WaPo: “Georgia Republican primary voters on Tuesday rejected former president Donald Trump’s attempt to unseat GOP officeholders who refused to join his fight to overturn the 2020 election, as Gov. Brian Kemp defeated challenger David Perdue in a landslide and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger won re-nomination.
The race between Kemp and Perdue, a former senator,unfolded over the past five months as the highest-profile test of Trump’s pull in this year’s primaries on behalf of candidates running heavily on his false claims that the election was stolen from him. He personally recruited Perdue and actively promoted his candidacy against Kemp. Trump has railed against Kemp since the governor certified President Biden’s win in the state.
Down the ballot in Georgia, another statewide Republican contest was a measure of the intensity behind Trump’s push to dislodge Republicans who bucked his calls to try to block Biden’s win. Raffensperger, who rejected Trump’s pressure to “find” enough votes to make him the winner, defeated Rep. Jody Hice, a candidate backed by the former president.
“Even in the middle of a tough primary, conservatives across our state didn’t listen to the noise. They didn’t get distracted,” Kemp said in remarks to supporters after Perdue conceded.
The governor didn’t mention Trump by name but instead bragged about his record of reopening Georgia during the pandemic and attacked Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams.”