AJC politics reporter Greg Bluestein on his new book and whether Georgia may be 'Flipped' again
A voter enters Jackson Memorial Baptist Church to cast her vote during municipal elections in Atlanta on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021. A bill advancing in the Georgia House would ban outside funding for elections like a $2 million grant that the heavily Democratic suburban county accepted early in 2023. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)
New details continue to emerge regarding the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
In his new book, “Flipped: How Georgia Turned Purple and Broke the Monopoly on Republican Power,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution politics reporter Greg Bluestein delves into the characters and narratives that shaped the 2020 election cycle, as well as the attempts to overturn the results.
Among the book’s revelations, Bluestein writes that then-U.S. Senator David Perdue warned former President Donald Trump ahead of 2020 that the Georgia Republican Party was in big trouble — that low early voter turnout signaled neither could guarantee a re-election win.
Now Perdue is running in the Republican primary for Georgia governor against incumbent Republican Brian Kemp, and he is hoping this time support from Trump will be enough to galvanize supporters.
“Even when President Trump came in the final days of the 2020 campaign, he said ‘I don’t need to be here, we’re going to win this state easily, but my advisors told me to come,’” Bluestein said. “And that just shows you how close that he was to David Perdue because he listened to his final push.”
Trump made another visit to Georgia last week where both he and Perdue reinforced false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Bluestein said feuding and misinformation over the 2020 election results is likely to continue, as indicated by how energized the crowd was by those claims.
Bluestein joined “Morning Edition” to discuss “Flipped” and how the events in the book continue to influence Georgia politics today.
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