ATLANTA – Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan isn’t running for reelection.
That means he’s free to offer his opinions on former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s current political trajectory, which he’s done in a new book entitled “GOP 2.0: How the 2020 Election Can Lead to a Better Way Forward for America’s Conservative Party.”
“The book began before the last national election debacle that played out also here in Georgia,” said Duncan, who remains a supporter of Trump’s policies but has become a nationally outspoken critic of the former president himself.
“We have to find a better way to talk about our politics and move forward with the party. It’s becoming an unwinnable strategy, and Donald Trump has zero percent chance of becoming president again in 2024. The sooner we come to grips with that reality, the better it will be for the Republican Party.”
Duncan had a front row seat as Georgia became the focus of Trump’s national battle to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“I didn’t start out to take on a sitting president as I wrote the book,” he said. “But Trump forgot to remind 250 million American voters why our conservative values are so good and what he stood for.”
“A vocal portion of the Republican Party had become unquestioning followers of the man in the White House,” Duncan writes in his new book. “He had convinced these good people that if you didn’t carry his same tone and support his every decision, you were with them, not him.
“When the president strayed from long-standing Republican positions, his fans went right along, egged on by other party leaders. At the extreme, some acted as if anyone who dissented didn’t count — as a member of the party or, increasingly, simply as a citizen. A chilling tone had descended on the party: You’re either with us or against us. … That’s not how you govern a state like Georgia.”
Duncan, who was elected to the state House in 2012 following the 2011 House redistricting, is finishing up his one and only term as lieutenant governor. Earlier this year, he announced he would not seek reelection after contradicting Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.
Now, Duncan acknowledges a freedom to express his political views without worrying about future electoral ramifications.
“It’s an unfair reality, and it shouldn’t be the case, but Trump was continuing to wreak havoc inside the state and trying to disrupt the election process from top to bottom,” he said.
Trump continues to have a strong presence in Georgia. He returned to Georgia back in September for the first time since the January 2021 U.S. Senate runoffs and has endorsed University of Georgia football legend Herschel Walker in his bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock next November. Duncan is taking a wait-and-see approach regarding the first-time candidate.
“It’s encouraging to see Walker beginning to distance himself from Trump,” Duncan said. “Some of his recent ads don’t mention the former president. It’s going to be imperative for him to continue doing that, because it doesn’t help the party or the nation for him to win a primary and then lose a general election. … We still need to figure out who Herschel Walker is.”
Duncan is noncommittal about his future political plans.
“I enjoy the job of lieutenant governor,” he said. “In Georgia, conservative values over the last 18 months have balanced lives and livelihoods more than any other state in the country. I’m not certain about my future, but I want to build support for using empathy to grow the conservative tent.
“We have to find a better way to talk about our politics and move forward with the party. The last election shows honesty should be our No.-1 political philosophy. We have to look for opportunities to put our conservatism on display.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of downtown and Midtown Atlanta Friday as the World Series-champion Atlanta Braves held a massive parade.
The parade began at Five Points in downtown as World Series MVP Jorge Soler, face-of-the-franchise Freddie Freeman and the entire team and front office drove along Peachtree Street.
From downtown, the parade proceeded through Midtown, where it halted at Peachtree and 10th streets and relocated to Cobb County and Truist Park.
Another celebration was set to begin later Friday in The Battery, the Braves’ nationally recognized entertainment complex outside Truist Park.
The parade began at noon with dozens of motorcycled law enforcement officials moving along Peachtree across from Woodruff Park. Brave General Manager Alex Anthopoulos, whose mid-season moves to remake the team’s depleted outfield sparked the World Series run, was in one of the first vehicles.
Gov. Brian Kemp got in on the Braves’ excitement, proclaiming Nov. 5 as Atlanta Braves Day and encouraging all Georgians to join in celebrating the team’s second world championship since moving to Atlanta in 1966.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The new legislative maps Georgia Republicans proposed this week are fair and provide multiple opportunities for minority representation, the chairman of the state Senate’s Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee said Thursday.
But advocates for voting rights and minority groups attacked both the content and timing of the maps during the their first public airing since Republican leaders released them on Tuesday.
State Sen. John Kennedy, R-Macon, the committee’s chairman, painstakingly outlined each of the 56 proposed Senate districts during the first portion of Thursday’s hearing.
He acknowledged the process of creating the new maps has been compressed because U.S. Census data wasn’t released until August.
Under the proposed map, Democrats could gain up to three seats, reflecting the growth of Georgia’s minority populations, voters who historically have supported Democratic candidates. The GOP currently holds the majority in the chamber with 34 seats, to 22 for the Democrats.
During a series of public hearings held across the state during the summer, members of civil rights and voting rights groups urged Republicans to take minority population growth into account when drawing new legislative and congressional district maps.
Kennedy and other Republicans on the committee stressed the new map is less politically divisive than others drawn back when Democrats controlled the General Assembly.
“In 2001, Democrats paired 12 of 56 incumbents, including 10 of 24 Republicans, but only two of 32 Democrats were paired,” Kennedy said. “These new maps are respectful of incumbents returning but also include 14 majority-Black districts and 20 non-white majority districts.”
Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, who is vice chair of the committee, said the proposed maps comply with state and federal voting laws. He said the maps were created after 11 hearings held around the state, including several online public hearings.
Other Republicans said the Senate map includes requests from the Democratic Party, recognizes state and federal constitutional requirements, and acknowledges past instances of racially polarized voting.
But Janet Grant, vice chair of the nonprofit Fair Districts Georgia, said the GOP map is too partisan.
Grant said the Princeton Gerrymandering Project gave the Democratic Caucus an “A” for an alternative Senate map Democrats released last week in terms of fairness and overall representation and handed the Republican map an “F.”
“There’s an opportunity to improve these maps from both a partisanship perspective and a competitive perspective,” Grant said.
Cowsert questioned Princeton’s methodology in developing its grade.
Salik Sohani, a volunteer for the Georgia Muslim Voter Project, complained that the release of both the GOP House and Senate maps came on a municipal election day throughout the state.
“The only way I found out about the maps was to follow the General Assembly’s Twitter feed,” Sohani said. He urged the committee to reconsider the maps and provide more transparency and translations for non-English-speaking and hearing-impaired residents.
Stephanie Ali, policy director of the New Georgia Project, complained that the committee has scheduled a meeting on Friday to possibly vote on the Senate map during a parade to celebrate the Atlanta Braves World Series championship.
Also on Friday, the House Legislative & Congressional Reapportionment Committee will hold its first meeting on the proposed House map.
The General Assembly redraws Georgia’s congressional and legislative district maps every 10 years to account for population shifts reflected in the U.S. Census.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The Republican Party’s huge wins Tuesday in Virginia have shaken the national political landscape to such a degree that Georgia’s 2022 U.S. Senate race is now considered a toss-up.
That’s according to the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. In the Virginia governor’s race, Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe, a longtime associate of both former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, and a former Virginia governor himself.
Fellow Republicans Winsome Sears and Jason Miyares captured the lieutenant governor and attorney general posts, respectively. It also appears Republicans have taken the majority in the state House of Delegates, claiming at least 51 of the chamber’s 100 seats.
Democrats now hold a narrow majority in Virginia’s state Senate.
“Needless to say, this is a horrible result for Democrats, and for the White House,” writes the center’s Larry Sabato.
Now, Sabato is revising his nationally publicized Crystal Ball, and is now calling Georgia’s U.S. Senate race next year from Leans Democratic to Toss Up.
“Given the usual presidential party midterm drag, and the poor environment, our ratings are just too bullish on Democrats,” Sabato wrote.
Several Republicans are seeking the opportunity to face incumbent Rev. Raphael Warnock next November – University of Georgia football legend (and first-time political candidate) Herschel Walker and Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, along with Latham Saddler, Kelvin King, James Nestor and Jared Craig.
Walker is widely considered the frontrunner in terms of cash, name recognition and endorsements, including from former President Donald Trump and the top two Republicans in the U.S. Senate: Mitch McConnell from Kentucky and Missouri’s John Thune.
“While we have not been particularly impressed with Republican candidate recruiting in these races —Walker seems like a particularly risky choice in Georgia, assuming he wins the nomination — these moves are almost entirely about the environment,” Sabato wrote.
Sabato also has changed his projections from Leans Democratic to Toss Up in Arizona for Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly and for Democratic Sen. C. Cotez Masto in Nevada. The Senate seat now held by Democrat Michael Bennet of Colorado is being changed from Safe Democratic to Leans Democratic.
“There were a lot of electoral questions that the Virginia gubernatorial race was well-positioned to help answer,” Sabato wrote. “Could Republicans make up ground in the suburbs with Donald Trump no longer in the White House? Would Republican voters turn out in force with Trump gone?
“Could Democrats fall even further in heavily white, rural/small town areas? Was the history that suggested holding the White House is a burden for the presidential party in Virginia still operative?
“Unfortunately for Democrats, and fortunately for Republicans, the answers to all of these questions were a resounding ‘yes.’ ”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Calling President Joe Biden’s COVID vaccine mandate for federal contractors “a big government power grab,” Gov. Brian Kemp said Wednesday the White House is attempting to turn employers into “the vaccine police.”
“This is a recipe for financial disaster,” Kemp said, just minutes before the General Assembly gaveled into a special redistricting session. “The Biden administration wants to invade the personal lives of thousands of Georgians and burden hundreds of businesses of all sizes.”
On Friday, Georgia joined several other Republican-led states in filing a long-threatened complaint against Biden and other federal agencies over the White House’s COVID vaccine mandate.
Kemp and Attorney General Chris Carr filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia. The lawsuit claims the mandate is unconstitutional.
Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black said Biden’s mandate could impact whether Georgia has enough workers to properly inspect food and meat.
“We need clarity on this,” said Black, who also is seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate.
“This lawsuit is not about COVID vaccines,” said Carr. “I am pro vaccine. I am vaccinated myself. This lawsuit is about Biden overstepping his authority. It’s about whether a president has the authority to run a state agency through his federal contracting power. And he does not.”
On Tuesday, the White House released the results of a poll conducted by Small Business for America’s Future, which it said shows widespread support among small businesses for encouraging vaccinations, including with workforce requirements.
The poll, conducted Oct. 18-26 among 1,032 small businesses connected through the organization’s network, found 60% of small business owners believe vaccination efforts are important to ensuring a full economic recovery from COVID-19.
It also found support (68%) for requiring vaccinations for federal government employees, and 87% of small business owners agreed that requiring companies with 100 or more employees to have all of their workers vaccinated or tested weekly will help get more Americans back to work.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
