Trump-backed Perdue struggles in Republican primary challenge in Georgia
(CNN)David Perdue kicked off his campaign for governor of Georgia with an emphatic endorsement from former President Donald Trump.
2022-02-16 20:39:12 - VI News Staff
But since then, his primary challenge to unseat Brian Kemp -- the Republican governor Trump loves to hate -- has been a big flop.
Perdue, a former US senator, has so far raised a fraction of what Kemp has in his campaign war chest. Very few Republican elected officials, operatives, donors and activists in Georgia have abandoned Kemp in favor of Perdue. And limited public polling hasn't been promising, either.
"I think Perdue is on life support and knows it," said one neutral GOP operative who requested anonymity to speak freely. "The Kemp momentum is palpable."
The Perdue campaign is drawing attention from around the country, in part as a test case on the GOP's tolerance for Trump's vendettas. The former President remains exceedingly popular within the party, but his relentless focus on the 2020 election may have put him a beat behind Republicans who have moved on to other issues such as school mask mandates and the economy.
At the same time, Georgia Republicans are eager to hold on to the governor's office in a general election race against Democrat Stacey Abrams, who has only risen in national prominence since her loss to Kemp in 2018. Democrats recently won not only the presidential election but also both US Senate seats in the state, handing President Joe Biden a majority to advance his agenda while humiliating the GOP in a once reliably red state. State party leaders are keen on reasserting their dominance this fall.
Since he launched his campaign in December, Perdue -- who lost a runoff last year to Democrat Jon Ossoff -- has struggled to bring aboard the network of political donors and operatives that have supported him and his cousin, former Gov. Sonny Perdue, in the past. One such figure is Alec Poitevint, a former Georgia Republican Party chairman during Sonny Perdue's governorship and a national party activist who chaired David Perdue's successful US Senate bid in 2014. Despite Poitevint's close ties to the Perdue family, he is supporting Kemp's reelection campaign.