In a hypothetical main matchup, Kemp would lead Perdue and numerous different challengers — however he’d be shy of the vast majority of the vote wanted to keep away from a runoff with Perdue. However the ballot additionally examined a potential situation through which Trump endorsed Perdue in a main towards Kemp and located the previous senator would flip the script, pulling forward of the governor, 41 p.c to 26 p.c, giving Perdue the higher hand going right into a runoff towards the incumbent.
“We discovered that Brian Kemp is a weak incumbent that could possibly be very prone to a powerful main problem,” Fabrizio and two of his companions, David Lee and Travis Tunis, write in a memo outlining the outcomes of the survey, including, “Trump’s endorsement of David Perdue would utterly upend the race.”
Representatives for Kemp didn’t reply to requests for remark. Perdue didn’t instantly reply to a message looking for remark.
Trump has been fixated on Kemp, whom he has accused of doing too little to intervene in Georgia’s vote depend following a 2020 election that noticed President Joe Biden win the state by two-tenths of a share level, or 11,779 votes. In a press release issued earlier this month, Trump celebrated Kemp getting “booed off the stage” at a Georgia GOP perform.
“It’s superb how the folks get what occurred in Georgia, and elsewhere! The election was rigged, and everyone is aware of it,” Trump added, saying that Kemp “did completely nothing.”
Kemp responded to the criticism throughout an look on Fox Information radio a day later, noting that he “supported” Trump’s authorized challenges however “merely needed to observe the regulation and the structure as soon as the secretary of state licensed the election.” (The votes in Georgia’s November election had been recounted after the preliminary vote tally, with no important change within the outcomes.)
Perdue has but to touch upon a potential gubernatorial run, although he has dominated out a comeback Senate bid in 2022, regardless of pleas from occasion leaders. Republicans are aggressively concentrating on Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who received a January particular election for the state’s different seat.
Trump has brazenly inspired former NFL star Herschel Walker to mount a Georgia Senate bid, although Walker has but to decide to working. Based on the ballot, Walker obtained the assist of 54 p.c of seemingly Republican main voters, far forward of others within the area and above the bulk threshold to keep away from a runoff. Based on the ballot memo, if voters had been knowledgeable that Walker had Trump’s endorsement, Walker’s assist would rise to 67 p.c.
Kemp is one in every of a number of Republicans who Trump is attempting to dislodge in 2022 primaries. The previous president can be aggressively concentrating on Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), an outspoken critic who backed Trump’s impeachment over his function within the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Early this 12 months, Trump’s PAC commissioned an analogous ballot testing Cheney’s vulnerability in a Republican nomination contest.