Zach Montellaro for Politico:
Georgia’s chief elections officer has stacked up appearances on conservative radio and other media in recent months — taking lumps over his break with Donald Trump in an effort to rebuild his standing in the GOP ahead of his 2022 campaign.
Brad Raffensperger has been omnipresent in the conservative press lately, ranging far into the MAGA territory where he’s been taking hits for months. The secretary of state has gone on Fox News, local talk platforms, former White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s Newsmax show and the radio program hosted by John Fredericks, Trump’s two-time Virginia campaign chair and the self-declared “Godzilla of Truth.”
Press access is nothing new for the talkative Raffensperger — but there’s a lot riding on his conservative media tour.
Trump branded Raffensperger as an enemy for rebuffing his asks to overturn the results of the 2020 election and later endorsed a challenger in May’s GOP primary, costing Raffensperger support among a swath of Republicans. While Raffensperger isn’t flip-flopping on Trump, he needs to reingratiate himself with the base that may be more open to his support for voter ID laws and other GOP election policies ahead of Georgia’s primaries, where he’ll need majority support to win renomination.
“They’re inviting me to come on, and so that’s all it takes,” Raffensperger told POLITICO about his recent spate of conservative media appearances. “I always believe in sitting down with anyone that wants to ask questions. And so they’re finally asking questions, so I’m finally sitting down with them.”
In January alone, Raffensperger appeared at least twice on Fox News’ dayside cable TV programs and sat for interviews on Guy Benson and Brian Kilmeade’s Fox News radio shows. The secretary of state weighed in on a debate about having a “Hormel chili cheese keg” at a Super Bowl party (he’s firmly pro-keg) on the morning drive-time show for “Atlanta’s only conservative news and talk station,” and he did an extended podcast interview with John Solomon, the onetime writer at The Hill whose columns played a role in Trump’s impeachment.