Trump wins first endorsement test — in Ohio

(File)

While we won't know the actual weight of Trump's endorsement for another 20 days in the Peach State, Georgia voters are already sending a message about the importance of this primary through record turnout. 

In fact, more people are voting in this primary election than when former President Trump was on the ballot in 2020. For a quick look at the numbers, Georgiavotes.com says more than 27,000 Georgians showed up to the polls Monday. That's nearly double the first-day turnout from two years ago. 

On Tuesday, those numbers jumped up to about 64,000 total voters. In contrast, in 2018, only 23,000 total voters showed up for the first two days of early voting.

I'd like to take a moment to highlight that we senior citizens are leading the march to the polls: Right now, those 65 and older make up almost 63% of those early voters.

(AP)

The startling leak of a draft of a Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade is a bombshell that will shake the social fabric of Georgia and the country in ways foreseeable and unknown. 

In addition to the impact it will have on women seeking to terminate a pregnancy, it will also further stoke the ugly culture wars in the forefront of politics, continue the decline of the U.S. Supreme Court being viewed as an institution above the political fray, and likely enflame voters who could make abortion the motivating force as they cast ballots in the 2022 election.

Candidates on the Georgia ballot and politically aligned groups reacted swiftly to the draft opinion: 

• Office of Gov. Brian Kemp: “Georgia is a state that values life at all stages. Governor Kemp led the fight to pass the strongest pro-life bill in the country and championed the law throughout legal challenges. We look forward to the court issuing its final ruling, however, this unprecedented breach of U.S. Supreme Court protocol is deeply concerning.”

• David Perdue, GOP candidate for governor: “When I’m governor, Georgia will be the safest place in America for the unborn.”

• U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock: “I’ll always fight to protect a woman’s right to choose. And that will never change.”

• Stacey Abrams, Democratic candidate for governor: “As a woman I am enraged by the continued assaults on our right to control our bodies + our futures. As an American I am appalled by the SCOTUS breach and its implications.” 

• 7th District U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux: “It is devastating for women's health. It is devastating for women's future in Georgia if we don’t have choice.”

• State Sen. Jen Jordon, Democratic candidate for attorney general: “If this decision holds, Georgia is the next battleground for reproductive freedom, and we need an attorney general who will fight for our right to choose.

• State Sen. Bruce Thompson, GOP candidate for labor commissioner: “As a strong pro-lifer I believe all life was created by God and deserves to be protected.”

• Cole Muzio of the pro-life organization Frontline Policy Action called the draft ruling “Everything the pro-life movement has been working and praying for. As voters head to the polls, lives literally hang in the balance like never before.”

• Melita Easters, founder and director of the Georgia WIN List, which identifies and works for the election of pro-choice Democratic women: “If the final SCOTUS opinion sticks with the Alito draft language asserting Roe was egregiously wrong from the start, then electing pro-choice women to the state legislature becomes more important than before to all women of child-bearing age and all those who care about them.”

People gather for the March for Reproductive Justice on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021 in downtown Atlanta. (AP/Ben Gray)

Right now, as Georgia’s so-called fetal heartbeat law is held up in legal challenges, abortion remains legal in the state.

If the SCOTUS draft opinion prevails and Roe is overturned, the state will look to begin enforcing the law that will make it illegal for women to have an abortion in the state after about six weeks of fetal gestation. Federal courts will be forced to dismiss challenges to the state’s abortion law based on the SCOTUS decision.

Some Republicans are already calling for a special legislative session to pass a law banning all abortions in Georgia.

GPB's Riley Bunch has more on the potential impact.

Georgia gubernatorial candidate Kandiss Taylor participates in a Republican primary debate on Sunday, May 1, 2022, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, Pool)

The Atlanta Press Club/GPB-hosted debates for key offices on the Georgia ballot got a good deal of coverage from news organizations Sunday through yesterday. But two moments were truly startling and revealing:

• During the governor’s debate, GOP gubernatorial candidate Kandiss Taylor called President Biden a “pedophile.” Never heard any elected official called that on a Georgia debate stage! 

• She had a bipartisan flourish, too, calling Brian Kemp an enabler of the Communist Chinese Party.

No candidate on the stage came forward to correct Taylor. We’re a long way from the famous 2008 moment when presidential candidate John McCain corrected a woman at a rally after she called Barack Obama an Arab. Watch the exchange here.

Meanwhile, in another debate:

• Republican 10th District candidate Mike Collins declared “the time for compromise, the time for bipartisanship – that’s over with.” 

Nothing could better illustrate the zero sum politics that are being played primarily by Republicans in Washington right now.

Georgia Speaker of the House David Ralston. (File)

Republican and Speaker of the Georgia House David Ralston visited with us on Political Rewind last week —before the Ohio senate race showed that Donald Trump was a potent force in that election. But Ralston told us he’s not sure that Trump will be a major force in elections here this year. 

• “I travel around the state and I sense this even during the session, you know, Donald Trump was one time very powerful in our party. Revered may be too wide a word, idolized is probably closer to the feelings many people had for him. I know this is all anecdotal, but I think I've got a pretty good gut instinct…People I know in my district - the farmers and small business owners - he is not as strong today as he was a year and a half ago. I think (his) is influence is on the wane. To what extent? We'll find out, I suppose, on May 24th."
  
  “I'll go back and point out to you that in 2020, we had incumbent House members who literally had to run away from the former president in their campaigns because he was not popular in their districts.”