Carr and Raffensperger voters could pick the winner of GOP governor’s race

While Carr’s campaign targeted mainstream Republicans, including the ones who support President Donald Trump, Raffensperger’s claim to fame, and strongest source of support, date back to his battles against Trump after the 2020 elections.

Jackson moved quickly to bring the Carr voters over to his side, starting with Carr’s own staff. More than 600 people showed up at a Jackson postprimary campaign event at Governors Gun Club in Kennesaw, including a group of former Carr staffers who had been quickly snapped up by Jackson after Carr finished fourth in the May primary.

There was Neil Bitting, a former senior adviser to Carr who is doing the same job for Jackson now, along with Brian Robinson, the former Carr spokesman who jumped to Jackson months before the primary. Carr’s manager and longtime adviser, Heath Garrett, was there, but just as a guest. Other Carr campaign staffers have joined the Jackson camp as well.

Staff shuffles aren’t unusual after a primary, but the Carr team’s move, en masse, highlights what could be the key to victory for either Jackson or Jones in Tuesday’s runoff election — namely the decisions of the about 250,000 Georgians who originally went with Carr or Raffensperger.

Carr may have made the route for his own supporters easier when he endorsed Jackson after winning about 10% of the vote in May. Jackson the the endorsement to appeal to Carr’s voters with ads and mailers.

Jones, on the other hand, rolled out a list of 18 county sheriffs who endorsed Carr and have now come over to his campaign, while keeping up his messaging on property and income tax cuts.

“I think that my voter is more aligned with Rick’s philosophy, much more so than with Burt’s,” Carr told me. “I see Rick as the guy that has the best chance of winning in November, being able to appeal to that independent voter that I talked about during the campaign, that cares about job safety, education, affordability and candidate quality.”

A Cygnal analysis of GOP voters this week shows there’s some data to back up Carr’s hunch, with both Carr and Raffensperger voters moving toward Jackson ahead of next week’s runoff.

But while the Carr-to-Jackson switch is easy enough to envision, it’s harder to say what happens with Raffensperger’s supporters, including whether they go back to the polls Tuesday at all.

Neither Jackson nor Jones has appealed directly to Raffensperger’s primary voters, partially because declaring common cause with the secretary of state would surely anger Trump after their post-2020 election clash. But leaving Raffensperger’s 140,000 voters untapped has its own risks, too.

“Is a Raffensperger supporter going to come back out because of the issues or are they just so frustrated they don’t come out?” Carr said. “I think Rick has got a distinct advantage because he has the resources to identify and target his voter, my voter and Raffensperger’s voter and encourage them all to get back out.”

A final group both camps are watching are the roughly 350,000 metro Atlantans who voted Republican in recent years but did not vote at all in the primary.

Republicans driven away by the intense negativity of the Jones-Jackson feud probably received Jackson’s latest mailer that came in the form of a letter from his wife, Melody Jackson, complete with pink stationery, describing her husband’s many positive attributes.

They might also have seen Jackson’s latest ad with his grandchildren asking him why all his ads make him look “so mean.” You’re not wrong about that, kids. But the ads are meant to rehumanize the man my colleague, Bill Torpy, described as having a “reptilian gaze” in his attacks on the lieutenant governor.

Jones is hitting somewhat of a reset button for conflict-weary Republicans, too, starting with a new ad describing the ways he and popular Gov. Brian Kemp have “delivered for Georgia.” Not to be outdone, Jackson also dropped an ad promising, “If you like Brian Kemp, you’re gonna love Rick Jackson.”

Kemp has not endorsed either candidate.

But Jones isn’t taking any chances with his Pro-Trump GOP base, either. He announced a telerally with Trump scheduled for Thursday night, the second one of the primary, pushing the strongest motivating factor he has — his endorsement from the president.

From here on out, every event, just like every vote, is going to count.