“I wish he had won, and especially in Georgia,” Rafansperger said in an interview with CNN’s Amara Walker on Friday. “I definitely voted for it, but the results are the same.”
The simple truth is that Biden won in Georgia, yet, despite a narrow margin of 12,000 votes, Rafansperger has turned this self-proclaimed “russian, Christian Republican” into an inner pariah by opening himself up to his party’s wrath. Georgia G.O.P.
The biggest pressure has come from the president.
Despite the presidential credentials, the pressure G.O.P. Not above the Secretary of State. Both U.S. states. The January run-up elections for Senate seats will determine which party controls the Senate, meaning all eyes of the world of politics will be on Georgia until then.
Although Ruffinsperger’s refusal to joke with Trump’s dubious demands drew laughter from many across the country, it had the opposite effect on Georgia’s Republicans, some of whom say soft-spoken, 65-year-olds who once had ambitions to run for governor. Has written his own political stance.
“If you’re 18 and have a pulse that says they support Donald Trump, he’s going to beat Brad in the primary in 2022,” said a former Republican elected official and longtime activist in Georgia. “I don’t see how it can survive politically.”
A GOP talking to CNN The operative wondered if Rans Fensperger – a successful businessman who has spent an unprecedented $ 3 million of his own money in his 2018 race – would also run for re-election in two years.
Despite all this, Rafensperger has continued his chin and insisted that his accountability to the public should speak to his fellow Republicans the truth of the uneasiness.
“I have been a staunch supporter of President Trump, who was an early supporter of both our financial resources (in) and even then in the year 2020,” Rafensperg told CNN on Friday. “But at the end of the day, our office fees make sure the election is conducted fairly and accurately, and that’s what we did.”
Friendly fire from Republicans
Trump tells a very different story. For them, the election in Georgia was rigged, surrounded by missing votes and questionable counts.
Of the states in which the Trump campaign is fighting results, Georgia is the only one where the top election officials (Rafansperger) are Republicans.
It has brought an unusual amount of friendly fire.
On November 9, the Republican Republican of Georgia Sense. David Perdue and Kelly Lofler called on Rafansperger to resign over vague allegations of “failures” and questions about the integrity of the election. Gov. of the Republican government. Brian Kemp, who previously served as Secretary of State, stopped short of demanding the resignation of his successor. But he echoed calls from Perdue, Loffler and Trump to investigate possible fraud.
Rafansperger defended the conduct of the election and said he would not quit his job. However, he agreed to do the hand count 11 days later, two days later.
Eric Tanenblatt, a PG GIP who parativa in Atlanta, close to Loffler, faced some initial demands from Rafansparger, seeing increasing pressure on him.
“I would say at the time it happened, the temperature was too high,” Tanenblatt said. “There were a lot of people in the state, Republicans, Trump supporters, who believed there were real problems.”
Perdu and Loffler are both in the run-up to the January election, and Republicans in Georgia are vulnerable to maintaining Trump’s allegiance and gaining the political benefits of his voter base.
A fall guy for GOP
For the same affirmative Republican, the sharp focus on Rafansperger comes at an indefinite time. Nevertheless, the party dominates control at the state level, with each having a majority in both the state office and both houses of the General Assembly, where Biden’s victory accompanied the Georgia G.O.P. To signal danger. It was the first time in nearly three decades that a Democratic presidential candidate had won Georgia, and has shrunk in the past few cycles as a Republican victory margin. Now that the U.S. Senate has lost Republican control over the outcome of the two-way election in January, the focus on the Republican Party in Georgia is white.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that Republicans will turn themselves in.
“The GOP wants a fall man for Georgia, and (RefencePerger) it will,” said Eric Eriks, a talk-radio host and longtime conservative activist at Atlanta’s WSB station.
Atlanta’s G.O.P. Operative Tanenblatt said Rafensperger is a victim of the national attention it has attracted since the election.
“When you’re secretary of state and accidentally you become a nationally known figure in a feud with the president of the United States, it won’t bring you to a positive light,” Tanenblatt said.
Rafansperger went to the 2020 election with 20 high expectations, but also some luggage during his first two years in office. During the June primary elections, democratic and liberal activists blamed them for long lines and faulty machines, especially in majority-minority counties and the region. Some Republicans, on the other hand, were annoyed that Rafansperger had for the first time allowed counties to use drop boxes for absentee ballots during the primary.
Former G.O.P. The elected official said, “June was very messy on the day of the primary election, very long lines, people were very upset.” People are very upset with the idea of putting your vote in the drop-boxes. People think it’s not safe. “
In the days following the primary, R. Fansperger suggested that the problems were not with the Secretary of State but with a few county election officials.
Rough Fenceperger’s move on the mail-in ballot could also pull the trigger for many state Republicans. In March, his office sent nearly a million absentee ballot applications to registered voters, in which many Republican leaders in the state were made guards.
As Rafansperger tried to conduct an election in the midst of an epidemic – such as expecting more mail-in absentee ballots than ever before – his actions did not inspire confidence in many Republicans in the state, the former Georgia G.O.P. The official said.
The former official told CNN that Rafensperger failed to communicate effectively. “You’re in an environment where people are on edge,” the former official said. “This is a large number of mail-in ballet, and now it’s on the strength of that ballet [that Biden wins]”
Raff Fensperger has continued to defend his performance and is committed to the idea that the election was properly conducted and warned those who otherwise charge without evidence.
He told me on CNN Friday, “I think we really need to pay attention to what people are saying, we don’t really need to spin people.” “We have not yet found anything that was system-wide, systemic, that reached a level that would really overturn the results we have today that Vice President Biden has carried to the state of Georgia.”
CNN’s Amra Waker and Jason Morris contributed to the story.
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