Georgia’s Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state who rejected Donald Trump’s name to assist overturn the state’s 2020 election outcomes, mentioned Wednesday that he’s working for governor in 2026.
The rich engineering entrepreneur would possibly attraction most to business-oriented Republicans who as soon as dominated GOP primaries in Georgia, however he’s pledging a strongly conservative marketing campaign even whereas he stays scorned by Trump and his allies. Raffensperger’s entry into the sphere intensifies the first in a state with an unbroken line of Republican governors since 2002.
“I’m a conservative Republican, and I’m prepared to make the tough decisions. I follow the law and the Constitution, and I’ll always do the right thing for Georgia no matter what,” Raffensperger mentioned in an announcement video.
Raffensperger defied Trump’s wrath to win reelection in 2022, however he’ll once more take a look at GOP major voters’ tolerance for a candidate so clearly focused by the president. His first problem could also be to even qualify for the first. Georgia’s Republican Party voted in June to ban Raffensperger from working underneath its banner, though the occasion chairman mentioned that try won’t go anyplace.
Two different high Republicans are already within the race — Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and Attorney General Chris Carr. Jones swore himself to be a “duly elected and qualified” elector for Trump in 2020 although then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden had been declared the state’s winner. Carr sided with Raffensperger in rejecting challenges to the outcomes. Other Republicans embody Clark Dean, Scott Ellison and Gregg Kirkpatrick.
On the Democratic aspect, high candidates embody former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, state Sen. Jason Esteves and former state Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond. Geoff Duncan, who like Raffensperger spurned Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election as Republican lieutenant governor, entered the governor’s race Tuesday as a Democrat.
Raffensperger pledges what he calls a “bold conservative agenda,” together with eliminating the state revenue tax, capping property taxes for seniors, banning medicine that block puberty from gender-affirming care and purging “woke curriculums” from faculties. He additionally guarantees to work with Trump to improve jobs, deport immigrants with legal information and “restore law and order.”
Although he begins later than different candidates, Raffensperger advantages from an voters that already is aware of him, plus a capability to finance his personal marketing campaign. The 70-year-old offered his concrete reinforcement firm, Tendon Systems, for an undisclosed quantity in 2023.
Raffensperger, was securely contained in the conservative fold earlier than his insistence on honoring the 2020 election outcomes turned the introverted engineer into an unlikely nationwide determine. He opposed abortion and pushed tax cuts as a state legislator, working for secretary of state in 2018 on a platform that emphasised managerial competence. During that race, certainly one of his three sons, Brenton Raffensperger, died at age 27 from a fentanyl overdose.
He spent most of his first two years in workplace battling lawsuits filed by Democrats that fruitlessly alleged Georgia, underneath then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp, engaged in unlawful voter suppression in 2018 in Kemp’s victory over Democrat Stacey Abrams. Raffensperger additionally was tasked to roll out new Dominion voting machines for a 2020 election thrown off-kilter by the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden’s slim win in Georgia modified issues. Raffensperger mentioned publicly that he wished Trump had gained, however firmly held that he noticed no proof of widespread fraud or voting irregularities. Trump and his partisans ratcheted up assaults.
In his 2021 e-book, “Integrity Counts,” Raffensperger recounted dying threats texted to his spouse, an encounter with males whom he suspected of staking out his residence, and being escorted out of the Georgia Capitol on January 6, 2021, as a handful of protesters entered the constructing on the day many extra protesters stormed the US Capitol.
But it was a telephone name days earlier, on January 2, that wrote Raffensperger’s title into historical past. Trump pressured the secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes” – sufficient to overturn Joe Biden’s win within the state, repeatedly citing disproven claims of fraud and elevating the prospect of “criminal offense” if officers didn’t change the vote depend, in accordance to a recording of the dialog.
Raffensperger pushed again, noting that lawsuits making these claims had been fruitless.
“We don’t agree that you have won,” Raffensperger advised Trump.
That refusal to buckle made Raffensperger an enormous political goal. Lawmakers outlawed a repeat of his determination to mail absentee poll functions to voters and restricted using absentee ballot drop boxes. They stripped him of his put up chairing the State Election Board, finally making a Trump-aligned physique whose makes an attempt to assert management of election processes had been shot down by courts. Trump endorsed US Rep. Jody Hice, who objected to Georgia’s electoral votes being counted for President Joe Biden, to problem Raffensperger within the 2022 Republican major.
If Raffensperger was rattled, he didn’t change his public model. He caught to a marketing campaign of quiet speeches earlier than civic membership members dozing off after a heavy lunch. Voters renominated him, together with hundreds who beforehand voted in Democratic primaries however forged ballots within the GOP contest. He then cruised to reelection over a Democrat.