Editor’s Note: Geoff Duncan, a CNN political contributor, served as Georgia’s Lieutenant Governor from 2019 to 2023. He is a former professional baseball player, and the author of “GOP 2.0: How the 2020 Election Can Lead to a Better Way Forward for America’s Conservative Party.” The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp raised eyebrows this weekend when he told an audience at a Republican National Committee retreat, “Not a single swing voter will vote for our nominee if they choose to talk about the 2020 election being stolen.”
Such a declaration should not have surprised anyone who has been paying attention to Georgia. After all, Kemp hasn’t just said those words – he’s lived them as the popular chief executive of a swing state. And I should know – as lieutenant governor, I had a front row seat to his leadership for four years.
Kemp’s words also offer a lesson the Republican Party needs to learn – fast – or we risk another term of President Joe Biden.
By rebuking the election conspiracy theories peddled by former President Donald Trump and his supporters, and certifying the 2020 election results in Georgia, Kemp became persona non grata with the Make America Great Again crew.
Without a unified base of support, many assumed he was a political lame duck in 2022. They were wrong.
First, Kemp dispatched a Trump-backed primary challenge from former Sen. David Perdue by a whopping 50 points. Then, with the support of swing and suburban voters, Kemp earned a resounding seven-and-a-half-point reelection over Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams. Indeed, four years after squeaking out a win by some 55,000 votes against Abrams, Kemp’s margin of victory swelled to almost 300,000 votes.
Voters in a purple state reelected an unapologetic conservative over a national progressive icon. A governor who cut income taxes and signed a fetal heartbeat bill outlawing abortion after six weeks. A Republican who raised the ire of the Trump White House for lifting Covid-19 pandemic measures at an accelerated pace.
Kemp’s win represented a rare bright spot in a largely disappointing 2022 election cycle for Republicans. Despite Biden’s approval rating hovering in the mid-40s, Trump-aligned Senate candidates in Georgia and other battleground states failed to get over the finish line.
The calendar reads 2023, but it feels like 2016 all over again. The GOP faces another inflection point with the 45th president. He’s dominating the polls, headlines and national conversation. The indictment by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office may have disappointed even reliable Trump critics but galvanized Republican voters. His campaign even says it raised a combined $18.8 million in the first quarter of 2023, with the majority being raised in the aftermath of his indictment.
While the GOP focuses on the former president, the current occupant of the White House is largely getting a free pass. There is plenty to criticize the Biden administration for – the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal in 2021, some of the worst inflation in four decades and a failure to secure our southern border.
According to the latest Gallup survey, Biden’s approval rating sits at just 40%, his sixth consecutive reading in the 40% to 42% range. Only one third of Americans believe Biden deserves reelection, according to a recent CNN poll.
Despite his uneven performance and persistent questions about his age, Biden’s team continues to suggest a 2024 reelection bid is in the works. And why wouldn’t they. If Trump ultimately becomes the nominee, Biden could have a clear advantage. From telling election lies that encouraged January 6 rioters to becoming the first former president to be criminally indicted, Trump has done little to improve his standing in the ensuing years.
Let’s not forget that Trump has a serious math problem in the suburbs. In 2016, he pulled an inside straight when a combined 80,000 people in three states gave him a chance, but then many of those voters abandoned him and his party for the next three election cycles.
In fact, though he was not on the ticket, the 2022 midterm election became a proxy battle over Trump. While the year started full of promise for the GOP, it ended with only a razor-thin Republican majority in the US House of Representatives and the party’s loss of a US Senate seat in Pennsylvania.
An ongoing criminal case about alleged business fraud regarding hush money payments to women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump is unlikely to bring those voters back into the Republican fold. Neither are the separate and simultaneous legal investigations in Washington, DC, and Fulton County, Georgia. (Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges in New York and denies wrongdoing in matters related to the Washington, DC, and Georgia investigations.)
For the Republican Party to turn the page on the Trump era, several things must occur. First, more of our leaders must be willing to stand up and state with clarity that the 2020 election was not stolen. No more trying to have it both ways out of fear of the election deniers. Until Republicans are willing to look further than the next election cycle, we will be playing into Trump’s hands.
Second, Republicans should remind voters of Trump’s non-conservative record. Upset about extended lockdowns during Covid-19? Remember Trump’s criticism of governors for reopening too early. Concerned about inflation or the national deficit topping $1 trillion for the first six months of fiscal year 2023? The national debt rose nearly $8 trillion over four years on Trump’s watch, a dismal statistic for a party that claims to stand for fiscal restraint.
Finally, the infamous “drain the swamp” slogan rings hollow when delivered by a former president who was recently sitting in a Manhattan court room facing criminal charges. The leader who promised to upend the system and root out purported corruption faces the unpleasant prospect of his own court dates potentially colliding with the presidential primary calendar.
The Fulton County case is especially worth watching, since it involves Trump’s alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 election. It is the root of the fiasco that Kemp is warning will turn off swing voters, as it did during last year’s midterms.
In both life and politics, those who ignore the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them. It’s a maxim the Republican Party would be wise to heed.
