Trump suffers a heavy defeat in the Republican primaries in Georgia

By Nicholas Riccard

Former President Donald Trump's revenge crusade suffered two devastating blows after Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger won their primaries on Tuesday despite rejecting Trump's pleas to reverse their electoral loss. in 2020.

It's a huge red flag about how Republican voters view the former president's crusade to punish those who were unwilling to override the will of voters in 2020.

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Voters also showed an openness to embrace scandal-ridden candidates — depending on the candidate, and the scandal.

Here are the highlights of Tuesday's primaries in Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Minnesota:

Trump's biggest loss in the primaries

Trump hoped to make Georgia Governor Brian Kemp an example of the danger of challenging him.

Instead, Kemp on Tuesday became an example of how Republican incumbents might not have as much to fear from Trump as the former president would like.

Kemp edged out former US Senator David Perdue in the Republican primary.

The victory came a year and a half after Kemp rejected Trump's demands to help nullify the presidential election by declaring Trump the winner in Georgia instead of Joe Biden, who actually won.

Perdue's campaign focused on Trump's lie that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from him, but Kemp won by using the power of his office.

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To unite the base, he signed laws allowing most Georgians to carry weapons without permission and banning most abortions after the fetal heartbeat is detected.

He also announced an investment by South Korean automaker Hyundai in a new plant in the state to make batteries for electric vehicles.

Now Kemp will face Democrat Stacey Abrams in a rematch of their 2018 gubernatorial showdown. Unlike Trump in 2020, Perdue conceded defeat Tuesday night, even appearing to sideline some supporters who took up a chant that suggested there was fraud.

"I'm sorry, but what we're going to do now is make sure that Stacey Abrams is not the governor of this state," Perdue said.

Danger of denying the elections

The Georgia gubernatorial race wasn't the only Trump grudge match that backfired on the former president.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who personally rejected Trump's call to "find" enough votes to declare him the winner in Georgia, also defeated his opponent in the Trump-backed primary.

Trump recruited Rep. Jody Hice, from a secure congressional seat, to face Raffensperger in the Republican primary, but Hice lost.

Trump backed the insurance commissioner and attorney general hopefuls, and they also lost.

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It's clear that the former president's insistence on 2020 simply wasn't aimed at Republican voters in Georgia, the country's new battleground state.

"Georgia underscores one of Trump's big problems if he ever runs again," Brendan Buck, a former spokesman for former House Speaker Paul Ryan, tweeted Tuesday.

"He, of course, won't be able to let go of the 2020 nonsense, and no one wants to hear his whining about it anymore," he opined.

This is how Trump's candidates have fared in the primaries in Pennsylvania and North Carolina

May 18, 202201:01

Trump has scored some primary victories over election deniers, most significantly last week in Pennsylvania, when that state's Republican voters chose their preferred candidate for governor, Doug Mastriano, who said he would not have certified the Biden's 2020 victory in that state.

But several Republicans have made it clear that they are thinking about the 2024 presidential bids, including Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

And they have distanced themselves in big and small ways from Trump's election accusations.

Elections are often about the future, and by the time the 2024 GOP primary rolls around, November 2020 will be ancient history.

The fading power of scandal

Trump scored some victories on Tuesday.

They arrived with luggage, but that didn't seem to stop them.

Former football player Herschel Walker, Trump's pick for the US Senate in Georgia, dominated his Republican opponents.

The party leaders had distanced themselves from him due to his checkered record.

Walker, in his autobiography, admits to having struggled with mental illness.

Her ex-wife says that during her marriage he put a gun to her head and threatened to kill her.

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He claimed to have founded a chicken processing company that employed hundreds of people, but only declared eight workers when applying for a loan during the coronavirus pandemic.

He lied about founding a charity to help veterans get mental health help.

But in the end, even Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell ended up embracing Walker as the party's best chance to unseat Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock.

The bet is that voters won't care so much about the scandals in post-Trump America.

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp celebrates four more years during an election night watch party, Tuesday, May 24, 2022, in Atlanta.John Bazemore/AP

That theory got a boost Tuesday in Texas.

Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton was indicted in 2015 on securities fraud charges and is still awaiting trial.

He is being investigated for corruption by the FBI and the Texas State Bar for his role in attempting to nullify the 2020 presidential election.

However, he easily won his primary against Land Commissioner George P. Bush, buoyed by his ability to use his office to serve conservative causes, for example by investigating the parents of transgender children.

In Georgia, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene won the Republican primary, ignoring her opponents, who complained that Greene was giving the party a bad name for denying the Holocaust and other bombastic headline-grabbing behavior.

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Trump established the model in 2016, and his supporters are perfecting it: Never let a scandal get in the way of winning an election.

a matter of centimeters

The biggest Democratic showdown of the night -- in Texas's 28th Congressional District, between progressive Jessica Cisneros and centrist Rep. Henry Cuellar, one of the last opponents of abortion rights on the Democratic caucus -- was too early to tell. .

The two candidates were separated by a narrow margin of votes in a rematch two months after they were forced into a second round.

This exposed two realities: Elections are a matter of centimeters, and not even a victory will resolve the great divide between left and center in the Democratic Party.

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Following the collapse of much of Biden's agenda in Congress, progressives have gotten a boost in recent primaries.

Her candidate, Summer Lee, narrowly won the primary in Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District last week.

In Oregon's 5th Congressional District, centrist Rep. Kurt Schrader trailed a progressive challenger after last week's primary.

The results were delayed due to problems in the counting of votes.

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May 12, 202200:29

Also Tuesday, Rep. Lucy McBath narrowly defeated Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux in the Democratic primary for Georgia's 7th Congressional District in suburban Atlanta.

Although neither has embraced the party's left wing, Bourdeaux was better known as a moderate than McBath.

Still, the left lost a key congressional primary in the Cleveland area just weeks ago.

They have a lousy track record in 2020.

And some Democrats worry -- and Republicans hope -- that victories for the left in places like Oregon's fifth or Texas's 28th will make it harder for the party to hold on to those relatively moderate districts, especially in what looks like a fall gloomy for Democrats.

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Sometimes, however, elections are so close that in the end there is a winner but the political debate they embody is not resolved.

Progressives can point to Cisneros improving his margin after losing to Cuellar in 2020.

Centrists can point to how the incumbent stuck around even amid party fury over the possible end of abortion rights.

After Texas, the fight between the left and centrist wings of the Democrats looks poised to continue.