Donald Trump’s Georgia face plant

| 4:00 pm EST January 6, 2021
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There was a theory, and even some polling evidence behind it, to suggest that Donald Trump’s ranting about the stolen election would ruin the GOP’s chances of retaining the Senate. A number of election analysts were skeptical – suspecting that the fickle turnout of Democrats that typically occurs during special elections could help Mitch McConnell keep the Senate.

The low GOP turnout in the Jan 5 Georgia runoffs suggests otherwise – hearkening back to a familiar pattern we’ve seen over the last four years: Voters who only come out if Donald Trump is on the ballot. In 2019, he couldn’t even get his base to turn out for what should have been easy gubernatorial wins in Kentucky and Louisiana. Sure enough, it was the case again with the January runoffs, as Democrats won both seats and retook the Senate.

The good news is that it wasn’t just the runoffs that Trump attacked in his tantrums over losing – there’s data to suggest that he did some considerable damage even before the tape of his phone call with Brad Raffensperger. From November to late December, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s unfavorability rating jumped ten points according to a NewsSurvey Poll.

It wasn’t just one poll, either, with a Fox 5 Atlanta poll showing nearly half of voters disapproving of his performance as governor, and the conservative Trafalgar even went so far as to sample Republican voters and found a majority would support rabid Trumper Doug Collins in a primary challenge against Kemp in 2022, if given the option.

This all amounts to very bad news for Brian Kemp when he’s up for re-election in 2022, particularly when he only won the governorship by a thin margin in 2018. It’s one of many targets we need to set our sights on for the midterms. Donald Trump already admitted he regrets endorsing Kemp for governor – now we have to make Kemp regret that endorsement even more.