Brad Raffensperger failed to advance in Georgia’s Republican gubernatorial primary Tuesday, becoming the latest prominent Republican who clashed with President Donald Trump to suffer a major electoral defeat.
Raffensperger finished a distant third in the crowded GOP primary behind Trump-endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and wealthy healthcare executive Rick Jackson, who will now face each other in a June runoff after neither candidate cleared the 50% threshold required to win outright.
Raffensperger became nationally famous after refusing Trump’s pressure campaign following the 2020 presidential election, including Trump’s now-infamous request that Georgia officials “find” enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state. The Georgia Republican later emerged as one of Trump’s most visible GOP critics on election integrity issues.
Despite surviving a Trump-backed primary challenge in 2022, Raffensperger struggled to consolidate support in the 2026 governor’s race as Georgia Republicans increasingly aligned with Trump’s wing of the party.
The New York Post reports:
Jackson went from virtual unknown to front-runner after spending $50 million of his own fortune to flood the Peach State in political ads.
The self-described “conservative outsider” has pledged to run Georgia like one of his businesses.
“Georgia’s at a crossroads. It’s going to take a conservative business leader to shake things up — and to stop Keisha Lance Bottoms from destroying our state,” Jackson wrote on X Monday morning.
“Career politicians make promises. I take action, and I’m going to deliver,” he pledged in a separate post.
The outcome continues a broader trend of Trump-backed candidates defeating or politically marginalizing Republicans viewed as insufficiently loyal to the president, including the recent high-profile defeat of Rep. Thomas Massie.
READ NEXT: Watch: DA Grilled Over Predator’s Shockingly Lenient Sentence
