It was only one week ago that former U.S. Sen. David Perdue jolted Georgia by formally declaring he would challenge Gov. Brian Kemp in the GOP primary.
And though he insisted in an interview with the AJC that he’s “trying to run a campaign not based on the past but on the future,” Perdue has centered the opening moves of his campaign on former President Donald Trump’s lies about election fraud.
He criticized Kemp for failing to call a special session to “fix” absentee ballot issues that hinged on a phony conspiracy theory that was quickly dismissed by courts. He said he wouldn’t have certified the state’s election, despite the state law that would have required him to do so.
And on Friday he filed a lawsuit that mirrored debunked claims from a conspiracy theorist seeking to inspect Fulton County’s absentee ballots. Never mind that election records indicate Perdue himself had enough confidence in the system that he voted by mail-in ballot.
Perdue’s string of false claims in his opening week also involve misinformation about a “consent decree” that has aides to Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams condemning in rare unison.