When a poll in Georgia last week showed former Sen. David Perdue trailing by 30 points in the gubernatorial primary, the Republican was incredulous. “We may not win Tuesday,” Perdue said, “but I guaran-damn-tee you that we are not down 30 points.”
Oddly enough, that was true, though not in the way the candidate probably intended: As NBC News reported, Perdue actually ended up losing by about 50 points.
In his biggest electoral defeat since he lost the presidency in 2020, Donald Trump went down in flames Tuesday in his crusade to punish Georgia Republicans who defied his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, as NBC News projects the former president’s candidates were crushed in GOP primaries. Gov. Brian Kemp is on track to rout Trump-backed challenger David Perdue by a stunning 50 percentage points.
Let’s not forget that Perdue, at least at first, didn’t even want to run for governor. When Trump first floated the idea last year, the former senator was still licking his wounds following an embarrassing 2020 defeat. What’s more, Perdue considered Kemp a friend and political ally; there was no apparent upside to launching such a candidacy; and he privately blamed Trump for contributing to his Senate loss a year earlier.
But Trump insisted anyway, pushing Perdue into a candidacy. For the former president, this was personal: Kemp failed to go along with Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which meant it was time for payback. The Georgia governor had put democracy ahead of Trump’s desires, and the former president was desperate to send a message: Such betrayals would not be tolerated.
This one primary, above all others, would be a test — not only of Trump’s control over Republican politics, but as a Washington Post report recently put it, of “the potency of his false 2020 fraud claims as a motivating force among Republican voters.”
It was a test Trump, his team, and his allies failed spectacularly.
This is not a situation in which the former president can credibly claim his support for Perdue was merely perfunctory. On the contrary, Trump not only handpicked his preferred candidate, he personally played a role in clearing the GOP field.
What’s more, the former president didn’t just invest time, energy, and credibility into this primary contest — holding an in-state rally and even appearing in television ads — he also made monetary investments in Perdue’s ill-fated campaign. The New York Times reported a few days ago that Trump gave “$2.64 million to groups helping Mr. Perdue — by far the most he has ever invested in another politician.”
This also wasn’t a situation in which the former president might try to argue that Perdue pushed the wrong message: The former senator, at Trump’s direction, effectively served as a sycophantic puppet, making ridiculously untrue claims about the 2020 election the centerpiece of his candidacy.
If the race was close, it’s possible Trump and his followers might at least try to argue that their gambit was a worthwhile exercise. But a 50-point defeat should be seen for what it is: a humiliation for those who thought this fiasco would be a good idea.
The former president intended to send a message, and he did. It’s just not the one he wanted the political world to receive.