On Day 1 of GOP Primary, Kemp and Perdue Preview Nasty Intra-Party Brawl That Completely Ignores Needs of Georgians

In the first 24 hours since failed former Senator David Perdue’s announcement that he will challenge Brian Kemp in the GOP gubernatorial primary, Kemp and Perdue went all-in on attacking each other -– previewing a GOP primary that will be focused on nasty personal infighting rather than on issues that affect Georgians.

“After just one day, the GOP gubernatorial primary has become nothing more than a nasty intra-party brawl that completely ignores the actual needs of working families in Georgia,” said Rebecca Galanti, spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Georgia. “It’s abundantly clear that Brian Kemp and David Perdue care more about attacking one another than offering any real plans or ideas to help Georgians.”

Here’s a Day One recap of what will be a long and vicious GOP primary:

• Perdue and Kemp call each other failures and debate who is the bigger loser. Perdue announced his candidacy by saying that “[Kemp] has failed all of us and cannot win in November. Instead of protecting our elections, he…cost us two Senate seats.” Kemp hit back, saying: “Perdue’s only reason for running is to soothe his own bruised ego, because his campaign for U.S Senate failed to inspire voters at the ballot box — twice. [..] Perdue is best known for ducking debates, padding his stock portfolio during a pandemic, and losing winnable races.”
   
• Perdue pushes election lies and issues veiled threats about accepting election results. On Hannity, Perdue slammed Kemp for not overturning the thrice-confirmed 2020 presidential election, declaring “over my dead body will we ever do what Kemp did.” He doubled down on this violent insinuation later on the Martha Zoller show, saying, “over my dead body will we ever turn our elections over to” the Democratic candidate. In his announcement video and interviews since launching his campaign, Perdue has cited debunked claims of voter fraud as his part of his inspiration for running and said he will make sure the “voting integrity issue is taken care of.”
   
• Kemp goes scorched-earth, painting Perdue as an out-of-touch crook. Ahead of Perdue’s announcement, Kemp chided Perdue for hiding behind “the gates of his coastal estate.” Following Perdue’s official launch, Kemp wasted no time launching an opposition website knocking Perdue for stock trades during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying “Georgians suffered, yet Perdue cashed in and made millions using insider information and conducting questionable stock trades.” 
   
• Trump wades in, peddling more conspiracy theories and promising the messy GOP primary Republicans had hoped to avoid. After convincing Perdue to challenge Kemp, Trump officially endorsed him Monday night, saying, “Brian Kemp has failed Georgia…and allowed massive Election Fraud to take place,” adding that Kemp “can’t win because the MAGA base–which is enormous–will never vote for him.”

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