GOP candidates in Georgia divided over Trump election lies

ATLANTA (AP) — When asked about his decision to rebuff Donald Trump and certify Joe Biden’s narrow victory in his state, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says he has no option but to defend his actions.

“We are all held accountable by the voters,” the Republican said as he seeks a second term, noting that he hears from voters who backed Trump’s effort to overturn the election and those aghast at the former president’s actions.

“I give them the facts,” Raffensperger said, because “Americans and Georgians are smart people.”

Yet other Georgia Republicans take a different tack. Burt Jones, the lieutenant governor nominee who signed on as a fake elector for Trump, defends his role in the defeated president’s scheme; the two men atop the Georgia ticket — Gov. Brian Kemp and Senate nominee Herschel Walker — don’t say much about the 2020 election or the man who lost it.

The varied approaches reflect perilous fault lines for Republicans as they weigh the former president’s influence against Democrats’ assertions that a Trump-dominated party threatens democracy. Trump’s serial lies that the election was stolen cast a pall nationwide. But nowhere is the dynamic trickier than Georgia, epicenter of Trump’s plan after he personally pressured Raffensperger to “find” more votes. Winning battleground-state elections amid the fallout means coaxing votes from Trump sympathizers and more moderate voters he’s alienated.

The pressure is intensified by pending investigations: a Justice Department inquiry; a congressional examination of the U.S. Capitol attack of Jan. 6, 2021; and special grand jury proceedings in Georgia’s Fulton County, the seat of state government. District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, is focusing on Trump’s pressure campaign against Raffensperger, Kemp and others to ignore voters’ will.

Biden, meanwhile, has stepped up his warnings about “MAGA Republicans” in recent speeches, and some Democrats in Georgia amplify that message.

“I got a question to the entire Republican ticket: How can you say you love this country, and you embrace and support a man that attacks its very foundations?” lieutenant governor candidate Charlie Bailey declared at Democrats’ summer convention.

Jones, Bailey’s opponent, denies that faux electors were part of any such attack. “That was never anything that we said,” Jones said of the slate that convened at the Georgia Capitol as if it were a legitimate share of the Electoral College.

Biden won Georgia by less than 12,000 votes out of 5 million cast. The result was affirmed by multiple counts, one partially done by hand. Jones and others have said they were merely preserving Trump’s legal options, a claim undermined by evidence that later emerged of a coordinated effort to impanel unauthorized electors in multiple states. Elections officials and Trump’s own attorney general have said there is no evidence Biden’s win was tainted. Many courts, including judges Trump appointed, rejected his claims of fraud.

In Georgia’s marquee races, Kemp and Walker avoid the topic.

Kemp, locked in a tight race with Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams, acknowledges Trump only when he must. It’s the approach he’s taken since he ratified 16 Democratic electors after Raffensperger certified Biden’s win, a sharp contrast from 2018, when he accepted Trump’s endorsement during a hotly contested GOP primary for governor. Now, as when Trump raged at him publicly in 2020, Kemp explains that he was “following the Constitution” when he blessed Biden’s electors.

That sidestepping strategy was girded first when Kemp crushed Trump’s hand-picked candidate, former Sen. David Perdue, in a May primary. The governor got another boost in August when a state judge ruled Kemp won’t have to testify about 2020 before the Georgia special grand jury until after the fall election.

The spring primary results show the risks. Kemp and Raffensperger, who also had a contested primary, benefited from tens of thousands of Democratic-leaning voters crossing over to cast anti-Trump GOP primary ballots. But Perdue still garnered 236,000 votes — a sign that a pro-Trump GOP faction hasn’t forgotten about 2020. Kemp’s margin over Abrams in 2018 was about 55,000 votes.

Kemp aides acknowledge those splits, saying any credit Kemp has gotten from independents or swing-voting Democrats is already settled and there’s nothing to gain by talking about Trump. That’s why Kemp’s legal team wanted to delay the public spectacle of him entering and exiting the grand jury.

Walker, a first-time candidate trying to unseat Sen. Raphael Warnock, won’t say whether Biden won legitimately. “I don’t know, did he? … We need to ask my opponent did (Biden) win fair and square,” Walker told reporters.