Trump-backed Hice leads in SOS primary

Embattled incumbent locked in tough race with Trump-backed challenger

Jody Hice

Two separate polls released on Thursday are painting a positive picture for former President Donald Trump in his effort to oust Georgia’s top election official.

With just over two weeks to go until early voting begins, the surveys find U.S. Rep. Jody Hice with a wide lead over incumbent Brad Raffensperger.

Hice, who has been endorsed by Trump, has represented rural Northeast Georgia in Congress since 2014 and helped lead the movement to invalidate electoral results in swing states won by President Joe Biden — including Georgia, claiming that there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Though there has been no such evidence, an overwhelming majority of Republicans believe that Biden was elected as a result of voter fraud.

Raffensperger has become a bogeyman of some sorts in the eyes of the former President and his inner circle for refusing to join efforts to overturn the results of the election.

Trump made his case directly to Raffensperger in a now-infamous January 2021 phone call frantically begging him to “find” enough votes to erase President Joe Biden’s lead in Georgia. The phone call, along with other efforts by the Trump campaign to overturn the election, are now the subject of a criminal investigation.

Nevertheless, Trump’s repeated attacks on Raffensperger may just be resonating with Republican primary voters. A joint poll from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the University of Georgia released Thursday morning found the far-right Congressman leading the embattled incumbent 30% to 22%, with other candidates polling below 5% and another 39% undecided.

But when Republican voters are informed that Trump has endorsed Hice, the Congressman’s lead expands to 60%, while Raffensperger falls to 16%. The number of undecided voters is also reduced by more than half.

A second poll released Thursday evening found Hice with an even larger lead. Landmark Communications and CBS46 found Hice polling at 35% to Raffensperger’s 18% among Republican primary voters. 33% remain undecided.

The Landmark poll also finds Raffensperger with grim approval numbers: just 25% of Republicans give the incumbent positive marks, while 55% say that they disapprove of the job he has done as Secretary of State.

“While these numbers are encouraging, we are not underestimating the work required to defeat a statewide incumbent,” Hice’s campaign told CBS46 in response to the new numbers. “Congressman Hice, along with the help of over 2,000 volunteers, is working daily to ensure every Georgia voter fully understands the abysmal job Brad Raffensperger has done as our Secretary of State.”

If no one gets more than 50% of the vote in next month’s primary, the race will advance to a runoff in June.

This race is one of many attempts by Trump to upend Republican politics in Georgia following his 2020 defeat. Hice is just one of several GOP candidates touting the former President’s endorsement. They all appeared onstage with him at a rally in Commerce late last month.

No matter who emerges from the primary, Democrats believe that they have a real shot at winning the race in November. They have a crowded primary of their own, but party leaders are rallying behind Bee Nguyen, a state lawmaker from Atlanta who holds a leadership position at the Georgia Democratic Party.

Other Democrats running include former Fulton commission chairman John Eaves, former Cobb Democratic Party chair Michael Owens and former Milledgeville Mayor Floyd Griffin. Polling in the Democratic primary has been scarce.

The race for Secretary of State could end up being more consequential than ever before. Whoever wins in November will be tasked with being the face of Georgia’s vote count in the 2024 presidential election, and many other important statewide elections in one of the nation’s closest battleground states.