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Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a frequent critic of Donald Trump’s lies about how election fraud cost him the 2020 election, endorsed President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign.
In an op-ed Monday in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Duncan’s remarks read like a clarion call, urging sane conservatives not to align themselves with a self-centered wannabe authoritarian. But they go further than some Republican Trump critics — such as former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — by urging fellow Republicans to back Biden.
“I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass,” Duncan wrote.
As Georgia’s No. 2 executive in 2020, Duncan pushed back against Trump’s false claims of election fraud in the state, before declining to run for re-election in 2022. In the op-ed, he pointed to Trump’s “cockamamie schemes” to stay in power as one of the reasons he’d be leaps and bounds worse than Biden if he were to regain the presidency. He wrote:
But the GOP will never rebuild until we move on from the Trump era, leaving conservative (but not angry) Republicans like me no choice but to pull the lever for Biden. At the same time, we should work to elect GOP congressional majorities to block his second-term legislative agenda and provide a check and balance.
The alternative is another term of Trump, a man who has disqualified himself through his conduct and his character. The headlines are ablaze with his hush-money trial over allegations of improper record-keeping for payments to conceal an affair with an adult-film star.
Most important, Trump fanned the flames of unfounded conspiracy theories that led to the horrific events of Jan. 6, 2021. He refuses to admit he lost the last election and has hinted he might do so again after the next one.
Duncan lists several reasons for conservatives with a conscience to defy the former president, including Trump’s recent Time interview previewing his illiberal policies if he were to win a second term.
It would be naive to think Duncan represents most Republicans with his stance. But it’s entirely possible he’s speaking on behalf of a sizable share of Georgia Republicans — perhaps one large enough to help swing the battleground state in Biden’s favor in November. So Trump has reason to worry.
But it’s entirely possible Duncan’s speaking on behalf of a sizable share of Georgia Republicans — perhaps one large enough to help swing the battleground state in Biden’s favor in November.
Biden won Georgia by nearly 12,000 votes in 2020. Nikki Haley won almost 80,000 votes in Georgia’s presidential primary in March, with about 20,000 of those votes being cast on Election Day — a week after she dropped out of the race. In addition, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger are two staunch conservatives who have won re-election in recent years despite criticizing Trump’s false claims of election fraud, suggesting that there’s a potent strain of Republicanism in Georgia that’s averse to Trump.
And for the former president’s sake, he better hope the others aren’t as sober-minded as Geoff Duncan when it comes to voting this fall.