Former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan (D-GA)/Screenshot
A new report in The Washington Post says President Donald Trump's efforts in Georgia to overturn the 2020 election are going to have a major impact on the state's governor race.
According to the Post, top Trump ally Lt. Gov. Burt Jones (R-GA) "is running with the president’s endorsement and attacking his primary rivals as disloyal to Trump," including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R-GA), Attorney General Chris Carr (R-GA) and former lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan, who quit the Republican Party and is now running as a Democrat.
Duncan says he is absolutely going to use Trump's lies and begging that Raffensperger "find 11,780 votes" to change the outcome of the election as ammunition in the race.
“Certainly I’m going to talk about it. It’s why I’m here. It’s not the only reason, but it’s a big reason. When your wife gets death threats because you’re sitting on TV just telling the truth about an election, that’s a problem," Duncan told the Post.
Republicans in Georgia, however, still need convincing that the 2020 election was legit as polling has consistently shown large majorities of GOP voters in Georgia continue to believe the election was fraudulent, according to University of Georgia pollster Trey Hood.
“It’s just baked in. If you thought there was fraud back in 2020, you’re going to think that for the rest of your life pretty much," Hood says.
Despite Raffenspergers' refusal to find those non-existent votes Trump asked him for, his gubernatorial campaign launch video boasts that he "fought the liberals and won" in terms of the law Georgia passed after the contentious election to tighten voting laws. But, reports the Post, he threw out a bone to those who may have split from the GOP's support of Trump's lies.
"I always do the right thing for Georgia — no matter what," Raffensperger said.
Carr, who publicly disagreed with Texas’s lawsuit challenging the 2020 results in Georgia and three other states, also resigned as chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association after it paid for robocalls urging Trump’s supporters to “stop the steal” ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He "is pitching himself as the most electable Republican," The Post reports.
Jones, meanwhile, declared Carr and Raffensperger as “Team Never Trump," reports The Post.
Duncan, on the other hand, is focused not on Trump, but on Georgians.
“I’m a guy who shows up in November of ’26, able to get Democrats, independents and disgusted Republicans to show up and vote, and that to me is the pathway to victory,” he said.