Two months after opting against a 2022 campaign, former Sen. David Perdue is sitting on a war chest of nearly $5 million.
The Georgia Republican, ousted in a January runoff election, briefly considered a comeback in next year’s midterm elections before pulling himself out of the running. Former President Donald Trump is encouraging businessman and former professional football player Herschel Walker to mount a campaign, and it is possible Perdue did not want to end up in a Republican primary facing the former president’s endorsed candidate.
GOP DIGITAL PLATFORM PROCESSES $124M IN FIRST QUARTER, NARROWING GAP WITH DEMOCRATS
But after closing the first quarter with seed money of $4.7 million in his campaign account, Perdue could afford to reverse course later in the election cycle, should Walker demure and top-tier Republican candidates fail to materialize. Former Rep. Doug Collins is the latest Republican to take a pass, announcing Monday he would not seek federal or state office next year. Collins ran for Senate in 2020 in a special election for Georgia’s other seat.
“Herschel has not made up his mind,” a Republican insider in Georgia said Tuesday.
Perdue finished on top in last November’s general election but was forced into a January runoff with Democrat Jon Ossoff after falling short of the 50% threshold. Ossoff defeated Perdue the second time around, winning a six-year term in the Senate with 50.6% of the vote. In the other race, a special election, Democrat Raphael Warnock dispatched appointed Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, winning with 51%.
Warnock won the right to finish the term vacated by Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson, who resigned at the end of 2019 for health reasons. The senator, running in 2022 for a full, six-year term, raised more than $5.7 million in the first quarter and reported $5.6 million in cash on hand, giving himself a financial head start against his eventual Republican opponent — at least as long as that Republican is not Perdue.
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Some GOP insiders believe he might run if Trump backed him. According to Federal Election Commission filings, the former senator had paid off all but $33,000 of his debts from the 2020 campaign as of March 31.
