Raffensperger Tests Trump in Georgia Primary Voting In Georgia
Georgia voters were voting in georgia on Tuesday as Brad Raffensperger and Burt Jones competed in the Republican primary to succeed term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp. The race is testing whether Republican voters will keep backing a candidate who broke with Donald Trump in 2020.
Raffensperger is running after refusing Trump’s request to "find 11,780 votes" during the 2020 election dispute. Trump endorsed Jones in August, setting up a contest that measures whether the former president’s backing still carries the same weight in Georgia Republican politics.
Raffensperger and Burt Jones
Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, was on the other end of the leaked call in which Trump pressed him for the exact margin needed to flip Georgia. In last June’s state party resolution, Republicans described Raffensperger as "repugnant" to the party’s brand.
Jones entered the race as the Trump-endorsed candidate, while Raffensperger leaned on his own political standing after the 2020 clash. In 2022, Kemp defeated a Trump-endorsed primary challenge from former Sen. David Perdue, another recent marker of how Georgia Republicans have split with Trump at times.
Georgia runoff rules
Under Georgia law, any race that does not produce a candidate above 50% goes to a runoff. That rule makes Tuesday’s vote more than a single-day test: if the field splits tightly enough, the outcome can move into a second round.
Limited polling showed Jones and Rick Jackson running roughly even, while Raffensperger trailed Jones. Jackson’s campaign spent more than $60 million on advertising in the gubernatorial primary, making it the third-most expensive gubernatorial primary in American history, according to AdImpact.
Last Week’s Bomb Threat
Raffensperger also returned to the campaign after a bomb threat forced him to abandon an event last week. He said the threat was preceded by a manifesto that featured his photograph with the word "boom" pasted over his head.
The race now turns on whether Georgia Republicans keep the same pattern they showed in 2022, when Kemp beat a Trump-backed challenge. Tuesday’s vote gives the clearest current read on how much room remains in Georgia for candidates who run against Trump’s preferred pick.
