In a congressional race in which Ted Cruz clashed with House Republican leaders, the former mayor of West Point, Georgia, captured the GOP primary Tuesday and is all but certain of winning the general election in November.
Drew Ferguson, the ex-mayor backed by House majority leader Kevin McCarthy and majority whip Steve Scalise, defeated state senator Mike Crane, the Cruz candidate, 54 to 46 percent. Republican Lynn Westmoreland, who is retiring, has held the west Georgia House seat since 2004.
It was the supporters of the two candidates who gave the race national implications. Cruz showed up in the district last Friday, two days after his controversial address to the Republican national convention in which he declined to endorse Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Campaigning in Newnan, Georgia, Cruz declared: “If you want to see a federal government that finally does its job, secures the borders, stops illegal immigration, elect Mike Crane to Congress.”
The race also pitted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which favored Ferguson, against the conservative Club for Growth, which backed Crane. Congressman Jim Jordan, the leader of the House Freedom Caucus, and the Senate Conservatives Fund both endorsed Crane.
Crane led a pack of candidates in the first primary in March, but finished less than 100 votes ahead of Ferguson. This forced yesterday’s runoff between the top two vote-getters.
Ferguson was mayor of West Point, population 3,382, when the Korean auto giant Kia decided to build a large plant there. Ferguson welcomed Kia and helped facilitate its arrival. In 2009, the plant began producing the 2011 Kia Sorrento. It has hired more than 3,000 workers.
The race may have been decided by a Crane comment about shooting a police officer who broke into his house with a no-knock warrant. “You come to my house, kick down my door, if I have an opportunity, I will shoot you dead,” he said.
Ferguson highlighted the Crane comment in a TV ad. The Georgia Fraternal Order of Police strongly criticized Crane. And at the event at which Cruz spoke, 18 police officers showed up to protest Crane.
