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Tag: 2022 georgia gop primary
Mike Pence

Tweaking Trump, Pence Will Campaign With Kemp In Georgia

In a scathing rebuke to his former partner at the White House, former Vice President Mike Pence has announced plans to campaign with Georgia Governor Brian Kemp on the eve of Georgia’s May 24 Republican primary.

Pence will headline Kemp’s election eve rally in defiance of former President Trump, who has repeatedly assailed the state governor for refusing to partake in a collective Trumpworld effort to subvert and overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.

Pence called Kemp “one of the most successful conservative governors in America” in a statement and on Twitter.

"Brian Kemp is my friend, a man dedicated to faith, family and the people of Georgia,” Pence stated. “I am proud to offer my full support for four more years of Brian Kemp as governor of the great state of Georgia.”

The endorsement, as US News put it, is the “ political equivalent of a raised middle finger” at Trump, who attacked the former VP repeatedly for certifying the results of the 2020 elections despite numerous calls from Trump and delusional far-right elements in his circle to overturn the elections.

"Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution," Trump said in a tweet on January 6, 2021, shortly after Pence refused to overturn the election results and right as a pro-Trump mob was breaching the sacred halls of Congress.

Two months later, in an exclusive interview, Trump defended the rioters who called for Pence’s hanging. “No, I thought he was well-protected, and I had heard that he was in good shape … because, uh, I heard he was in very good shape,” he said.

In February, Pence refuted Trump, saying the former president was “wrong” in alleging that then-Vice President Pence had the sole power to overturn the 2020 election results.

A month after that, Pence came swinging again — this time, at Trump and the Russia-loving arm of the Republican party. “There is no room in this party for apologists for Putin,” Pence said at a Republican National Committee retreat.

Prominent Republicans have endorsed candidates who Trump opposes, but Pence, who might be the most prominent of the group, has shown his willingness to buck the former president and his political ambitions.

Still angered by the stinging loss to the then-Democrat candidate for president Joe Biden, Trump has doled endorsements to his loyalists and attacked those who refused to parrot the Big Lie.

Trump has campaigned, raised money, and ran TV attack ads for Kemp’s opponent, former Senator David Perdue, who has long since pledged allegiance to Trump and his false claims of widespread voter fraud.

However, Kemp remains the strong favorite in polls, leading Perdue by an average of 22.3 percentage points in the hotly-contested primary. Leading GOP members are confident Kemp will win 50 percent of the vote to bypass a run-off with Perdue, per Politico.

Despite commanding the increasingly vocal MAGA wing of the GOP, Trump has endorsed some candidates who eventually failed to win their primaries. Last week Charles Herbster, the GOP candidate Trump endorsed in Nebraska’s governorship race, lost to a candidate endorsed by the state’s governor.

GOP Senate Candidate In Georgia Says Existence Of Apes Disproves Evolution

GOP Senate Candidate In Georgia Says Existence Of Apes Disproves Evolution

Trump-endorsed Georgia Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate,Herschel Walker, revealed on Sunday that he is a science-denying religious extremist. Walker wrongly insisted the existence of apes dispels the scientific theory of evolution, and there was no Big Bang Theory. He attributes all of creation to God.

“I tell you something else I heard – now think about this,” Walker very proudly told the pastor of Georgia’s Sugar Hill Church, Chuck Allen, “at one time, science said, man came from apes.”

"Did it not?” Walker, a former college and pro-football star asked, pointing at the audience. “Well, what is interesting though, if that is true, why are there still apes?”

“Think about it,” Walker pressed.

HuffPost’s Amanda Terkel, who first reported Walker’s false anti-science beliefs, explains he “gets some basic facts wrong”:

Humans did not evolve from the apes that you see at the zoo. Rather, humans and apes have a common (and now extinct) ancestor that lived roughly 10 million years ago. Technically, all humans are apes, but that doesn’t mean that chimpanzees are one step away from becoming people. Walker’s summary of evolution is incorrect, and there’s nothing incompatible about humans coexisting with other apes.

Walker then explained that, according to him, God is necessary for “the conception of a baby.”

“Let me tell you, science can’t do that. They are trying to do it but they can’t because there had to be a God.

“So when God came and said, ‘Now let me create this.’ And God created the earth. And he put Adam and Eve there, and stuff.”

After some rambling remarks likening the United States to the biblical Garden of Eden, because of “freedom,” Walker declared, “I tell people this, I’m not trying to teach you to love Jesus. I love him. You can like who you want to like, but I’m going to tell you there’s only one of them. There’s only one god, there’s only one Jesus. So if you’d go in with the wrong horse, I’m sorry for you. I’ll tell you I love Jesus.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also backs Walker.

Watch:


Trump Ally Perdue To Challenge Georgia GOP Governor Kemp In Primary

Trump Ally Perdue To Challenge Georgia GOP Governor Kemp In Primary

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. Senator David Perdue plans to challenge Georgia Governor Brian Kemp in next year's election, U.S. media reported on Sunday, opening a new Republican Party rift in a battleground state that handed Democrats their current U.S. Senate majority.

Perdue intends to make his announcement in a video on Monday and file his campaign paper work at the same time, Politico and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, citing unnamed sources briefed on his plans.

Neither Perdue nor the Georgia Republican Party were immediately available to comment.

The reports said Perdue, a wealthy businessman, was recruited to run for governor by former President Donald Trump, after Kemp refused to help block November 2020 election results in the state that contributed to Democrat Joe Biden winning the presidency.

Voting rights activist Stacey Abrams announced on Wednesday that she would run for the Democratic Party's gubernatorial nomination in Georgia, her second bid for the office.

Trump's false claims about widespread election fraud have been blamed for dividing Georgia Republicans ahead of a pair of U.S. Senate run-off elections last January, in which Perdue was defeated by Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff. Former Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler also lost to Democrat Raphael Warnock in the run-offs.

Responding to the Sunday media reports, a Kemp campaign spokesman blasted Perdue as "the man who lost Republicans the United States Senate."

"Governor Kemp has a proven track record of fighting the radical left to put hardworking Georgians first," Kemp spokesman Cody Hall said in a statement.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Susan Heavey; editing by Mary Milliken and Grant McCool)