At the urging of failed, one-term former President Donald Trump, ex-Georgia Sen. David Perdue (R) will announce his candidacy to be the 2022 GOP nominee for governor of the state of Georgia today, a direct slap in the face of current Gov. Brian Kemp (R), who is seeking reelection for a second term in office.
Perdue’s challenge to Kemp has set off panic within the Georgia Republican Party, with Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan going on CNN Monday morning and begging Trump to stay out of the state’s politics, which would likely hand the state to likely Democratic nominee, Stacey Abrams.
Duncan told CNN host John Berman:
“Brian Kemp is probably Georgia’s most conservative governor in history. He has done everything he needs to do. We’ve cut taxes, we’ve increased teacher pay, we’ve navigated through a pandemic, we’ve got $6 billion in a rainy day fund and, quite honestly, David Perdue should know better than this. He’s the only one to blame for losing his last election to Jon Ossoff and he ran the worst campaign ever — and that’s his fault not Brian Kemp’s or Geoff Duncan’s or any other Republican’s fault.”
That led Berman to ask this about why Perdue would challenge the incumbent Kemp:
“What issue do you see him running on? I mean, what do you think he big issue for him is then?”
Duncan responded:
“It appears early on he will try to carry Donald Trump’s water on the conspiracy stuff and that seems to be the only tail wind he’s got, it’s unfortunate. We what much this play out all across the country. But look, his is a short-term sugar high, it will wear off. The quicker we take our medicine as Republicans and move on and focus on the next election, the next opportunity to lead this country, the quicker we are going to get the White House back, the Senate back, the House back and have opportunities to put our conservative leadership on display.”
Duncan then added:
“We don’t need the traveling circus of Donald Trump to stay here in Georgia. We need it to stay down in Mar-a-Lago, working on his handicap playing golf and let us be conservatives here in Georgia and move forward.”
Is there any chance Trump will heed Duncan’s pleadings? Of course not! The petty former president has an ax to grind and his ego has to be satiated.
Here’s the video from CNN: