Former President Donald Trump is looking to help unseat Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in the Republican primary next year, according to a new report.
People familiar with Trump’s plans told Politico the former president is expected to endorse Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.).
Hice criticized Raffensperger during a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February.
“I guarantee you, Georgia is not blue, and what happened this election was solely because of a horrible secretary of state and horrible decisions that he made,” he said.
Hice continued, “And the Georgia General Assembly even now is in process of fixing a lot of that, and so I think we’re going to see some tremendous change in that regard.”
In November, Raffensperger wrote in a USA Today op-ed, his “family voted for him, donated to him and are now being thrown under the bus by him,” as IJR previously reported.
He mentioned Trump’s refusal to concede the election and that there was an “onslaught of fake news and unrepentant disinformation threatened to tear the fabric of our country apart.”
The former president later called Raffensperger an “enemy of the people.” He argued Georgia had a “fraudulent system” despite Raffensperger’s claim the state had a “wildly successful and smooth election.”
Trump also urged Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) to “use his emergency powers, which can be easily done, to overrule his obstinate Secretary of State, and do a match of signatures on envelopes.”
He added, “It will be a ‘goldmine’ of fraud, and we will easily WIN the state.”
In January, Trump called on Raffensperger to help him “find” the votes he needed to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory.
Raffensperger told Trump Georgia had to “stand by” their numbers and said the numbers are “right.”
Georgia’s secretary of state told ABC’s “Good Morning America” Trump “had his staff push us” to take the call.
In February, Raffensperger’s office opened an investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the state’s election results.
UPDATE [03/22/21, 10:05 a.m. EST]:
Trump announced his endorsement of Hice on Monday morning. He called Hice a “steadfast fighter for conservative Georgia values” and “a staunch ally of the America First agenda.”
