TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -Republican voters in Georgia on Tuesday will choose their party’s nominee for governor in a two-man faceoff that has become a proxy battle between U.S. President Donald Trump and the state’s popular Republican governor, Nathan Deal.
In May, Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle, who has Deal’s endorsement, finished ahead of Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp. But Kemp, whose hardline campaigning approach dovetails with Trump’s, earned the president’s backing last week, a surprise endorsement that should give him a major boost among Republican voters in the run-off election.
“I would think it does give the edge to Kemp,” said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.
Recent polls show a close race. The winner of Tuesday’s contest will face Democrat Stacey Abrams, who is vying to become the first black woman to serve as a U.S. state governor, in what is expected to be one of the most hotly contested races in November’s midterm elections. Trump carried Georgia by five percentage points in 2016.
The Republican nominating race has been marked by fiercely negative campaigning.
Source:Reuters