Former Senator David Perdue – who is seeking the Republican nomination in Georgia’s gubernatorial race – stuck to the MAGA playbook during his debate with incumbent Brian Kemp on Saturday night, using his opening remarks to claim the 2020 presidential election was “rigged and stolen.”
“While there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in any state during the 2020 election, Perdue returned to the subject — a central theme of his campaign — several times throughout the hourlong debate and argued that Kemp did not do enough to challenge the state’s election results,” reports CNN.
Perdue, who is running with former President Donald Trump’s endorsement, said Kemp allowed “radical Democrats to steal our election.”
Perdue lost his last race to Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff, a result that helped Democrats take control of the Senate. Perdue blamed the loss on Kemp.
“The only reason I’m not in the United States Senate is because you caved in and gave the elections to Stacey [Abrams] and to the liberal Democrats in 2020,” he said.
“Weak leaders take credit when things go well and blame someone else when it doesn’t,” Perdue added.
Kemp’s responded, “Weak leaders blame everybody else for their own loss instead of themselves.”
Kemp added that “looking in the rearview mirror” won’t defeat Stacey Abrams, who is the likely Democratic contender for the Georgia governorship. The primary elections will be held on May 24th.
“There’s only person who’s beaten Stacey Abrams, and that’s me,” Kemp said, referring to the 2018 governor’s race.
The New York Times reports:
The slugfest never let up, as a focus on Georgia policy issues in the debate’s second half-hour devolved into a fight over who was more authentically conservative, each candidate seeking to outflank the other from the right on education, public safety and jobs.
Mr. Kemp doubled down on his support for a bill that prohibits teaching of “divisive concepts” on race and history, saying that Republicans in the state “passed this piece of legislation to make sure that our kids are not going to be indoctrinated in our schools,” and that curriculums should focus on “the facts, not somebody’s ideology.”
But Mr. Perdue accused Mr. Kemp of abrogating his responsibility to protect students, parents and teachers alike. “They need to make sure that the woke mob’s not taking over the schools, and you’ve left them high and dry,” he said, asserting that the Atlanta schools were “teaching kids that voter ID is racist.”
The two also sparred on immigration policy, policing, and business development in Georgia.
POLITICO adds:
Despite Trump’s endorsement, Perdue still trails in the polls: The latest poll from WGCL-TV/Landmark shows Kemp with a 24-point lead over Perdue. Fifty-two percent of people supported Kemp, 27 percent supported Perdue and about 10 percent were undecided.
Earlier polls from this year also all show Kemp leading.
A March Trump rally for Perdue and his other endorsees in Commerce, Ga., hasn’t budged the polls.
