Trump's false claims about the 2020 election are casting a shadow over Georgia's GOP runoffs

ATLANTA (AP) — For Donald Trump, it seems the 2020 presidential election is never over. That's especially true in Georgia.

The Republican president’s years of false claims that his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden was due to widespread fraud have shadowed many elections since in the presidential battleground. The issue is almost certain to play a role in a four-week runoff campaign as GOP voters choose nominees for governor, secretary of state and the U.S. Senate.

Among the contenders: one of Trump’s alternate electors in his attempt to overturn Biden’s win in the state, a Trump acolyte who won his first congressional race while saying Trump won in 2020 and a secretary of state hopeful who echoes Trump’s conspiracy theories as he vies to become Georgia’s top elections official.

To be clear, Georgia's presidential votes were counted three times, including once by hand, and each one affirmed Biden's victory.

The primary came amid continued legal and political wrangling over how elections are managed in Fulton County — home to heavily Democratic Atlanta. Trump's questioning of the Georgia results and longtime criticism of Fulton County elections were supercharged earlier this year when the FBI searched the county’s election office, seizing ballots and records from 2020.

The primary election's first-round results showed that siding with Trump, even on his election lies, is good politics within the GOP. Georgia candidates who opposed Trump’s efforts in 2020 got trounced. But some conservatives worry that misplaying the issue — or emphasizing it at all — could backfire with the general electorate in November.

“We’re going to look stupid,” warned Debbie Dooley, an early tea party organizer who supported Trump from the outset of his first presidential campaign. “What are you going to say — Trump won, and he was always the president? It serves no purpose.”

She said Republicans should instead focus on the economy, and that any mention of election procedures should look to “securing future elections, looking forward.”

Whether Trump sees it that way is another question. The president already has endorsed Burt Jones, one of his 2020 alternate electors, in the governor’s race. Dooley, who is backing Jones, said she wouldn't be surprised if Trump comes to Georgia to campaign — and air his 2020 grievances again.

“I don’t know if the president gets it or not,” she said.

A 2020 Trump fake elector in the governor's race

Jones was a state lawmaker in 2020 when he joined Trump’s cause to overturn Biden’s 11,779-vote margin in Georgia. He parlayed that loyalty into winning the lieutenant governor’s office in 2022 and getting Trump’s early endorsement in his bid for a promotion. On Tuesday, he won about four out of 10 Republican votes.

Trump and Jones don’t revisit the details, but Trump has praised Jones multiple times on his Truth Social platform for his loyalty while Jones has promoted “election integrity.”

Jones’ runoff rival, billionaire and political newcomer Rick Jackson, is among the Republicans who does not talk much about the 2020 election. But he spent a slice of the $83 million he invested in his own campaign on an ad attacking outgoing Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, another GOP candidate for governor who resisted Trump’s urging to help find “find 11,800 votes” to reverse Biden’s victory in 2020.

In the ad, a child is shown asking his mother why she chose the name Brad. The mother replies that her second choice was “Judas” – in the New Testament account, the name of the disciple who betrays Jesus to Roman authorities. The full name “Brad ‘Judas’ Raffensperger” appeared on the screen at the end of the spot.

Raffensperger finished a distant third in this week's primary, with just 15% of the vote.

Senate primary leader said Democrats stole 2020

Rep. Mike Collins, who led the Senate GOP primary with about 40% of the vote, has never backed off his false claims that Biden’s win was rigged, an argument he featured when he first ran for Congress in 2022.

“You count the legal votes that were cast in the state of Georgia, Donald Trump won this state. Period,” he said in one ad, in which he held a long gun and bemoaned the “federal hijacking” of the 2020 election. He concluded with shooting a mock voting machine.

Collins’ runoff rival, former college football coach and political newcomer Derek Dooley, has been more circumspect. But both men are pledging fealty to Trump, with the president thus far not endorsing in the race to determine who will challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.

It’s notable that Dooley’s main political benefactor is outgoing Gov. Brian Kemp, who like Raffensperger drew Trump’s ire in 2020 for certifying Biden’s slate of electors.

Kemp ran for and won reelection in 2022, saying Republicans should look forward instead of relitigating the 2020 election. Trump eventually made up with Kemp during the 2024 presidential campaign, and advisers to both men say Kemp has discussed the Senate contest with the president.

A conspiracy theorist in the race to succeed Raffensperger

State Rep. Tim Fleming, a former deputy secretary of state, and former state Rep. Vernon Jones, a Trump loyalist and perennial candidate, were the top vote-getters in the contest for secretary of state and will face off next month.

Jones, a former Democrat, embraced Trump's “stop the steal” movement and said during an Atlanta Press Club debate last month, “I stand with those who believe there was election fraud.”

Fleming, who worked under Kemp when the governor was secretary of state, has said there were “irregularities” in the 2020 election — a buzz word among Republicans who stop short of echoing Trump without refuting him. But Fleming said he believes the state has made great strides since then in improving elections and said he wants to focus on future elections.

Fleming and Jones far outpaced one of Raffensperger's top aides, Gabriel Sterling, who gained attention in December 2020 for urging Trump to help discourage threats of violence against election workers. Sterling got 12% of the primary vote, finishing fourth.

Heavily Democratic Fulton County remains a Trump, GOP target

Trump has long fixated on Fulton County, alleging it was the center of Georgia fraud in 2020. The FBI seized 2020 ballots and documents from the county elections offices in January, and the county remained a punching bag for Republicans through vote tabulations on Tuesday.

During voting hours, two voting precincts were closed for four hours in an Atlanta suburb after police received a call about possible gunfire and a suspicious person wearing military-style clothing. While the incident was unrelated to the primary, a judge ordered the precincts to stay open until 11 p.m. to make up for the lost time, and Fulton officials said the law prevented them from releasing any results until those precincts were closed.

State Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Republican runoff candidate for lieutenant governor, tried to capitalize on the delay, despite the fact that he's seeking an office with no role over tabulating ballots or certifying elections.

“Here we are on Election Night, Georgians are anxiously awaiting the results, and which county hasn’t even started reporting? It’s always Fulton County,” Dolezal posted on social media. “It’s time for Georgia to takeover the process. We will not have another 2020 this November!”