Prediction: Trump 'running backward' into defeat in this red state — again

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures during a working session with G7 leaders and outreach partners on international investment partnerships at the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, June 16, 2026. REUTERS

President Donald Trump must be trying to lose the state of Georgia for the Senate, says Atlanta Journal Constitution Senior Political Columnist Patricia Murphy, otherwise he wouldn’t be trying so hard to repeat the history of his last humiliating failure.

“Instead of visiting the state, talking to voters, stumping with GOP nominees, or most obviously, telling Georgians what Republicans might do to bring down the cost of living, the president is running backward into the fire of the 2020 election that he lost here and refuses to accept,” said Murphy.

There are pivotal elections underway with Republicans fighting for their lives, but the White House is bust announcing that Trump will deliver a major Thursday “address to the nation” to revive disproven claims that he actually won the 2020 election in Georgia. He might even allege that Georgia’s two 2020 Senate races were stolen in the process.

“Ironically, anyone who lived through the 2021 Senate runoffs can tell you that it was Trump who cost former U.S. Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue their seats, not some international plot,” said Murphy. “He sunk their chances with performances like the one he delivered at a rally in Dalton the night before the runoffs. Instead of focusing on Loeffler and Perdue and the work they had done in Washington, Trump started and stayed on the subject he just can’t let go.”

“Hello, Georgia!” he announced. “By the way. There’s no way we lost Georgia. There’s no way. That was a rigged election, but we’re still fighting it, and you’ll see what’s going to happen.”

Loeffler and Perdue lost the next day, she added.

Murphy said Trump was back in Georgia two years later to campaign against Republicans Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the top state leaders who had rejected Trump’s ploy to overturn Georgia’s election results in 2020. Again, Murphy said Georgia voters in the primary and general elections rejected campaigns focused on claims of rigged elections, and Trump’s preferred candidates running against Kemp and Raffensperger went down in flames.

“Fast forward to this week, with a Senate seat and an open governor’s race on the line, and Trump is still talking about the election he lost here six years ago,” said Murphy. “But this time, his focus on 2020 goes much further than just a speech he’s planning. Not only did the FBI seize hundreds of boxes of 2020 election materials from a Fulton County warehouse earlier this year — an FBI memo obtained by the AJC showed that the agency has ‘surged’ 260 FBI agents to investigate Fulton County ahead of a July 17 deadline.”

And Trump is flubbing his old war. Last week, a federal judge appointed by Trump drop-kicked a subpoena from Trump’s politicized Department of Justice that had sought the names, addresses, phone numbers and other personal information about all of Fulton County’s 2020 election workers. Murphy said U.S. District Court Judge Billy Raycalled the request both “staggering” and pointless.

“The downstream effects of all this won’t hurt the president in November. He’s not on any ballot in 2026,” said Murphy, adding that the damage will instead be done to U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, the Republican challenging U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff.

“Rick Jackson, the GOP nominee for governor, won’t be helped either,” Murphy assured. “Although he’s well positioned with plenty of money, a compelling personal story and no particular relationship with Trump before this election to explain, GOP operatives know Jackson’s chances of victory depend heavily on Ossoff’s margins. If Ossoff beats Collins by a huge margin, Jackson could only outperform Collins by so much.”

“Why Trump wants to dig out his losing Georgia playbook now is anyone’s guess. But Collins and Jackson would be wise to reject it, acknowledge Georgia’s legal election results and forge their own path to win in November,” Murphy said.

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