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SAVANA, Georgia – When Georgia Secretary of State Brad Rafensperger (right) addressed the local Rotary Club here this month, he eagerly reminded the audience that he was the man who resisted former President Donald Trump’s pleas to find enough votes. to change the elections in 2020.
As Rotarians dined on chicken pots, the Republican tossed out “mole-hitting rumors.” for allegations of fraud that surfaced in Georgia and explained why they were untrue.
But the next breath, the state’s top election official offered Trump voters concerned about the election could to be compromised reasons to vote for him in Tuesday’s fierce primary elections: he backed legislation to tighten voting security – despite opposition from voting groups – and cracked down on the number 1 vote of non-citizens in his campaign, despite evidence show that it is already quite rare.
This double message reflects the delicate balance Rafensperger is trying to achieve in order to win in a state where most Republicans still love Trump and believe in his fake account of the 2020 election. Facing Trump’s ardent aide, Rafensperger chose the path of political pragmatism, courting the base of the former president, while not completely abandoning his image of the rare Republican who wants to take over Trump.
Whether Rafensperger can do it can help determine the direction of the Republican Party at a time when Trumpism remains very much alive, even as Trump himself struggles to push his favorite candidates to victory. The result will also have a direct impact on the 2024 presidential election, when Georgia is expected to be a key battlefield again and the secretary of state will oversee the way votes are counted, counted and certified.
There are only days left until the elections, according to surveys there is extremely close competition. This reflects a remarkable evolution from a year ago, when Rafensperger was widely considered politically dead after his confrontation with Trump.
“The fact that it’s competitive is a monumental change in the environment,” said Brian Robinson, a Republican political consultant in the state, noting that many Republicans are tired of Trump’s election claims, whether they like him or not. They want to hear about solutions to inflation and rising gas prices, not about previous elections, he said.
Rafensperger became famous after a telephone conversation with Trump on January 2, 2021, in which the then president called on him to “find” enough votes to reverse his defeat in Georgia.
During the one-hour conversation, as Trump consistently scolded Rafensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act, and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if he refused to pursue his false allegations, Rafensperger remained adamant, explaining that the president relied on debunking. accusations and that Joe Biden’s victory with 11,779 votes in the state was fair and accurate.
“Well, Mr. President,” Rafensperger said during the conversation, “the challenge you have is that the data you have is wrong.”
In the coming months, few, if any, strategists in Georgia said Rafensperger could survive the Republican primary. He was anointed a hero on the left and was shot near the top of Trump’s list of enemies. Many Republican voters wanted someone to blame for Trump’s loss, and Rafensperger became a target.
His main rival in the primary is US envoy Jody Hayes, a staunch Trump supporter who won the former president’s approval after accepting the false claim that Biden did not actually win Georgia. Hice’s main argument to voters is that if he had been secretary of state in 2020, he would not have certified the presidential result, as Rafensperger did.
“This latest election should not have been certified without proper investigation,” Hayes said during a televised debate on May 2 with Rafensperger and two other candidates. “The allegations were huge. They were everywhere and still are. ”
On Thursday night, Hayes told a gathering of young Republicans in Atlanta that the “voice of the people” had been “broken” in 2020 and that he held Rafensperger responsible for not being tough enough to enforce the law.
In an interview with The Washington Post, he cited allegations of widespread “ballot collection” or residents illegally handing out ballots to others. Some of these allegations were rejected by the Georgia Electoral Council this week.
“If there are no consequences for breaking the law and fraud, people will continue to cheat when it comes to elections,” Hayes said. “There must be consequences.”
Yet it is unclear whether the Republicans from Georgia were convinced by Hice’s argument. Studies show that Trump-backed gubernatorial candidate, former Sen. David Purdue, is well behind incumbent President Brian Kemp, who has also been angered by the former president’s refusal to accept false allegations of fraud.
In a poll published last month by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Rafensperger and Heath were roughly tied, with more than 35 percent of likely GOP primary voters saying they had not yet decided.
Some Republicans remain skeptical that Rafensperger will win on May 24. But more and more people say they believe he will at least qualify for the Heath runoff in the four-way race if no candidate gathers the majority needed for a landslide victory.
Both Rafensperger and Hitze have undergone transformations since the beginning of their political careers. Rafensperger, the soft-spoken owner of a lucrative engineering firm who seems more comfortable talking about a building structure than giving exciting speeches, joined the Atlanta City Council’s Jones Creek City Council in 2011. There, he focused on such bread. .. oil priorities such as street lamps and sidewalks.
Later, in the state legislature, Rafensperger built a reputation as a conservative Reagan-style Republican focused on low taxes and streamlining regulations. In 2018, he was quoted by the Coalition for Faith and Freedom of Georgia as a perfect conservative voting rating. That same year, he was elected Secretary of State. His life changed two years later when he came under Trump’s scrutiny.
Heath entered Congress in 2015 after a 25-year career as a Baptist. Initially, he focused almost exclusively on social issues, regularly criticizing same-sex marriage and even praising the benefits of conversion therapy, the discredited practice of “turning” people into heterosexual. He also took over the IRS because of threats to deprive churches of their tax-exempt status if ministers preach politics from the pulpit.
With the rise of Trump in 2016, Hice has become an ardent surrogate for the candidate. After the 2020 election, Hayes was one of the strongest voices in Congress, advocating for the repeal of the election result. On January 6, 2021, he was among 147 members of Congress who objected to the counting of the Electoral College.
This loyalty to Trump remains a positive quality for many Republicans in Georgia who doubt Rafensperger shares it.
“The election was stolen in the last round of extremely smart people,” said Ann Cooper, a 60-year-old Republican voter in rural Griffin, Georgia, an hour south of Atlanta. “I think Rafensperger could have been more diligent in entering the computer system. I don’t think he did everything he could. “
Throughout the campaign, Rafensperger is not afraid to blame Trump directly for his defeat in 2020. “Twenty-eight thousand Georgians missed the presidential race and still voted against voting in other competitions,” Rafensperger told Savannah Rotary. “Republican congressmen collectively received 33,000 more votes than President Trump. That’s why President Trump turned out to be short. “
Many Republican voters interviewed polling stations this month, they said they believed the fraud had tarnished the 2020 election and that they liked Trump, but were still exhausted from his unique obsession with it and are ready to move on. Rafensperger and Kemp also attract moderate Republicans to the Atlanta suburbs who are not fans of the former president.
Outside the Dunoody Library in DeCalb County, one of the few remaining Republican enclaves in the Atlanta suburbs, early voters said they chose Rafensperger and Kemp. For three hours, none of the dozens of interviewees said they voted for Hice or Perdue.
“I think the election was stolen, I definitely do,” said Virginia Christman, 72, who is retired from the magazine publishing industry. “But I don’t think Brad Rafensperger or Brian Kemp could do anything about it. There were many scams for which they were accused. “
In late March, Trump held a rally in rural Commerce, Georgia, at which Heath pointed out. Most recently, the former president hosted Hice fundraising at Mar-a-Lago, his club in South Florida.
But Hice does not run commercials and regularly goes out for days without campaigning, giving Rafensperger the opportunity to nominate a four-term congressman in a seven-figure nationwide advertising campaign – a remarkable amount for what was once sleepy, heading down the ballot. .
“When Stacey Abrams attacked the Georgia election, Jody Hayes did nothing – not a single bill to protect our election,” one of Rafensperger’s ads said. referring to the Democrats’ alleged candidate for governor. “Brad was the first to conduct a full audit to make sure only Americans voted in Georgia. Brad has banned the collection of ballots and requires an identity with a photo of all elections. When Jody did nothing, Brad made the Georgia election the safest in the nation.
Turnout has been high so far, which may be good news for the current president. This week, Rafensperger’s office announced that more than 600,000 Georgians have voted so far in early and postal voting – more than three times more than in the same period in 2018.
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