In the recent past, Geoff Duncan He was seen as a rising star in GOP politics. Now the former lieutenant governor of Georgia says he will vote for President Joe Biden in 2024 and is urging other Republicans to do the same.
“Unlike Trump, I’ve been a member of the GOP my whole life. This November, I am voting for a decent person whose policies I disagree with regarding a criminal defendant with no moral compass,” Duncan writes. an article published on Monday in Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Former President Donald Trump’s attempt to nullify Georgia’s 2020 election was a breaking point for Duncan, who along with other state GOP officials such as Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger have defended the integrity of the state. elections and condemned Trump’s actions and rhetoric as fake and undemocratic.
This break with Trump made Duncan decide not to run for re-election in 2022 write a book On reinventing the Republican Party without Trump.
Duncan, a former professional baseball player and state legislator, was hired to join the centrist third party presidential ticket was backed by No Labels earlier this year, but he eventually dropped out.
The deep-pocketed Washington group announced in March that it was abandoning its 2024 presidential ambitions. cannot find a reliable candidate. While Duncan has kept much of his No Labels business under wraps, they appear to be the closest they’ve come to securing a candidate at the top of the ticket.
Duncan has since said interviews he said he was seriously considering the No Labels ticket, but wasn’t sure any third-party candidate would have a realistic path to victory in November and was worried it would just be a spoiler.
Trump is now back on top of the GOP, and as he prepares to become his nominee in November, Duncan has criticized other former Trump GOP skeptics. for going after the former president instead of supporting the current Democrat.
“[T]It will never be rebuilt until we move on from the Trump era, leaving conservative (but not angry) Republicans like me no choice but to pull the Biden lever,” Duncan wrote in a new op-ed.
“Alternative is another term for Trump, a man who has disqualified himself by behavior and character.” Quiet money trial For allegations of improper payments to conceal a relationship with an adult film star.
Duncan went on to write that he disagrees with Biden’s policies and that Republicans who support Biden should also “work to elect a GOP congressional majority to block his second-term legislative agenda and provide checks and balances.”
Anti-Trump Republicans were a key part of the coalition that helped Biden oust the former president in 2020, when Democrats highlighted the support of GOP officials in ads and speeches at the Democratic National Convention.
But some of those same Biden-supporting Republicans said the president’s campaign since then has been weak. warned that his campaign needs to do more winning over so-called soft Republicans and GOP-leaning independents.
Democrats closely watching this year’s GOP primary also saw a potential Biden Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, a moderate and critic of Trump, gained supporters among the segment of voters.
Biden’s team has yet to mount a major public effort specifically aimed at these voters, but Democrats have They say that the time for such an action will be closer to the election. In the meantime, they believe Trump and his campaign will continue to smear Haley and her supporters rather than trying to win them back.