In the weeks leading up to the election, then-Sen. According to a new book by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's political reporter Greg Bluestein, David Perdue told top Republican aides that the party needed to work harder to boost GOP turnout in Georgia, and warned Donald Trump that they were both facing close races.
Georgia has not supported a Democratic presidential nominee since 1992 and Republicans have dominated statewide races in the state for most of the last decade.
Nevertheless, Perdue continued to discuss turnout strategy to advisors in Trump's orbit, but he was largely rejected by conservatives who felt that the party remained dominant in the state.
The book said Perdue had been hounding the Trump team to step up their game in Georgia, only to be reassured that he would easily win.
Perdue received voter data from his campaign team that showed the shakiness of his electoral standing, and the senator saw early and absentee voting numbers coming from some of the most conservative parts of the state.
Perdue immediately appealed to Trump to plan a course of action before the election.
He told the commander-in-chief that the polls show it is even in Georgia.
Trump was taken aback by the appeal because Perdue rarely requested favors from him.
He told the senator he would make one last pit stop in Georgia even though his advisors said it was a waste of time.
On November 1, Trump squeezed in a last-minute rally in Rome, Georgia, with just hours to spare before the election.
In Georgia, a record 1.3 million ballots had already been cast before the election. By this point, Republicans were paying more attention to turnout numbers, but the pool of voters was no longer up for grabs.
Perdue came out ahead in his race against Ossoff, but he sat at just under 50% of the vote, just below the majority needed to win. The Democratic nominee in the second Senate race would be the Rev. Raphael Warnock.
In Georgia, Biden cut into GOP margins in cities and majority-Black rural counties. Some of the most reliably Republican voters in the state once resided in the vote-rich Atlanta suburbs.
When Biden took the lead and was eventually certified as the winner in Georgia, Trump alleged voter fraud, a position that he has continued to take, despite no evidence of election malfeasance. He made political enemies of the Secretary of State and the Gov. Kemp by protesting the election results.
Perdue and Loeffler lost their Senate elections in January 2021, due to low turnout in rural areas and Trump's inability to focus on their races.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
