Republican voters rejected an election denier for Secretary of State in Tuesday’s primary runoff in favor a candidate who says Georgia’s 2020 election merely had “irregularities.”
The Associated Press called the race shortly after 8 p.m. for state Rep. Tim Fleming who was leading with two-thirds of the vote over former state lawmaker Vernon Jones, who aligned himself with President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” effort in 2020.
During the campaign, Fleming stopped short of echoing Trump’s false election fraud accusations but maintained there were “irregularities” in the 2020 election. Fleming has said he is focused on the future rather than relitigating 2020, touting his accomplishments in changing Georgia election laws during his time as a state lawmaker.
Fleming will face Democrat Penny Brown Reynolds in November. The AP called the race on the Democratic side shortly after calling the GOP contest. Reynolds was leading Fulton County Commissioner Dana Barrett with two-thirds of the vote in that runoff.
Voters chose Fleming over the more controversial Jones, but both men pledged their allegiance to Trump. The shift toward Trump loyalists is notable compared to 2022, when Raffensperger, who resisted Trump’s pressure to “find” enough votes to overturn the president’s loss, won the GOP primary outright.
If Fleming is elected in November, the state’s election chief in charge of certifying election results for the 2028 presidential election will be someone who still maintains skepticism about Georgia’s 2020 election.
“I’ve always been there for Donald Trump,” Fleming said in a debate with Jones earlier this month.
Fleming, the chair of a House committee tasked with proposing changes to election laws, supports ditching Georgia’s touchscreen voting system in favor of hand-marked paper ballots counted by scanners, as well as removing Georgia from a multi-state voter list accuracy organization. He’s pledged to deport immigrants in the country illegally who attempt to vote and “make it impossible for the Left to cheat in our elections.
During his campaign, Fleming racked up a series of endorsements from Republicans in Georgia’s congressional delegation, state legislators and local sheriffs across the state.
Fleming previously served as Gov. Brian Kemp’s chief of staff before his bid for the state House in 2022. He also served in senior positions in the secretary of state’s office under Kemp.
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