Raffensperger wins GOP secretary of state primary, joins Kemp in Trump rebuke

ATLANTA, Ga. (CBS46) - By winning the GOP Secretary of State primary Tuesday night, Brad Raffensperger joined Gov. Brian Kemp in another electoral rebuke of former President Donald Trump in Georgia.

Raffensperger, the incumbent, defeated three Republican challengers, including U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, with 52% of the vote. Hice came in second, totaling 33%.

Hice, who represents Georgia’s 10th congressional district, was seeking to unseat Raffensperger, who came under heavy fire from former Trump for refusing to overturn 2020′s presidential election results.

>> LIVE ELECTION RESULTS HERE

Two years ago, Joe Biden became the first Democrat to win Georgia in a presidential election since Bill Clinton in 1992. Biden won Georgia by .23%, the only deep Southern state he carried in 2020.

On Jan. 2, 2021, Raffensperger received a phone call from Trump, who asked Georgia’s top elections official to “find” him the votes he needed to win the Peach State. Raffensperger told Trump he’d lost.

Raffensperger campaigned on some solid conservative values, such as Georgia’s voter rolls (the “cleanest in the country” according to his campaign) and what he called the strongest check on any non-U.S. citizens who might illegally attempt to vote.

Kemp, who also has been heavily criticized by Trump, easily defeated former U.S. senator David Perdue and three other Republicans in his quest for a second term. Perdue had also been endorsed by Trump.

>> One-on-one interview with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger

Hice has represented Georgia’s 10th congressional district in Washington since 2015, but he gave up his seat in a reliably Republican district, he said, to restore Georgians’ confidence in their elections.

Hice has said there was an “abundant” amount of fraud in 2020.

>> One-on-one interview with U.S. Rep. Jody Hice

But the former president’s lawyers never presented any evidence of it in court, losing more than 40 lawsuits, including at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Raffensperger will face the winner of a June 21 Democratic Party runoff between state Rep. Bee Nguyen and Dee Dawkins-Haigler.

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