ATLANTA – Former U.S. Sen. David Perdue is expected to announce his candidacy for Georgia governor as soon as today, Washington, D.C.-based Politico reported Sunday.
Perdue is an ally of former President Donald Trump, who has been urging him for months to challenge incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in next May’s GOP primary.
Kemp angered Trump when he refused to help him overturn the results of last year’s presidential election in Georgia. Democrat Joe Biden carried the Peach State by fewer than 12,000 votes, the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since Bill Clinton in 1992.
Perdue’s announcement will come less than a week after Democrat Stacey Abrams, who lost to Kemp in 2018 by a narrow margin, formally entered the gubernatorial race again.
While Abrams looks to have a clear path to the Democratic nomination, the primary contest between Kemp and Perdue is sure to aggravate divisions already apparent inside Georgia’s Republican Party between Trump loyalists and those who want the GOP to put last year’s election behind and move forward.
Democrats responded to word of Perdue’s candidacy by labeling him a “failed” senator.
Perdue finished first in last year’s general election but fell short of the 50%-plus-one margin needed to win reelection to a second term. He then lost a runoff to Democrat Jon Ossoff last January.
“Republicans like Brian Kemp and David Perdue have failed Georgians at every level of leadership,” said Scott Hogan, executive director of the Democratic Party of Georgia.
“No matter who emerges from Republicans’ messy, race-to-the-right gubernatorial primary, voters know that Democrats are the only ones who will deliver on the issues Georgians care about, like recovering from COVID-19 and expanding access to health care.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.