WASHINGTON — Former Georgia GOP Sen. David Perdue’s decision not to run for Senate again in 2022 will now likely shift the focus to two other Republicans weighing a run: former Sen. Kelly Loeffler and former Rep. Doug Collins.
Perdue was expected to clear the GOP field to take on Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock if he decided to run. A handful of Georgia GOP strategists on Monday said if Perdue passed, the other top two possible Republican candidates were Loeffler and Collins, who faced off against each other last year.
“Because David, Kelly and Doug were all U.S. Senate candidates last cycle, I think those are the names that people are looking at, and rightfully so,” Chip Lake, a GOP strategist in Georgia who worked with Collins, said Monday, prior to Perdue’s Tuesday morning announcement that he would not run for Senate.
Collins, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, was Loeffler’s chief opponent on the right in last year’s special election, where candidates from all parties ran on the same ballot. Loeffler, who was appointed to former GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson’s seat, and Warnock advanced to the Jan. 5 runoff, where Warnock defeated Loeffler by 2 percentage points.
Warnock is running for a full Senate term in 2022, and Republicans see the traditionally GOP-leaning state as a top pickup opportunity in their effort to win back control of the Senate. But Georgia has become more competitive in recent election cycles. President Joe Biden carried the state by less than half a percentage point in November, becoming the first Democratic presidential nominee to win the Peach State since 1992.
Asked about Perdue’s decision not to run, Warnock told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday, “I am prepared to defeat whatever Republican they come up with.”
Prior to Perdue’s announcement, both Loeffler and Collins had said they’re considering running for Senate.
Loeffler told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday that another Senate run is “certainly on the table.” Loeffler this week launched a new group called “Greater Georgia” focused on registering voters, expanding existing voter outreach and advocating to “instill transparency and uniformity in our election process,” according to a press release.
Last week, Collins told the paper that he was considering both a Senate run and a primary campaign against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who Trump has reportedly wanted to defeat since Kemp did not go along with Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent.
Some Republicans in the state are concerned about a divisive primary ahead of the 2022 race, particularly after Loeffler and Collins’ bitter battle in 2020 that left Warnock unscathed ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff.
“I don’t know that Republicans are going to have an appetite for a big fight,” said Jay Williams, who worked for the super PAC Georgia United Victory, which backed Loeffler.
Lake noted that if Perdue, Loeffler and Collins all pass on running for Senate, many more Republicans in the state could look at jumping into the race.
“If none of those three decide to run then it could allow a second tier dynamic of candidates that could make it a very competitive and very deep primary,” Lake said.
Perdue wrote in an email to supporters Tuesday morning that he would still work to help Republicans win back the Senate seat in 2022.
“This is a personal decision, not a political one,” Perdue said, announcing his decision not to run. “I am confident that whoever wins the Republican Primary next year will defeat the Democrat candidate in the General election for this seat, and I will do everything I can to make that happen.”
In a three-person race in November, Perdue got 49.7 percent of the vote to Democrat Jon Ossoff’s 48 percent but did not clear the 50 percent threshold to avoid a runoff. In the January runoff, Ossoff beat Perdue by about 1 point.
