Even As Early Voting Begins, Republican Infighting Still Distracting from Georgia Senate Runoffs

Early voting began in Georgia’s Senate runoffs yesterday, but Republicans are still caught up in a nasty intraparty feud that is siphoning campaign funds from the GOP’s efforts in Georgia and creating warring factions within the party that threaten to undercut Senator David Perdue and unelected Senator Kelly Loeffler’s chances in January.

• POLITICO reports that outgoing President Donald Trump is fundraising off the competitive Georgia runoffs but “pocketing most of the dough…to fund his future political activities” and only sharing “a fraction” of his take with the GOP’s runoff efforts, a “ploy” that has “rankled” other Republicans in Washington. 

• And the Washington Post examines the “‘nasty’ feud” that began when Republican Governor Brian Kemp chose to appoint the “political mega-donor” Loeffler to the open Senate seat without consulting Trump, which the president saw as “a major slight” that he’s never forgiven. Trump openly attacked the GOP governor as a “hapless” “clown” and pressured Perdue and Loeffler to urge Kemp and his administration to join them in backing a lawsuit to overturn the will of Georgia’s voters as he “threatens” the senators with “a bad day” on January 5th if he doesn’t get his way.

Read more about how the GOP’s chaos threatens Perdue and Loeffler’s seats:

POLITICO: Trump antagonizes Republicans with Georgia fundraising ploy 

By Alex Istenstadt 

Key Points:

• President Donald Trump couldn’t make it any clearer: He needs his supporters to fork over cash for the all-important Georgia Senate runoff elections.

• There’s just one hitch: Trump’s new political machine is pocketing most of the dough — and the campaigns of the Georgia senators competing in the Jan. 5 races aren’t getting a cent.

• Trump’s aggressive fundraising blitz appears to be devoted to helping the party defend Georgia’s two Senate seats and, with them, the Senate majority. But the fine print shows that most of the proceeds are going toward Trump’s newly launched PAC, which he plans to use to fund his future political activities. Only a fraction is going to the Republican National Committee, which is investing $20 million into the runoffs.

• Trump’s fundraising ploy has rankled senior Republicans, who worry small-dollar donations are being redirected away from the runoffs. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has reached out to the White House and RNC to express its concern and to question the decision, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

• Trump’s approach has been in stark contrast with President-elect Joe Biden, who has raised $10 million for the runoffs through direct appeals to his grassroots donor network. Biden’s campaign last week sent out an email asking supporters to give $25 contributions, which would be split evenly between Georgia Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock and the Democratic National Committee.

• But Georgia Republicans are concerned that small donors may be deceived by Trump’s fundraising appeals. Givers who don’t read the fine print closely enough may think their dollars are going directly to Loeffler and Perdue when in fact it’s going to Trump.

Washington Post: Inside the ‘nasty’ feud between Trump and the Republican governor he blames for losing Georgia 

By Ashley Parker, Amy Gardner, and Josh Dawsey

Key Points:

• The first major fissure in the relationship between President Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp came a year ago, when Kemp paid Trump a clandestine visit in the White House residence.

• On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, Kemp flew up to Washington to introduce Trump to Kelly Loeffler, an Atlanta business executive he wanted to appoint to fill his state’s open U.S. Senate seat.

• But when Kemp and Loeffler finally got their audience with the president, Kemp presented Loeffler as a fait accompli — telling Trump that he wanted the president to meet the woman he was planning to name to the Senate.

• Well, if you’ve already made your decision, Trump grumbled, then I’m not sure why you’re here, according to people familiar with the conversation.

• Trump later complained to aides that Kemp was rude and impolite — never forgiving the Georgia governor for what he viewed as a major slight.

• The strain between the two Republicans has now boiled over into a full-blown feud in the aftermath of Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat, as the president has fixated on his loss in Georgia as a humiliation that he blames in large part on Kemp. Trump lost the solidly Republican state by approximately 12,000 votes and is furious with Kemp for not heeding his calls to question the integrity of the state’s election results.

• In phone calls and conversations with allies and advisers, Trump has griped that Kemp was not pushing Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to do more to reverse President-elect Joe Biden’s victory; that Kemp was not defending the president on television; and, perhaps most indefensible in Trump’s mind, that Kemp moved forward with certifying the results of the election.

• Trump has also called Loeffler and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) — both of whom face runoffs on Jan. 5 — to complain about Kemp, though he has not given them any specific edicts beyond generally pressuring Kemp to support the president’s efforts to overturn the election results, one person familiar with the calls said. Loeffler and Perdue did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

• But it was Kemp’s handling of his selection of Loeffler to fill Georgia’s empty Senate seat in late 2019 that particularly angered the president, culminating in the frosty White House meeting that November. Kemp never consulted Trump about the Senate seat when it first opened. And after Kemp created an online application process for the post, Trump complained privately that the Georgia governor was treating the process as if he was “hiring a truck driver,” according to an outside Republican in frequent contact with the White House.

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