ORLANDO, Florida — Former Sen. David Perdue detoured from the campaign trail in Georgia, where he is attempting to oust Gov. Brian Kemp in the Republican primary to court national grassroots support at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Perdue has been endorsed by Donald Trump but is going to have to come from behind to defeat Kemp, who led the former senator in recent polls despite falling out of favor with the former president. In an interview Sunday after addressing activists from the main stage at CPAC, Perdue conceded his campaign has more work to do to inform Republican primary voters that he has Trump’s backing.
The former senator also acknowledged that beating Kemp will be difficult without the direct and consistent, personal involvement of the former president. Accordingly, Perdue said Trump has committed to travel to Georgia for an in-person rally for his campaign plus headline several telerallies. Perdue said he expects Trump in the state in late April or mid-May, ahead of the beginning of early voting for the May 24 primary.
“I need him to be engaged in this primary,” Perdue told the Washington Examiner in between interviews with national conservative media outlets broadcasting from CPAC. “I’m looking forward to getting him to Georgia and getting people [excited]. We’ve just got to make sure everybody gets out and votes.”
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“We’re not going to overdo it, but he really wants to come,” Perdue added when asked if he expects Trump to travel to Georgia to campaign for him more than once before the primary.
Party primaries are notoriously divisive. But the Georgia GOP gubernatorial primary is especially bitter.
Trump endorsed Kemp in 2018 but abandoned his reelection and recruited Perdue to challenge him because he blames the governor for his loss to President Joe Biden in Georgia in 2020. The former president claims that he won the Peach State but that the election was stolen and argues Kemp did nothing about it despite a lack of supporting evidence for these assertions.
Perdue, a longtime Kemp ally who initially pledged to the governor that he would back his reelection bid, now similarly blames the incumbent for his ouster from the Senate in a Jan. 5, 2021, runoff at the hands of Democrat Jon Ossoff. The divisive gubernatorial primary that ensued after Perdue entered the race is more akin to a family feud than a typical, intraparty nominating contest.
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That has left many Georgia Republicans worried that the Georgia GOP will not be able to heal and unify after the primary, possibly giving a boost to putative Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams in an election cycle otherwise shaping up as a potential red wave. But Perdue said he expects Republicans to come together once a nominee is crowned, regardless of who it is.
“This is a primary, and in a primary, that’s like preseason. We all get together, find out who we want to stand up against the Democrats, and then we all get together behind that person,” Perdue said. “I’ve even said out loud that if he wins this primary, I’m going to be all-in, 100% for [Kemp] to make sure Stacey is not elected governor.”
