primaries in 2016, by giving him constant celebrity-level hype at every other candidate’s expense. But from his shocking November victory onward, much of the press adopted exactly the self-understanding that its critics are still urging as the Only Way to Stop Trump — positioning itself as the guardian of democracy, a moral arbiter rather than a neutral referee, determined to make Trump’s abnormal qualities and authoritarian tendencies the central story of his presidency.The results of this mind-set, unfortunately, included a lot of not particularly great journalism. The emergency mentality conflated Trumpian sordidness with something world-historical and treasonous, as in the overwrought Russia coverage seeded by the Steele dossier. It turned figures peripheral to national politics, from Nick Sandmann to Kyle Rittenhouse, into temporary avatars of incipient fascism. It invented anti-Trump paladins, from Michael Avenatti to Andrew Cuomo, who turned out to embody their own sort of moral turpitude. And it instilled an industrywide fear, palpable throughout the 2020 election, of any kind of coverage that might give too much aid and comfort to Trumpism — whether it touched on the summertime riots or Hunter Biden’s business dealings.Now you could argue that at least this mind-set achieved practical success, since Trump did lose in 2020. But he didn’t lose overwhelmingly, he gained voters in places the establishment did not expect, and he was able to turn media hostility to his advantage in his quest to keep control of his party, even in defeat. Meanwhile, the public’s trust in the national press declined during the Trump era and became radically more polarized, with Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents maintaining a certain degree of confidence in the media and Republicans and Republican-leaning independents going very much the other way.This points to the essential problem with the idea that just a little less media neutrality, a little more overt alarmism, would put Trumpism in its place. You can’t suppress a populist insurgency just by rallying the establishment if suspicion of the establishment is precisely what’s generating support for populism in the first place. Instead, you need to tell the truth about populism’s dangers while convincing skeptical readers that you can be trusted to describe reality in full.Which brings us to Joe Biden’s press coverage. I have a lot of doubts about the Milbank negativity algorithms, both because of the methodological problems identified by analysts like Nate Silver and also because, as a newsreader, my sense is that Trump’s negative coverage reflected more stalwart opposition (the president we oppose is being terrible again) while in Biden’s case the negativity often coexists with implicit sympathy (the president we support is blowing it, and we’re upset). But still, there’s no question that the current administration’s coverage has been pretty grim of late.But it’s turned grim for reasons that an objective and serious press corps would need to acknowledge in order to have any credibility at all. Piece by piece, you can critique the media’s handling of the past few months — I think the press coverage of the Afghanistan withdrawal was overwrought, for instance — but here’s the overall picture: A president who ran on restoring normalcy is dealing with a pandemic that stubbornly refuses to depart, rising inflation that his own White House didn’t predict, a border-crossing crisis that was likewise unanticipated, increasing military bellicosity from our major adversaries, stubbornly high homicide rates in liberal cities, a party that just lost a critical gubernatorial race and a stalled legislative agenda.And moreover, he’s confronting all of this while very palpably showing the effects of advancing age, even as his semi-anointed successor appears more and more like the protagonist of her own private “Veep.”Can some of these challenges recede and Biden’s situation improve? No doubt. But a news media charged with describing reality would accomplish absolutely nothing for the country if it tried to bury all these problems under headlines that were always and only about Trump.And one of the people for whom this approach would accomplish nothing is Biden himself. We just had an object lesson in what happens when the public dissatisfied with liberal governance gets a long lecture on why it should never vote Republican because of Trump: That was Terry McAuliffe’s argument in a state that went for Biden by 10 points, and McAuliffe lost. Having the media deliver that lecture nationally is likely to yield the same result for Democrats — not Trumpism’s defeat but their own.Far wiser, instead, to treat negative coverage as an example of the press living up to its primary mission, the accurate description of reality — which is still the place where the Biden administration and liberalism need a better strategy if they hope to keep the country on their side.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram. More

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      Georgia Governor's Race Puts State at Center of 2022 Political Drama

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      Former Senator David Perdue, encouraged by Donald Trump, is challenging Gov. Brian Kemp, a fellow Republican who defied the former president.ATLANTA — Former Senator David Perdue’s leap Monday into a primary challenge against Gov. Brian Kemp, his fellow Republican, ensured that Georgia will be at the hot molten core of the political universe next year, with costly and competitive races that will test the grip of Trumpism over the G.O.P. and measure the backlash against President Biden in a state that increasingly reflects the country’s demography and its divisions.Already a battleground at the presidential level, Georgia will be the scene of intense Republican primary showdowns for both governor and secretary of state, followed by general election contests in which Democrats — led by Senator Raphael Warnock, who is seeking a full term, and Stacey Abrams, who narrowly lost the 2018 governor’s race to Mr. Kemp and announced another bid last week — hope to keep the state a bluer tint of purple.Mr. Perdue, who lost his Senate seat after one term to the Democrat Jon Ossoff in January, is former President Donald J. Trump’s preferred candidate, while Mr. Kemp earned a place on Mr. Trump’s enemies list after declining to help the former president overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. The two will now face off in May in an internecine war that may offer the closest approximation to a referendum on Trumpism next year as any in the country.“Look, I like Brian. This isn’t personal,” Mr. Perdue said Monday in a video announcing his candidacy. But he implied that Mr. Kemp had damaged his standing with Georgia’s Trumpist base of Republican voters.“He has failed all of us,” Mr. Perdue said of Mr. Kemp, “and cannot win in November.”Aides to Mr. Kemp gave Mr. Perdue a blistering reception, revealing the depths of the anger over what they view as his betrayal of a fellow Republican and former political ally. They noted that the governor had actually beaten Ms. Abrams, while Mr. Perdue was, most recently, that most loathsome of nouns in the former president’s vocabulary: a loser.And Georgians First Inc., a pro-Kemp political action committee, released an ad reminding voters of Mr. Perdue’s stock trades of companies whose business fell under the purview of his Senate committees.While Mr. Kemp boasted a “proven track record,” a campaign spokesman for the governor, Cody Hall, said on Monday, “Perdue is best known for ducking debates, padding his stock portfolio during a pandemic, and losing winnable races.”Endorsing Mr. Perdue on Monday, Mr. Trump called Mr. Kemp “a very weak governor” who “can’t win because the MAGA base — which is enormous — will never vote for him.”In entering the governor’s race, Mr. Perdue joins a number of other G.O.P. candidates who could form a slate of high-profile Trump loyalists in November: The former football star Herschel Walker, with Mr. Trump’s encouragement, is seeking the nomination to run against Mr. Warnock. And Representative Jody Hice is challenging the Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who also rebuffed Mr. Trump’s entreaties to help overturn his defeat.Both Mr. Walker and Mr. Hice have parroted Mr. Trump’s false claim that election fraud cost him the 2020 election..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}And Mr. Perdue did not limit his own attack to Mr. Kemp. Republicans were disunited in Georgia, he said, “and Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger are to blame.”The influence of Mr. Trump, who has not ruled out another presidential run in 2024, is bound to be felt in other states’ midterm races. But Mr. Trump has been particularly fixated on Georgia, a state he lost by fewer than 12,000 votes. He and some of his allies are being investigated by the Fulton County district attorney’s office for potential criminal violations after reaching out to state officials, including Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger, in an effort to change the election results.If Mr. Perdue and Mr. Walker lead the Republican ticket next fall, Georgia voters will be forced to choose between revulsion for Mr. Trump and his incendiary politics, on the one hand, and, on the other, dissatisfaction with Mr. Biden and unease with the liberal politics that Ms. Abrams and Mr. Warnock embody.The drama will unfold in a state that, with its gaping divides along the lines of race, class and region, mirrors the nation and its partisan, polarized and increasingly poisonous politics.Georgia also reflects broader trends among the two national parties. Democrats are increasingly turning to more diverse candidates. But the candidates are still stepping gingerly, as Ms. Abrams did in her launch video by trumpeting the idea of “one Georgia,” and seeking to elevate unifying issues that can appeal to die-hard liberals and fickle suburbanites alike.Some Democrats fear that Ms. Abrams, a veteran state legislator and voting-rights advocate, may face an uphill climb in the governor’s race given the challenges confronting the party nationally: an unpopular president, inflation, Covid-19, and simmering concerns over violent crime and how American history is taught in schools.But many expressed hope on Monday that the coming fight between Mr. Kemp and Mr. Perdue would benefit Ms. Abrams, who is seeking to become the state’s first Black governor, and other down-ballot Democrats.Stacey Abrams is hoping to benefit from the Republican infighting.Eze Amos for The New York Times“While David Perdue and Brian Kemp fight each other, Stacey Abrams will be fighting for the people of Georgia,” said her campaign manager, Lauren Groh-Wargo, pointing to Ms. Abrams’s stances on health coverage, school funding and Covid-related health policies.For Republicans, Georgia has now become perhaps the most consequential proving ground in the party’s Trump wars. Should Mr. Perdue and other Trump-backed candidates lose their primaries, it will raise grave questions about the former president’s clout in the party as well as his own capacity to compete in a must-win state in 2024.By running, Mr. Perdue and his supporters are effectively sending the message that Mr. Trump must be accommodated — and his election denialism perpetuated.Mr. Perdue’s allies say their case is very simple: Mr. Kemp is unelectable next November because a significant number of Trump devotees will stay at home if he’s nominated.“The bitterness between Kemp and Trump is so deep that Kemp cannot win a general election,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, who is backing Mr. Perdue. “The question for Georgia Republicans is would you like Perdue or Stacey Abrams, because if you’re for Kemp, you’re effectively voting for Stacey Abrams.”For his part, Mr. Kemp, who in his 2018 race brandished guns and threatened to round up “criminal illegals” in his pickup truck, can be expected to remind Republican voters that it is hard to outflank him to the right on issues like gun rights or abortion rights. He also signed into law Georgia’s controversial new voting law, which limits ballot access for voters in urban and suburban areas that are home to many Democrats.Mr. Kemp’s supporters also say they believe that Ms. Abrams is enough of a polarizing force to cauterize any G.O.P. wounds sustained in the primary.“She will inspire Republicans to come back out,” said Erick Erickson, a Georgia-based conservative writer and radio host. “They’re not going to stay home in Kemp-versus-Abrams or Perdue-versus-Abrams.”Still, Mr. Erickson, an outspoken Trump detractor, expressed concern that a nasty primary could disrupt next year’s legislative session and deny Mr. Kemp any new accomplishments to run on.Brian Kemp earned a place on Mr. Trump’s enemies list after declining to help the former president overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.Caitlin O’Hara for The New York TimesDemocrats, who are eager to amplify the opposition’s discord — and to downplay Mr. Biden’s unpopularity, which is weighing on the party in Georgia as elsewhere — can barely contain their glee.“All that Perdue is going to be talking about is ‘the election was stolen,’” said Jennifer Jordan, an Atlanta-area state senator running for attorney general. “The voters in my district, the chamber of commerce Republicans, that is incredibly unseemly to them. You have this guy, Perdue, who had some appeal in the business community, and he’s basically giving that away because now he’s just going to become Trump’s boy.”Andra Gillespie, an associate professor of political science at Emory University, said she expected Republicans to rally around the party’s nominee in November. But even if that were Mr. Kemp, she said, Mr. Trump could still be a wild card.“If Brian Kemp won,” she said, “would Donald Trump be disciplined enough to keep his mouth shut in a general election?” More

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      Ex-Senator David Perdue to Run for Governor of Georgia

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      Mr. Perdue, an ally of Donald Trump, will challenge the incumbent governor, Brian Kemp, in a Republican primary.ATLANTA — David Perdue, the former U.S. senator from Georgia and ally of Donald Trump, plans to announce on Monday that he will run in a Republican primary against the state’s incumbent governor, Brian Kemp, according to people familiar with Mr. Perdue’s plan. Mr. Trump has vowed to orchestrate Mr. Kemp’s defeat as payback for the governor’s refusal to help overturn the former president’s November election loss in the state.The news of Mr. Perdue’s pending announcement, first reported on Sunday by Politico, illustrates both the grip the former president still wields over the G.O.P. and his willingness to upend state races entirely because of his personal pique toward Republicans he feels are insufficiently loyal to him.Mr. Perdue’s decision to try to knock out a fellow Georgia Republican in 2022 is also sure to ignite an ugly — and costly — intraparty war before a general election in which the Republican nominee will likely face Stacey Abrams, the Democratic superstar whose national fame will allow her to amass a huge campaign war chest. Ms. Abrams, who lost to Mr. Kemp in 2018, announced her own run for governor last week.Ms. Abrams’ announcement accelerated Mr. Perdue’s decision, moving up his timeline to before the new year. The former senator has told people he was uncertain about running but decided to run because he’s gravely worried about her prospects for victory over an incumbent who has been weakened by Mr. Trump’s unrelenting attacks.Mr. Perdue, 71, a wealthy former corporate executive, narrowly lost his U.S. Senate seat to Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, in a January runoff. Reports about his return, this time as a candidate for governor, have been circulating for weeks. A number of Republicans told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in October that Mr. Perdue was considering the move. At a September rally in rural Georgia, Mr. Trump appeared to encourage Mr. Perdue to challenge Mr. Kemp, who is seeking a second term..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Trump, standing at a lectern, turned to Mr. Perdue and praised him as a “great guy.”“Are you going to run for governor, David Perdue?” he asked.Mr. Trump then went on to accuse Mr. Kemp, 57, a former Trump favorite, of being a “RINO governor,” meaning “Republican in name only.” He also described him as “a complete and total disaster on election integrity.”The looming battle between Mr. Perdue and Mr. Kemp will help determine the extent of Mr. Trump’s influence heading into Georgia’s crucial 2022 general election. Mr. Trump has been working to set up a pro-Trump Republican slate in Georgia made up of politicians who have supported his false assertions that the 2020 presidential election was somehow “rigged.” The list so far includes the former football star Herschel Walker, who is running for U.S. Senate; U.S. Representative Jody Hice, who is running for secretary of state; and State Senator Burt Jones, who is running for lieutenant governor.The outcome of the Georgia elections will have important implications for the country. Raphael Warnock, the other Democratic senator from Georgia who won a January runoff race, is up for election in 2022, and that contest may help determine which party controls the Senate. And with Ms. Abrams in the race, the election will serve as a dramatic plot point in the closely watched story of one of the Democratic Party’s most respected and ambitious politicians.Ms. Abrams lost to Mr. Kemp in the 2018 governor’s race by about 55,000 votes. But the result was close enough to convince many observers that Georgia, once reliably Republican, had become a true battleground state. And Ms. Abrams’s organizing prowess is believed to have helped pave the path to victory for Senators Ossoff and Warnock, as well as President Biden, who also squeaked out an upset victory in Georgia.In 2018, Mr. Kemp ran as a “politically incorrect conservative” candidate proudly in the Trump mold, armed with a pro-Second Amendment message, a hard-line illegal immigration stance and, crucially, the endorsement of Mr. Trump himself.But the fact that Mr. Trump has unequivocally turned against Mr. Kemp — and is actively seeking vengeance — has created an awkward and potentially perilous situation for the governor. Polling commissioned by Mr. Trump’s Save America PAC released in August showed Mr. Kemp leading Mr. Perdue by six points among likely Republican primary voters. But the poll showed that if Mr. Perdue were endorsed by Mr. Trump, he would leapfrog ahead of Mr. Kemp.Mr. Kemp, however, is a savvy politician and former two-term secretary of state well-known to Georgia Republicans. A campaign disclosure from July showed that he had amassed nearly $12 million. But some Republicans are concerned that he will have to spend dearly to fend off Mr. Perdue’s primary challenge. If he wins, he may find himself depleted financially as he heads into a general election against the formidable Ms. Abrams.Some Republicans have quietly expressed surprise that Mr. Perdue would want to take on Mr. Kemp. Mr. Perdue did not seem to relish the down-and-dirty realities of running in a close race when Mr. Ossoff challenged him last year.In February, Mr. Perdue said that he would not challenge Mr. Warnock in the Senate race. The New York Times reported at the time that Mr. Perdue, aware of Mr. Trump’s vengeful streak, was put off by the idea of running for office in 2022 — and of being involved in Mr. Trump’s plot to get even with the people on his enemies list, including Georgia’s Republican governor. More