Incumbent Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger talks with supporters during an election night party Tuesday evening, May 24, 2022, at a small restaurant in Peachtree Corners, Ga.
The Georgia governor's race wasn't the only Trump grudge match that backfired on the former president. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who personally rejected Trump's call to "find" enough votes to declare him the winner in Georgia, defeated his Trump-backed primary challenger as well.
Trump recruited U.S. Rep. Jody Hice from a safe congressional seat to face Raffensperger in the Republican primary, but Hice lost. Trump endorsed primary challengers to the insurance commissioner and attorney general, and they, too, lost.
It's clear the former president's harping on 2020 simply did not speak to Republican voters in Georgia, the country's newest battleground state.
"Georgia underscores one of Trump's big problems if/when he runs again," Brendan Buck, a former spokesperson for onetime House Speaker Paul Ryan, tweeted Tuesday. "He, of course, won't be able to let go of the 2020 nonsense, and nobody wants to hear his whining about it anymore."
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Trump has scored some primary victories with election deniers — most significantly last week in Pennsylvania, when Republican voters there chose his preferred gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who said he wouldn't have certified Biden's 2020 win of the state.
But multiple Republicans have made clear they're eyeing 2024 presidential bids, including Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. And they have distanced themselves in ways large and small from Trump's election allegations. Elections are usually about the future, and by the time the 2024 GOP primary rolls around, November 2020 will be ancient history.
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