“High Anxiety” Among Georgia Republicans Over Trump’s Continued Influence

GOP Operatives Concerned That Trump’s Looming Midterm Intervention And Fixation On Georgia Will Undermine Their Chances, Already Predicting “Rough Primaries”

Georgia Republicans are increasingly anxious that “the party’s deepening internal divisions” and “Trump’s continued influence” will “undermine” their efforts in 2022, including the pivotal Senate race. New reporting from The Hill highlights the “high anxiety” that Trump’s impending intervention “could only serve to deepen their losses.” Unfortunately for nervous Republicans, “there’s little doubt that Trump will get involved in next year’s races in Georgia” as the former president is “fixated on the state” and looking to “exact political revenge” on top GOP officials. 

Georgia Republican operatives believe the result will be “rough primaries” up and down the ballot, with everybody “going after that Trump endorsement and tearing each other apart to get it.” Party strategists fear a repeat performance of the 2020 cycle, when “the prolonged intraparty fight… contributed to the dual GOP losses in January.” One GOP consultant noted Trump has “done a real number on us already” and argued that Republicans “really can’t afford his nonsense.”

Already, primary battle lines are starting to be drawn with failed Senate candidates Kelly Loeffler and Doug Collins taking early shots at each other, Trump promoting Herschel Walker, and other Republican contenders considering campaigns of their own in what could quickly become “a Wild West shootout.” One thing is clear: Georgia is becoming ground zero for the Republican civil war in 2022.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

The Hill: High anxiety over Trump in Georgia GOP

• Georgia Republicans are growing anxious that former President Trump’s continued influence within the GOP and the party’s deepening internal divisions could undermine their standing in critical races in 2022.

• But several GOP strategists and operatives expressed concerns that Trump’s looming intervention in the midterms — especially his pledge to support a primary challenge to Gov. Brian Kemp (R) — could only serve to deepen their losses in one of the nation’s fastest-growing and most diverse battleground states.

• “He’s done a real number on us already,” one Republican consultant in Georgia said, blaming Trump for the GOP’s losses in two January Senate runoffs. “My concern is Trump becomes a distraction. You never want to have to deal with nonsense, and right now we really can’t afford his nonsense.”

• Republicans have little room for error in 2022. The GOP needs to gain only one seat in the Senate to recapture a majority in the chamber. But they are facing a difficult electoral map that requires them to defend 20 seats to Democrats’ 14, and GOP retirements in battlegrounds like Pennsylvania and North Carolina are likely to make the midterms even more challenging for them.

• What’s more, the Republican Party is still torn over its direction in the post-Trump political environment, with some in the party working to cement the former president’s influence over the GOP for years to come and others urging Republicans to move past Trump and his brand of ultraconservative populism.

• Nevertheless, there’s little doubt that Trump will get involved in next year’s races in Georgia.

• Republican operatives say Trump is fixated on the state as he looks to wield influence in the 2022 midterms, motivated by his own electoral loss there in November and his desire to exact political revenge on Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), who rejected Trump’s pleas last year to overturn the results of the state’s presidential election.

• “There’s going to be some rough primaries. I don’t think there’s a way around that,” a Republican campaign operative who has worked on statewide races in Georgia said. “Everyone is going to be going after that Trump endorsement and tearing each other apart to get it.”

• The rumblings of contentious statewide primaries bring to mind the 2020 special Senate election that saw Collins and Loeffler spend months battling it out for Trump’s support.

• Loeffler ultimately beat Collins in November before advancing to a runoff against Warnock in January. But many Republicans believe that the prolonged intraparty fight — along with Trump’s claims that Georgia’s elections system was “rigged” — buoyed Democrats and contributed to the dual GOP losses in January.

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