It was dark on TV. Trailing badly in the polls. Written off by Republicans in Georgia.
David Perdue's once-spirited primary challenge to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp appears to be sputtering in the home stretch ahead of Tuesday's vote.
Three Republicans who have spoken to Trump said that the man who recruited Perdue to run against Kemp seems to have given up. They say that Trump dislikes Perdue's campaign effort.
A person close to the former president said that Trump isn't planning to make any more personal appearances in Georgia for Perdue, having sunk enough of his own political capital in a race that looks like a lost cause.
David either has a bunch of geniuses working for him or he has run the most flawed campaign in America.
It is a bitter dynamic for Trump, who has made his endorsements a sign of his influence in the party and part of his implicit case to be the GOP's presidential nominee in 2024.
Kemp lost his re-election bid in Georgia because he refused to help overturn the election results. Many voters there have grown weary of Trump's involvement in the state GOP and could reject Perdue, as well as other statewide candidates he has endorsed. Herschel Walker, who is set for a big Senate primary win Tuesday, was recruited by Trump.
Donald Trump doesn't care about David Perdue winning. The lieutenant governor said that he just cared about Brian Kemp losing.
Perdue's campaign has not scheduled any ads for the final week of the campaign, while the political action committees backing him have placed about $300,000 worth of ads on the air. Kemp's campaign is set to spend more than $1 million in ads during the campaign's home stretch. The Republican Governors Association has sponsored a pro-Kemp political action committee.
Perdue's campaign hasn't been on the air in a while.
Kemp leads Perdue by 60 percent to 28 percent in a Georgia Republican survey. Two sources who have seen the polling but aren't authorized to discuss it publicly said that the results of the most recent internal campaign survey were similar.
The sense of Perdue's implosion was obvious Thursday at Kemp's two rallies, where he repeatedly name-checked his likely general election opponent, and didn't mention Perdue at all.
Kemp encouraged Republicans to go out and vote on Tuesday.
Matt Towery, a pollster who has surveyed the race, said it was hard to see how this race was not over.
Towery said that Perdue doesn't have commercials on TV and went dark two weeks ago, but Kemp is up.
Gingrich told NBC News that if the other lesser-known candidates gain enough support to hold Kemp below 50 percent, there's a chance of a runoff.
That is why he is spending so much. He said that this is the election for him.
Some allies are trying to shield Trump from blame. A close Trump ally said that even though Trump is popular inside the GOP, he can't save a candidate who is weak.
Eric Johnson, a former state Senate GOP leader and adviser to former Sen. Kelly loeffler, compared the University of Georgia football team to Georgia Tech.
Unlike Ohio and Pennsylvania, we have an incumbent with a solid record who is working hard. It's not enough.
Outside political committees have spent money on TV to criticize Kemp's record. Perdue and his campaign have spent about $6 million on commercials, including $400,000 from Trump's super PAC, while Kemp and the political committees backing him have dropped at least $10.5 million on air.
Kemp enjoyed the benefits of incumbency by earning more free media coverage while raising more money, but the pace of Kemp's spending has only accelerated, and fresh from a legislative session in which he cut taxes and signed conservative bills into the law, he also enjoyed the benefits of incumbe
Jay Williams, a Georgia-based GOP strategist, said it is difficult to beat a Republican incumbent when they did a good job on the economy and conservative policies.
Perdue's campaign has come under question in Georgia, where The Atlanta Journal Constitution asked "Where in the world is David Perdue?" The report was disputed by a Perdue spokesman.
Is it hard to find? She pointed out that NBC News reporters have covered his events, which are posted publicly on our website voteperdue.com/events.
Perdue's website showed six events scheduled for Friday and Saturday in the race's final days. Perdue is set to unveil an endorsement from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Friday as she tries to resurrect her political career by running for Congress in her home state.
The two Republicans who spoke with Trump about Perdue said he needed to do more. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they didn't have authorization to publicly discuss internal deliberations, said Trump's political operation relayed its displeasure to the Perdue campaign, which they said made excuses or denied there was a problem.
A Trump adviser said that Trump spent money on TV for Perdue, paid for digital advertising, and sent out emails and text messages for him.
Duncan said the end of Perdue's bid for governor reminded him of his failed campaign against Ossoff.
I don't know if it's bad advice or not. I will let him describe it. We saw the runoff. He didn't show up to the debate. He wasn't making a lot of appearances. A low-energy run through the finish line. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know you're supposed to sprint through the finish line. It is exciting to watch Brian Kemp do that.
Vernon Jones decided to run for Georgia's 10th Congressional District to give Perdue an easier chance to beat Kemp in a one-on-one race without the threat of a runoff.
Patrick Witt left the congressional race to challenge Insurance Commissioner John F. King, who is an ally of Kemp. Witt was endorsed by Trump.
Chris Carr is an ally of Kemp who refused to help overturn the 2020 election. The Secretary of State refused to help overturn the 2020 election and Trump backed Jody Hice in her attempt to oust him.
The office secretly recorded Trump trying to convince Raffensperger to vote for him in order to make him the winner.
Advisers to the three campaigns who all spoke with internal campaign thinking all said that Carr and King expected to win. The only other win expected for Trump on Tuesday night would be in the GOP Senate race, but it appears that Sen. Jones will win the race for lieutenant governor.
The influence of Trump's endorsement is limited in the Georgia races, but Republicans still admire and like him. Some conservatives were bothered by his involvement in the races.
Mary Patrick, the GOP chairwoman in Jasper County, on the outskirts of the Atlanta metro region, said many were mad that Trump endorsed Mehmet Oz in the Senate race in Pennsylvania.
He needs to stay out of it in Georgia because people there are upset that he endorsed Dr. Oz. We like his policies, but most people think he has gotten too involved in things that don't matter to him.
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