Trump’s silence looms as Georgia GOP Senate candidates battle for nod

Today’s newsletter highlights:

Chris Carr endorses Rick Jackson.
Mayoral races in three of Georgia’s biggest cities will be decided by runoffs.
Tim Fleming’s campaign for secretary of state gets a significant congressional boost.

Loyalty test

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

President Donald Trump still hasn’t waded into Georgia’s GOP Senate runoff. Texas just showed why that silence is consuming both camps.

Ken Paxton’s rout of U.S. Sen. John Cornyn last night in the Texas GOP runoff was yet another reminder that Trump’s blessing can still reorder a Republican primary overnight, even against a four-term incumbent backed by the Senate GOP establishment.

Trump endorsed Paxton last week, and the scandal-scarred Texas attorney general quickly turned it into a loyalty test that Cornyn couldn’t survive.

Georgia Republicans, meanwhile, have been watching every signal from Mar-a-Lago and the White House.

U.S. Rep. Mike Collins has cast himself as the hard-edged MAGA loyalist in the race. Former football coach Derek Dooley has Gov. Brian Kemp and his formidable political network behind him.

Both sides are maneuvering furiously for Trump’s endorsement, or at least to keep him from blessing the other guy.

Some Republicans believe that if Trump doesn’t move this week, he may stay out altogether. But history says no one should bank on that. Trump endorsed Kemp just six days before the 2018 runoff. Paxton got his nod only last week.

The Texas result raises another question for Georgia. If Republicans are forced to spend heavily defending a seat Democrats now see as more competitive because of Paxton’s long trail of controversies, it could complicate the national GOP’s already expensive push to oust U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff.

Things to know

Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC

Good morning! Here are three things to know for today:

A new inland port in Gainesville could ease Atlanta traffic, the AJC’s Adam Van Brimmer and Zachary Hansen report.
Georgia’s liberal Democrats are celebrating primary election wins that put their coalition on track to add new voices to the General Assembly, writes the AJC’s Riley Bunch.
On the eve of a federal jury trial, Toyota has settled a lawsuit blaming it for the fatal carbon monoxide poisoning of an Atlanta man, the AJC’s Rosie Manins reports.

Carr’s move

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Attorney General Chris Carr tangled repeatedly with Lt. Gov. Burt Jones throughout the GOP primary for governor. So it was little surprise when he endorsed Jones’ runoff rival Rick Jackson on Tuesday.

Carr, who finished fourth in the May vote, said Jackson would build on Kemp’s legacy by “creating jobs, backing law enforcement and looking after the best interests of all Georgians.”

Jackson, meanwhile, is trying to make his runoff pivot impossible to miss. He launched a 90-second ad airing in every Georgia media market that is partly biographical, partly a promise to upend the political order.

“I’ll spend whatever it takes to win this race, take away their power and give it back to where it belongs, to the people of Georgia, especially the hardworking men and women who have been forgotten and left in the shadows for too long just like I was,” Jackson says in the ad.

Jones opened his runoff campaign with a standing-room-only rally at a Roswell barbecue joint that drew more than 200 supporters.

He didn’t mention Carr, but he did set a lofty goal after carrying roughly 130 counties in the primary: sweeping all 159 counties in the June runoff.

And he sharpened his attack on Jackson as a billionaire trying to buy the Governor’s Mansion.

He called his opponent someone who “woke up one morning and decided they want to buy a shiny new toy called the state of Georgia.”

Tweet trail

Credit: andy calvert

Nothing ever truly disappears from the internet, as Republican John Cowan is learning during his campaign for Georgia’s 11th Congressional District.

The Rome neurosurgeon deleted his personal X account and the more than 4,000 posts it contained. But his enemies have preserved them on the Wayback Machine, an internet archive.

Anonymous emails started hitting our inboxes the day after the primary with screenshots of some tweets meant to paint Cowan as no friend of Trump or the MAGA movement. For example, on March 27, 2022, Greg Bluestein posted a photo of then-U.S. Sen. David Perdue flashing a thumbs-up sign as the crowd chanted for Kemp to be jailed.

“These are not Republicans or conservatives. It has become a cult movement to stroke the ego of one man,” a post to Cowan’s X account read.

Our brief sampling of Cowan’s online corpus reveals some posts that undoubtedly would annoy Trump, including a message posted in November 2020 questioning the crowd size of one of his rallies. But others are posts that Trump would likely approve, including those critical of former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The Cowan campaign has dismissed the criticism as “fake news.”

“Dr. Cowan is a pro-Trump conservative outsider,” the campaign said in a statement.

Regardless of the online drama, Cowan picked up a big endorsement Tuesday from former U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, who said Cowan has the judgment and the “backbone” to represent the district.

Debate drama

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Jackson and Jones have yet to agree on a date for a debate ahead of the June 16 Republican runoff for governor.

Jones finished first in last week’s primary. But he’s clamoring to debate Jackson, who has spent $93 million so far of his own money to make sure everyone with a screen in Georgia knows his name.

Jones has agreed to an Atlanta Press Club Debate on Monday. But it’s not clear if that will happen. Now, Jones’ campaign is using the debate drama to take a swipe at Jackson’s age, who is in his early 70s.

“They’re hiding Rick Jackson the way Democrats hid Joe Biden,” Kayla Lott, Jones’ campaign spokesperson, said.

Overtime

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Mayoral races in three of Georgia’s biggest cities will be decided by runoffs after Tuesday’s primaries sent them into overtime.

In Augusta, incumbent Mayor Garnett Johnson will face Steven Kendrick after they finished with 43% and 36% respectively.

In Columbus, next month’s runoff will pit longtime city manager Isaiah Hugley, who won 45% of the vote on election day, against Columbus City Council member Joanne Cogle, who won 25% of the vote. In a dramatic twist, Cogle was one of seven council members who voted last year to remove Hugley as city manager months before his scheduled retirement.

Finally, in Athens, Tim Denson, a former county commissioner, advanced to a runoff in the Athens-Clarke County mayor’s race after he finished with 38% of the vote last Tuesday. He will face Dexter Fisher, another former commissioner, who won 27% of the vote. The winner between Denson and Fisher will succeed Mayor Kelly Girtz.

Listen up

Credit: Abbey Cutrer/AJC

Today on the “Politically Georgia” podcast state Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, joins the show to talk about why she is stepping away from the state Legislature after spending years as one of the Democrats’ most prominent voices.

You can listen and subscribe to “Politically Georgia” for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

Have a question or comment for the show? Email us at politicallygeorgia@ajc.com or give us a call at 770-810-5297 and you could be featured on a future episode.

Ballpark honors

Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC

U.S. Rep. Brian Jack had a patriotic turn at the ballpark, even if the weather didn’t cooperate.

The first-term Republican hosted six students he nominated to U.S. military service academies at a Columbus Clingstones game at Synovus Park. The game was eventually rained out, but not before each appointee walked onto the field with family members and was recognized on the jumbotron.

The students are headed to the U.S. Air Force Academy, the U.S. Military Academy and the U.S. Naval Academy. They include students from Peachtree City, Carrollton, Tyrone, West Point and Columbus.

Jack called the ceremony a reminder of the “costly sacrifices made to defend our freedom” and praised the students for their patriotism.

Today in Washington

Trump will meet with his Cabinet.
The House and Senate are out for the week.

Congressional boost

Credit: AJC file photo

Republican Tim Fleming’s campaign for secretary of state is rolling out a trio of congressional endorsements Wednesday from U.S. Reps. Rick Allen, Andrew Clyde and Austin Scott.

The nods give Fleming another show of GOP support as Republicans move to consolidate behind a nominee for the open seat in the June runoff.

Fleming, a former deputy chief of staff to Kemp, is trying to frame his bid as a continuity play against Vernon Jones, the former Democratic DeKalb County chief executive.

Shoutouts

Today’s birthdays:

State Rep. Mike Cheokas, R-Americus.
Former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Georgia Supreme Court Justice Carla Wong McMillian.

Want a birthday shoutout in the Politically Georgia newsletter? There’s a form for that. It’s not just birthdays. We’re also interested in new jobs, engagements, birth announcements, etc.

Before you go

Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC

Greene is vacationing in Costa Rica with U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, who recently lost his primary after being targeted by Trump. TMZ has a photo of the two smiling alongside their significant others.

That’ll do it for us today. As always, you can send your best scoops, gossip and insider information to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com and adam.beam@ajc.com.

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