Wingnuts are determined to make Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger pay dearly for crossing Trump

In far-right Trumpian politics, the worst thing a conservative can be called is a RINO: Republican In Name Only — and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's secretary of state, has been called that countless times by Trump supporters who continue to hate him for acknowledging Joe Biden as president-elect following the 2020 presidential election. The hatred that Raffensperger faces from former President Donald Trump and his wingnut supporters is the focus of a Politico article published on March 28.

Politico reporters David Siders and Zach Montellaro explain, "The former president is obsessed with defeating him next year. He's getting mauled by his own state party. Last week alone, a Republican congressman announced he'd challenge in the primary and the state legislature voted to strip his office of some official powers. By most accounts, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger doesn't have a prayer of being reelected."

Raffensperger, like Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, supported Trump in the 2020 presidential election. But when Biden won Georgia, Raffensperger accepted the will of the voters despite Trump's efforts to bully, coerce and strong-arm him into helping him steal the state's electoral votes. Raffensperger, much to the chagrin of far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and other Trump allies in Georgia, rejected Trump's bogus, totally debunked claims of widespread voter fraud and maintained that Biden won the Peach State fair and square.

Jay Williams, a Georgia-based GOP strategist, told Politico, "He's toast. I don't know that there's a single elected official who would put their neck out for Brad Raffensperger right now."

Similarly, Jason Shepherd, Republican Party chairman for Cobb County, Georgia, told Politico, "I don't want to say there's zero chance, but at this point right now, it's nearly impossible to find anyone in the party who supports the reelection of (Raffensperger)."

Rep. Jody Hice, who serves in the U.S. House of Representatives via Georgia's 10^th Congressional District, has announced a GOP 2022 primary challenge to Raffensperger. And Trump has endorsed him.

In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp recently signed into law a voter suppression bill that has been widely criticized by Democrats, including Biden, who slammed it as "Jim Crow in the 21st Century." One of things the law does is take away Raffensperger's role as chief election official, and Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling discussed that part of the bill during a March 27 appearance on CNN. When CNN's Pamela Brown if he considered that part of the bill an effort to punish Raffensperger, Sterling replied, "Yes."

Sterling told Brown, "I wouldn't have written the bill this way. I definitely wouldn't have written a bill that took my boss, Secretary Brad Raffensperger, who did a great job ... out of the role as chief elections officer of the state elections board."