A new ECU poll in Georgia finds Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) and challenger Herschel Walker (R) deadlocked in the U.S. Senate race at 46% each among registered voters.
In the race for governor, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) leads Stacey Abrams (D), 50% to 45%.
A new ECU poll in Georgia finds Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) and challenger Herschel Walker (R) deadlocked in the U.S. Senate race at 46% each among registered voters.
In the race for governor, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) leads Stacey Abrams (D), 50% to 45%.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) “has received tens of thousands of dollars in donations from the CEO of Daniel Defense, a gun manufacturing company that made the rifle used by the shooter in the massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24,” the American Independent reports.
“Almost as soon as Stacey Abrams called Georgia the ‘worst state in the country to live,’ the Democrat’s campaign expected the remark to be the center of new GOP attacks. Gov. Brian Kemp’s first TV ad of the general election cycle does exactly that,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
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A new 30-second ad from Stacey Abrams (D) pans Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s (D) support for “criminal carry” gun legislation and an income tax cut, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
More significantly, it’s the first TV ad this cycle from Abrams that targets the governor’s anti-abortion stance.
If the polls are correct, Donald Trump is set to suffer a humiliating endorsement loss in Georgia’s Republican gubernatorial primary today, Politico reports.
“The Republican base is poised to take a turn delivering Trump a stinging rebuke in a state where, during his presidency, the GOP lost two Senate seats, two House seats and the state’s Electoral College votes for the first time since the mid-1990s.”
Playbook: “For Trump, the risk is not simply that his favored candidate could lose. It’s that a defeat here could further erase the sense of him as an untouchable GOP kingmaker. If Perdue goes down, it’ll be the third time this year that a Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate has been defeated in a GOP primary.”
Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams (D) made some harsh comments to the Gwinnett Daily Post about her home state that Republicans quickly jumped to exploit.
Said Abrams: “I am tired of hearing about how we’re the best state in the country to do business when we are the worst state in the country to live.”
She added: “Let me contextualize. When you’re No. 48 for mental health, when we’re No. 1 for maternal mortality, when you have an incarceration rate that is on the rise and wages are on the decline, then you are not the No. 1 place to live.”
Atlanta Journal Constitution: “Though she quickly clarified that she meant she wanted to diversify the economy, Republican Brian Kemp and his allies leveraged the misstep to energize rural voters.”
Days after Stacey Abrams (D) qualified to run for governor in March, a super PAC funded by billionaire megadonor George Soros put $1 million into her campaign, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
“Georgia’s Republican primary for governor has revolved around Donald Trump’s attempts to oust Gov. Brian Kemp (R) over Kemp’s refusal to break election laws in the aftermath of the 2020 election,” the Daily Beast reports.
“But last week, third-place candidate Kandiss Taylor (R) tried to inject an issue of her own into the race, introducing a plan to blow up four giant granite tablets in northeast Georgia she sees as symbols of Satan worship.”
A new ARW Strategies poll in Georgia finds Gov. Brian Kemp (R) way ahead of challenger David Perdue (R) in the GOP gubernatorial primary, 59% to 22%.
A new SurveyUSA poll in Georgia finds Gov. Brian Kemp (R) with a 25-point edge on David Perdue (R) in the Republican gubernatorial primary, 56% to 31%.
In a possible general election match up, Kemp leads Stacey Abrams (D), 50% to 45%.
A new Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll in Georgia finds Gov. Brian Kemp (R) with a big lead over his Donald Trump-backed challenger, David Perdue (R), in the Republican primary, 53% to 27%.
That would put the governor above the majority-vote threshold needed to avoid a June runoff. Other challengers were in the single digits; an additional 15% were undecided.
Atlanta Journal Constitution: “The first 23 minutes of the debate revolved around Perdue’s efforts to blame Kemp for Donald Trump’s loss in 2020 and the senator’s defeat in 2021.”
“Time and again, Perdue brought up the same false allegations that Donald Trump has pushed for more than a year about the ‘consent decree,’ ‘special session’ and GBI investigations – needling Kemp to the point where the two devolved into a shouting match.”
“Many of Perdue’s allegations were flat-out false.”
A new Landmark Communications survey in Georgia finds Gov. Brian Kemp (R) leading the Republican gubernatorial primary with 52%, followed by David Perdue at 28%, and Kandiss Taylor at 10%.
Said pollster Mark Rountree: “Sen. Perdue’s job here is not necessarily winning a majority on election day, his job is to throw it to a runoff, and then it becomes a lot harder for an incumbent to win.”
“Former President Donald Trump’s political operation is plowing cash into Georgia’s Republican gubernatorial primary — his organization’s first major financial investment in a midterm race and an indication that he’s willing to dig into his massive war chest to defeat his foes,” Politico reports.
“Those close to Trump’s political apparatus describe it as an initial cash infusion ahead of the May 24 primary, which pits Kemp against Trump-endorsed former Sen. David Perdue.”
A new internal poll for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) shows the incumbent extending his lead over primary challenger David Perdue (R), 49% to 33% with 12% undecided.
Perhaps even more interesting is that 87% of GOP voters know about Donald Trump’s endorsement of Perdue and are still voting accordingly.
CNN: “Trump’s relatively lonely mission to defeat Kemp reveals how the former President’s priorities can often be out of step with those of Republicans who are actually on the ballot in 2022. The series of upcoming GOP primaries in May may be a mixed bag for Trump. And his overall record in the 2022 midterms will depend on an untested premise: Do Republican primary voters remain aligned with Trump?”
“None of Trump’s preferred candidates in three of the highest-profile statewide races in Georgia — Herschel Walker for US Senate, Burt Jones for lieutenant governor and Jody Hice for secretary of state — have endorsed Perdue. And in their remarks at a Trump rally in Georgia on Saturday, none of them mentioned the gubernatorial primary.”
David Perdue (R) said he “misunderstood” the Donald Trump supporters who chanted about imprisoning Gov. Brian Kemp (R) when he smiled and flashed them a thumbs-up sign at the former president’s rally, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
New York Times: “Her first days on the campaign trail have been spent largely in small, rural towns like Cuthbert, where she is more interested in discussing Medicaid expansion and aid to small businesses than the flagship issue that helped catapult her to national fame.”
“Ms. Abrams’s strategy amounts to a major bet that her campaign can survive a bleak election year for Democrats by capitalizing on Georgia’s fast-changing demographics and winning over on-the-fence voters who want their governor to largely stay above the fray of national political battles.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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