By
Ed Kilgore,
political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015
Georgia gubernatorial candidate Burt Jones, beneficiary of endorsements from both Trump and Kemp.
Of all the political battlegrounds of the Trump era, Georgia is arguably the most complex. After nearly a century of being a one-party Democratic bastion, it was dominated by Republicans for several decades before becoming decisively “purple” in 2020. In that year, Georgia narrowly gave Joe Biden its electoral votes and elected two Democratic U.S. senators, giving Democrats Senate control and a governing trifecta in Washington. A dispute over the legitimacy of that election nearly broke the state’s GOP in half. Two Republicans, Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, certified Biden’s election, infuriating Donald Trump. The then-former president tried to primary both men in 2022 and failed miserably. To this day, there’s been nothing remotely like it in GOP politics.
