The failure of one Donald Trump-backed candidate to catch fire with voters led a CNN panel on Sunday morning to note that, while an endorsement from the former president can help, it's no guarantee that it will put aspiring lawmakers over the top.
Case in point, the panel led by "Inside Politics " host Abby Phillip took a look at former U.S. Sen David Perdue's bid to supplant Gov Brian Kemp in the GOP primary.
"This is about Trump at the end of the day," Phillip began. "In other races, for example, Georgia, Trump has created this civil war in that race basically because he is in a grudge match with Governor Kemp for not endorsing the election stealing lies. It's caused a lot of Republicans to be confused."
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After Phillip quoted a Georgia GOP operative stating, "A lot of Republicans don't understand why you would challenge an incumbent governor," Cook Political Report publisher Amy Walter chimed in, "For voters, you have to give them a reason to do this and there are a certain segment of Republicans who do believe that going against President Trump is enough of a reason to oust them from their job, but the most recent polling that's come out in Georgia has Perdue, the challenger, trailing Governor Kemp by about ten points."
"It's always hard to try to come back after losing, especially when your loss meant a Democratic Senate," Walter said of Perdue's 2020 loss to Sen. Raphael Warnock (D). "The other thing, I talked to a Republican operative the other day he said, look, the endorsement by Trump is still super-important, it's something that you do want as a Republican in a primary. At the same time, you still have to run a good campaign. You still have to be a good candidate. If you don't have the endorsement, you can still find a way to win these things."
"There are examples where it's happened," she added. "You still have to -- we go back to basics all the time -- but you still have to run a campaign. Many of these candidates thought 'I got the Trump endorsement, what do I need to worry about? Everything will come to me: money, love, votes.' It doesn't work that way."
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