ATLANTA — It was supposed to be an easy win for Georgia’s David Perdue.
He’d hitched his wagon to Donald Trump in 2016, and it had paid off. He did it again four years later, only this time, it cost him his coveted U.S. Senate seat.
Perdue was locked in a heated runoff race against Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff. He seemed to have the early momentum, but his campaign veered off course, and on Wednesday, the Associated Press called the race for Ossoff.
With the final tally still days away, Perdue’s camp said it’s not giving up — but the writing is pretty much on the wall.
“We will mobilize every available resource and exhaust every legal recourse to ensure all legally cast ballots are properly counted,” Perdue’s campaign said in an email statement to the Washington Examiner. “We believe in the end, Senator Perdue will be victorious.”
Perdue was the favorite going into Tuesday’s contest.
He was the incumbent, had name recognition — his first cousin is former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue — and was known as Georgia’s political giant-killer. When he first ran for the Senate in 2014, he overcame incredible odds to beat three Republican congressmen in the primary and Michelle Nunn, the daughter of former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, in the general election.
After his monster win, Washington took notice and the international businessman’s political star skyrocketed.
When Trump edged out Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for the Oval Office, Perdue cozied up to the new president. Their mutual admiration grew.
Perdue embodied what Trump looked for in a loyalist.
One of Perdue’s pledges to Georgia voters was that he would help fix the U.S. immigration system and that he supported “merit-based immigration.” His critics called him anti-immigration, but Trump found a powerful and respected ally in Perdue, who could help him deliver on his own immigration promises.
Their relationship worked. Trump chased the spotlight, while Perdue worked in the wings.
“He’s not flamboyant,” Alec Poitevint, Perdue’s campaign chairman, told the Associated Press. “But one thing is, he’s consistent. He never changes.”
In the years that followed, Perdue became one of the Senate’s chief defenders of Trump.
Ironically, Perdue pitched himself to Georgia voters in 2014 as a corporate executive that could bring pragmatism to a Congress that was depicted in his first television ad as a bunch of diaper-wearing crybabies.
“Help me change the childish behavior up there,” he said.
Perdue’s strategy in the runoffs largely focused on ensuring Trump’s base showed up to vote for him. According to initial data, they did not.
Early runoff returns showed him underperforming in important GOP strongholds in rural areas and the exurbs on the outer ring of Georgia. In Cherokee County, for example, Perdue led Ossoff by 39 percentage points, with 96% of the votes counted, a narrower margin than his 41-point win in November. Perdue also underperformed in Hall and Paulding counties.
“The Republican messaging in Georgia was confusing and contradictory at best,” Scott Ainsworth, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, told the Washington Examiner. “Nearly every county moved toward Ossoff and away from Perdue. I think it was a fairly clear repudiation of the candidates and their electoral efforts.”
“I have always voted Republican, but a vote for Perdue is a vote for Trump, and I had to draw the line,” one Georgia voter who works in Atlanta told the Washington Examiner.
Trump has railed for weeks about how the Georgia election was stolen from him, calling state election officials and Georgia’s GOP Gov. Brian Kemp “hapless,” “an idiot,” and a “clown.” And though he told his base on Monday to vote for Perdue, Trump continued to air his own personal grievances about being cheated out of a second term.
On Wednesday, armed Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, violently clashing with law enforcement in an effort to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s win. The scene was chaotic, at best, with dozens of people breaching security perimeters, and lawmakers inside the House chamber were told to put on gas masks as tear gas was fired in the Rotunda.
Even though Perdue hasn’t repeated Trump’s election fraud claims, he didn’t do anything to stop them from being spread repeatedly on the campaign trail.
He also backed a failed Texas lawsuit that sought to invalidate Biden’s victory in the Peach State. Perdue also called for Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to resign, citing unspecific “mismanagement” of the election.
“He’ll do anything for Trump,” Lisa Horner, a Marietta resident, told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday. “He ‘fangirls’ when he’s around. He is basically Trump in a better suit. He can try to distance himself now, but Georgians see him for what he is.”
When COVID-19 hit and Trump downplayed it, Perdue backed him.
Like Trump, he frequently went maskless to events and downplayed the seriousness of the global pandemic. His cavalier attitude about a virus that had infected more than 683,000 and killed 10,725 in his own state came back to haunt him during the last few days of the race.
With less than a week to go, Perdue’s campaign announced he had been sidelined and was quarantined with his wife after coming into close contact with someone who had tested positive for the virus.
While Sen. Kelly Loeffler, the other Georgia Republican who battled in a runoff for a second open Senate seat, attended campaign events around the state, Perdue called into Fox News from his home to pitch his case.
What Perdue does next is still up in the air.
“Sen. Perdue has several options moving forward,” Ainsworth told the Washington Examiner. “He has considerable business experience, allowing him to explore business and consulting opportunities.”
But Ainsworth cautioned, “As a 71-year-old who is out of office, he might not have the drive for a demanding political competition in the next few years.”
