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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Republican Brad Raffensperger to run for Georgia governor after defying
Trump over 2020 election
Associated Press
Updated:
9:15 AM EDT, Wed September 17, 2025
Source: CNN
Georgia’s , the Republican secretary of state who rejected Donald
Trump’s call to help overturn the state’s 2020 election results,
said Wednesday that he’s running for governor in 2026.
The wealthy engineering entrepreneur might appeal most to
business-oriented Republicans who once dominated GOP primaries in
Georgia, but he is pledging a strongly conservative campaign even while
he remains scorned by Trump and his allies. Raffensperger’s entry
into the field intensifies the primary in a state with an unbroken line
of Republican governors since 2002.
“I’m a conservative Republican, and I’m prepared to make the
tough decisions. I follow the law and the Constitution, and I’ll
always do the right thing for Georgia no matter what,” Raffensperger
said in an announcement video.
Raffensperger defied Trump’s , but he will again test GOP primary
voters’ tolerance for a candidate so clearly targeted by the
president. His first challenge may be to even qualify for the primary.
Georgia’s Republican Party voted in June to ban Raffensperger from
running under its banner, although the party chairman said that attempt
might not go anywhere.
Two other top Republicans are already in the race — Lt. Gov. Burt
Jones and Attorney General Chris Carr. Jones swore himself to be a
“duly elected and qualified” elector for Trump in 2020 even though
then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden had been declared the state’s
winner. Carr sided with Raffensperger in rejecting challenges to the
results. Other Republicans include Clark Dean, Scott Ellison and Gregg
Kirkpatrick.
On the Democratic side, top candidates include former Atlanta Mayor
Keisha Lance Bottoms, state Sen. Jason Esteves and former state Labor
Commissioner Michael Thurmond. Geoff Duncan, who like Raffensperger
spurned Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election as Republican
lieutenant governor, .
Raffensperger pledges what he calls a “bold conservative agenda,”
including eliminating the state income tax, capping property taxes for
seniors, banning drugs that block puberty from gender-affirming care
and purging “woke curriculums” from schools. He also promises to
work with Trump to increase jobs, deport immigrants with criminal
records and “restore law and order.”
An introvert in the national spotlight
Although he starts later than other candidates, Raffensperger benefits
from an electorate that already knows him, plus an ability to finance
his own campaign. The 70-year-old sold his concrete reinforcement
company, Tendon Systems, for an undisclosed amount in 2023.
Raffensperger, was securely inside the conservative fold before his
insistence on honoring the 2020 election results turned the introverted
engineer into an unlikely national figure. He opposed abortion and
pushed tax cuts as a state legislator, running for secretary of state
in 2018 on a platform that emphasized managerial competence. During
that race, one of his three sons, Brenton Raffensperger, died at age 27
from a fentanyl overdose.
He spent most of his first two years in office battling lawsuits filed
by Democrats that fruitlessly alleged Georgia, under then-Secretary of
State Brian Kemp, engaged in illegal voter suppression in 2018 in
Kemp’s victory over Democrat Stacey Abrams. Raffensperger also was
tasked to roll out new Dominion voting machines for a 2020 election
thrown off-kilter by the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden’s narrow win in Georgia changed things. Raffensperger said
publicly that he wished Trump had won, but firmly held that he saw no
evidence of widespread fraud or voting irregularities. Trump and his
partisans ratcheted up attacks.
In his 2021 book, “Integrity Counts,” Raffensperger recounted death
threats texted to his wife, an encounter with men whom he suspected of
staking out his home, and being escorted out of the Georgia Capitol on
January 6, 2021, as a handful of protesters entered the building on the
day many more protesters stormed the US Capitol.
But it was a phone call days earlier, on January 2, that wrote
Raffensperger’s name into history. Trump pressured the secretary of
state to “find 11,780 votes” – enough to overturn Joe Biden’s
win in the state, repeatedly citing disproven claims of fraud and
raising the prospect of “criminal offense” if officials didn’t
change the vote count, according to a recording of the conversation.
Raffensperger pushed back, noting that lawsuits making those claims had
been fruitless.
“We don’t agree that you have won,” Raffensperger told Trump.
Post-2020 political career
That refusal to buckle made Raffensperger a huge political target.
Lawmakers outlawed a repeat of his decision to mail absentee ballot
applications to voters and restricted the use of . They stripped him of
his post chairing the State Election Board, eventually creating a
Trump-aligned body whose attempts to assert control of election
processes were shot down by courts. Trump endorsed US Rep. Jody Hice,
who objected to Georgia’s electoral votes being counted for President
Joe Biden, to challenge Raffensperger in the 2022 Republican primary.
If Raffensperger was rattled, he didn’t change his public style. He
stuck to a campaign of quiet speeches before civic club members dozing
off after a heavy lunch. Voters renominated him, including thousands
who previously voted in Democratic primaries but cast ballots in the
GOP contest. He then cruised to reelection over a Democrat.
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