Voting in Georgia on Tuesday is not just about picking nominees. It is a test of whether the state’s Republican independence from President Donald Trump still holds when voters start deciding statewide primaries.
The biggest fight is the race to succeed term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp, where Republicans are choosing between Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who has Trump’s backing, and Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state who refused Trump’s request in 2020 to find 11,780 votes. Recent polling has shown Jones and Rick Jackson running roughly even, while Raffensperger has trailed Jones. Jackson’s campaign has spent more than $60 million on advertising, and the gubernatorial primary is the third-most expensive gubernatorial primary in American history, according to AdImpact.
Raffensperger enters the race carrying the same burden that made him a target in the first place. He was on the other end of the leaked 2020 call in which Trump pressed him for the exact margin needed to flip the state. Last June, Georgia state Republicans passed a resolution declaring Raffensperger “repugnant” to the party’s brand. Last week, a bomb threat forced him to abandon a campaign event. Even so, he has tried to keep moving, saying, “No matter what, I’m pushing forward,” and, “Sometimes, when you do what’s right, it antagonizes people. I’m doing my job. I’m doing what’s right.”
Jones brings a different kind of Trump connection. He served as an alternate elector in 2020 as Trump challenged Georgia’s results. Trump endorsed him in August and has campaigned with him in person and through telerallies. The state’s most recent Republican history, though, is mixed for the former president: in 2022, Kemp easily defeated a Trump-endorsed primary challenge from former Sen. David Perdue. Georgia Republicans have repeatedly rejected Trump-endorsed candidates even as the state has shifted from ruby-red to purple over the past decade.
The governor’s race is only one part of a busy primary day. A crowded Republican contest for the Senate will measure Kemp’s clout in a race Trump has declined to enter, while Democrats are offering competing road maps for dealing with Trump’s second administration amid a midcycle redistricting fight in Georgia. The broader ballot gives voters a chance to weigh several versions of what the state’s future should look like, but the Republican governor’s race is the one that most clearly captures the state’s political split.
That split may not be settled Tuesday. Under Georgia law, races advance to a runoff if no candidate clears 50%, and the latest polling suggests the leading contests are close enough that no one can assume an outright win. The first answer Georgia voters may deliver is whether Trump’s hold on the state’s Republican politics still matters as much as it did in 2020, or whether Kemp’s brand of independence still has room to survive.
