Low turnout and blown enthusiasm: A GOP nightmare is brewing in this Southern state

U.S. Senator John Neely Kennedy (R-LA) reacts as he speaks with members of the media outside the Senate chamber, following a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump (REUTERS)

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports Republicans in the red state of Georgia are panicking over low enthusiasm in the months leading up to the November midterms, potentially threatening Trump’s dominance of both the U.S. House and Senate.

Georgia conservatives warn of “an enthusiasm collapse you can measure.”

“A statewide runoff drew fewer than 1 in 14 active voters, and a rodeo our own party hosted in Perry played to empty stands,” Kylie Jane Kremer, a longtime GOP activist, told AJC. “Those empty seats were a referendum.”

Kremer personally blames lingering low Republican interest on “growing disillusionment” with GOP state leaders, who she says are unwilling to use the power of their trifecta in the legislature and governor’s office, as well as their dominance in statewide elections.

Kremer said many conservative activists expected Republican lawmakers to redraw congressional and legislative districts a few weeks ago to help the GOP gain as many as two additional U.S. House seats in the 2028 cycle. They also “anticipated a sweeping move away from Georgia’s QR code-based voting system, which has long been distrusted by many Trump supporters and election skeptics,” according to AJC.

Instead, they got neither, with the AJC reporting Republican legislative leaders rejected calls from Gov. Brian Kemp and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones to redraw political boundaries while litigation over the state’s maps remains pending.

Additionally, “lawmakers approved a scaled-back voting measure that would delay an impending ban on QR code vote-counting technology until January 2028 while also calling for hand recounts in for Georgia’s races for governor and U.S. Senate,” reports AJC. “The result leaves the touchscreen voting system — long maligned by Trump’s base — intact through this year’s election cycle while shifting responsibility for future changes to the next governor, secretary of state and Legislature.”

Republican leaders like House Speaker Jon Burns told reporters that Kemp’s push to redraw district lines during the special session was “not the right path forward for our state at this time.”

But while GOP activists and critics like Kremer blame their leadership, Georgia voters appear to have turned on the Republican Party, partially due to President Donald Trump’s pathetic polling numbers, and a gnawing need to rein in Trump’s assorted White House power grabs.

Democrats ransacked the state’s Public Service Commission elections last year in “a 26-point rout” in two usually low-profile races, despite the state’s long history as a Republican stronghold. The losses terrified Republicans so much that the GOP Senate majority in the neighboring state of Alabama passed a bill expanding that state’s Republican-dominated Public Service Commission from three positions to seven — to inoculate the commission against a possible wave of Democrats.

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