ATLANTA – U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, would have been the safe choice in Gov. Brian Kemp’s search to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga.
A leading voice against impeaching President Donald Trump on the House Judiciary Committee, Collins was the president’s favorite to move to the other side of the Capitol as Isakson’s interim successor. The conservative lawyer who served in the General Assembly and did a tour of duty in Iraq with the U.S. Air Force is popular with the Republican base that elected Kemp last year.
But it wasn’t lost on the GOP governor that his margin of victory over Democrat Stacey Abrams was a lot smaller than wins scored by Nathan Deal and Sonny Perdue, Kemp’s two Republican predecessors.
Bolstered by votes from suburban white women, a group the GOP had dominated in Georgia since the turn of the century, Abrams came within fewer than two points of becoming the Peach State’s first Democratic governor since Perdue derailed Roy Barnes’ bid for a second term in 2002.
So, Kemp tapped Atlanta businesswoman Kelly Loeffler last Wednesday to step into Isakson’s shoes come January, a political newcomer who has scored her previous successes as CEO of a Bitcoin-focused affiliate off Intercontinental Exchange Inc., headed by husband Jeff Sprecher, and as co-owner of the Atlanta Dream of women’s pro basketball.
Even if word of Loeffler’s appointment hadn’t been widely leaked in the news media in the days leading up to the announcement, the governor’s selection of a woman for the Senate post shouldn’t have come as a surprise, said Kerwin Swint, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University.
It fits a pattern of encouraging diversity Kemp began setting last February during his first six weeks in office when he named Allen Poole, an African-American, director of the Georgia Office of Highway Safety. The governor followed that up in June by appointing Doraville Police Chief John King state insurance commissioner following the indictment of Jim Beck, making King Georgia’s first Latino statewide constitutional officer.
“He has said he was open to unconventional candidates and growing the party,” Swint said.
Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, said there’s a political upside to Kemp appointing a woman to the Senate. Bullock noted that last fall, for the first time, the percentage of votes in Georgia cast by whites dipped below 60%.
“With the electorate becoming increasingly diverse and the increasing role suburban white women are playing, making an appointment that may bring new Republican voters to the table may be rewarding for him,” Bullock said.
Bullock said another advantage to the pick is any pushback Kemp might get from the right wing of the state Republican Party over not choosing Collins likely will have dissipated by the time the governor is up for re-election in 2022.
“This may be old news by then,” he said.
In fact, Kemp can turn the selection of Loeffler to his advantage in 2022, depending on the job she does in the Senate. If she wins election next November to complete Isakson’s unexpired term, she would be on the ballot in 2022, sharing the top of the ticket with the governor to deliver a potentially potent one-two punch.