A Bad Night for Lies

National Review Online

Thursday, May 26, 2022

 

It was a bad night in Georgia for lies.

 

Both Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, targeted for defeat by Donald Trump for not going along with his 2020 conspiracy theories, won their respective primaries, with Kemp defeating his Trump-endorsed challenger with a crushing 74 percent of the vote.

 

Meanwhile, voter turnout was enormous, easily exceeding the prior record for a primary in 2018. So much for the absurd falsehood that the Georgia voting law, which made a series of entirely reasonable changes to the state’s electoral system, constituted Jim Crow 2.0.

 

Brian Kemp has proven himself an exemplary conservative leader. He refused to bow to Donald Trump’s bullying to do something to overturn or cast doubt on Joe Biden’s victory in the state in 2020. Trump, of course, launched a campaign of vengeance that helped lose two winnable Senate races in the January 2021 runoffs. He then convinced one of those losing candidates, the former senator David Perdue, to take on Kemp, thus setting the stage for Perdue’s ultimate humiliation after shafting him out of his Senate seat.

 

Kemp, an adroit politician, moved quickly to solidify his base of support and cut off Perdue’s. The former senator had no rationale for his campaign except doing Trump’s tawdry bidding, and he was up against an incumbent governor with a formidable record.

 

Kemp resisted lockdown excesses during the pandemic and has cut taxes, signed a heartbeat bill, advanced permitless conceal-and-carry, and broadly bolstered a pro-business environment in Georgia. Notably at a time when his conservative credentials were being questioned, Kemp faced down corporate pressure over the state’s much-maligned election law.

 

While it became more and more obvious that Kemp would trounce Perdue, Raffensperger’s fate was very much in doubt. Trump had recruited Representative Jody Hice to run against him, also solely as an agent of his vendetta. It seemed unlikely that Raffensperger could get above the 50 percent he needed to avoid a runoff, which would presumably have a smaller electorate more hostile to him. But he got over the top to win outright after running a relentlessly hardworking campaign and being willing to go on conservative media to answer any and all questions about his handling of 2020 without losing his cool.

 

Kemp and Raffensperger never wobbled in defending their conduct in 2020 or the truth about the election. Their integrity is in sharp contrast to Republicans around the country who have indulged Trump’s delusions in pursuit of his favor and electoral advancement.

 

Kemp now should be in a strong position in the general election against Stacey Abrams, who never conceded her 2018 loss and has promoted the poisonous lie about Georgia’s returning to the Jim Crow era. For Kemp, it will be a different version of the same challenge he’s faced over the last two years — namely, beating back a threat to his political career from a self-interested election truther.