- Geoff Duncan, Georgia’s deputy governor, called Trump’s strategy “invincible” going forward.
- Duncan, a Republican, said on Sunday that he would not run for the US Senate in 2022.
- Trump attacked members of the Georgia Republican Party for refusing to help him topple the election.
- See more stories on the Insider business page.
Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, a Republican, said on Sunday that the strategy that led Trump to the country’s highest office in 2016 would not work for Republicans moving forward.
“Republicans don’t need electoral reform to win, we need leadership,” said Duncan during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program on Sunday. “I think there are millions of Republicans waking up across the country who are realizing that Donald Trump’s tone and divisive strategy is invincible in future-oriented elections.
“We need real leadership, we need a new focus, a GOP 2.0 that includes moderates in the middle, to take us to the next election cycle,” he added.
Duncan said Trump’s refusal to grant the election and the continued spread of unfounded conspiracy theories about the election hurt the Republican Party.
“It hurt Republicans in any kind of conversation about electoral reform,” he said. “We have lost credibility. Those were 10 weeks that we can’t go back. January 6 was a turning point for this country and for this party. And, look, we have four years to win back the White House. I’m not going to do that in a divisive tone. “
—Meet the press (@MeetThePress) March 14, 2021
Ducan told Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd that he was “disgusted” by the call from the former president to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, also a Republican, in which Trump asked him to “find” the votes needed to overthrow President Victoria of Joe Biden in the state.
In February, the Fulton County prosecutor announced that she had opened a criminal investigation into Trump’s attempts to interfere in Georgia’s elections.
“We had played for almost 10 weeks with President Trump and his entire apparatus attacking us here for having a fair and legal election,” said Duncan of Trump’s attacks on Georgia officials in the final months of his presidency.
He said he would “stay out of the way of the law and let them do their job” while investigating their conduct.
Also during his appearance on Sunday, Duncan said he ruled out an alleged candidacy for the US Senate next year.
“My family and I talked about it and we are not going to run for the United States Senate,” he said. “We will continue to focus on being vice governors here in Georgia. And we are going to focus a lot on trying to rebuild this party and reorient GOP 2.0 ”.