Former United States President Donald Trump's losses in this year's Republican primaries are a testament to his dwindling influence and control over the GOP and come as his former vice president, Mike Pence is gaining traction in Georgia.
Furthermore, the Republican businessman's obsession with litigating the 2020 presidential election that he lost to Joe Biden is backfiring. It is a subject that he has brought up many times since leaving office and argues that the GOP will not have a successful future, either at the ballot box or legislatively if they turn a blind eye to the past.
Trump's Dwindling Influence on the GOP
But primary voters in Georgia this week have appeared to firmly reject Trump's approach, voting overwhelmingly for two key Republicans, Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger. The two officials have flatly dismissed the former president's claims about election fraud in the 2020 elections.
Republicans in the Peace State have sent a clear signal to the former president that his continued fixation with 2020 is not only bad for his preferred candidates but could also turn out to be a liability for him in key battleground states as he considers another presidential run in 2024, as per CNN.
A former Trump aide, Bryan Lanza, who remains close to the Republican businessman, said that Georgia was a valuable lesson for the former president. He found that he has altered the rules of politics but not all the rules of politics.
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However, whether or not Trump internalizes any critical lessons at this juncture remains to be seen but he is far less likely to "stick his neck out." with endorsements in upcoming primaries following a series of losses and the still-uncertain outcome of Pennsylvania's Senate GOP primary.
According to the Associated Press, the magnitude of Trump-backed endorsements in the primaries, which was more than 50 percentage points, was shocking and raised questions about whether or not Republican voters were starting to move on from the former president.
Pence's Opportunity
The "Make America Great Again'' movement has stalled and voters are becoming increasingly vocal in saying that the Republican party's future is about more than Trump. David Butler of Woodstock, Georgia, who voted for Kemp on Tuesday, said that he likes the former president a lot but noted that he was in the past. He also said that Trump's endorsements had "no" impact "whatsoever" on his thinking.
It was a similar case for 22-year-old Will Parbhoo, a dental assistant who also voted for Kemp in the primaries. He said that he was not really a Trumper and noted that he did not like the former president "to begin with," citing the election fraud claims and urged the former president to "move on."
The situation comes as opportunity knocked for former Vice President Pence on Tuesday night after the defeat of Trump's endorsements. They underscored that while many GOP members still believed the former president's election fraud claims, it was not driving their decisions at the ballot box.
In a Twitter post on Monday, Pence said that elections were about the future of the country and noted that there were people who wanted to make the election about the past. The former vice president pointedly left out any mention of Trump, Perdue, or the unfounded 2020 election claims, Yahoo News reported.
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