Former Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) announced on Tuesday he won’t enter the race for the U.S. Senate in the upcoming 2022 election in Georgia.
“After much prayer and reflection, Bonnie and I have decided that we will not enter the race for the United States Senate in Georgia in 2022,” Perdue said in a statement on Twitter.
“I am confident that whoever wins the Republican primary next year will defeat the Democrat candidate in the general election for this seat, and I will do everything I can to make that happen,” the 71-year-old politician said.
Perdue added that the decision for him not to run again and try to reclaim a seat is a personal one and not a political one.
— David Perdue (@Perduesenate) February 23, 2021
Perdue, a former business executive who was elected in 2014, lost the state’s twin Senate run-off last month against Democratic opponent Jon Ossoff by approximately 55,000 votes—a change of around 143,000 votes from the 2020 election, when Perdue edged Ossoff by over 88,000 ballots.
The 2022 elections will be a key factor in determining which party will control the Senate after Republicans lost two seats to Democrats during last month’s dual runoffs in Georgia, ending with a 50-50 split U.S. Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the tiebreaker.
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), who won the race against then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) last month by over 1 percent, appeared optimistic regarding the 2022 election.
“I am prepared to defeat whatever Republican they come up with,” he told reporters in Washington, Savannah Morning News reported.
Perdue’s announcement comes one week after he said in a Feb. 16 statement he’s considering another run and already filed the campaign paperwork that could have opened that way for him.
Perdue said it has been an honor for him to represent the people of Georgia. He also said he will continue to do everything he can to correct “the inequities in our state laws and election rules so that, in the future, every legal voter will be treated equally and illegal votes will not be included.”
Loeffler, who served in the Senate for about a year after replacing former Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Republican, said the idea for running again in the Georgia elections next year is “certainly on the table,” though she hasn’t decided yet.
“Right now there is no answer on the Republican side to a comprehensive platform that provides the resources, the scale, the network, the message, the communications platform that we need for statewide success in 2022 and beyond,” Loeffler said earlier this month during an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“I don’t know if any Republican can win if we don’t shore up what we’re doing around voter registration, engagement and election integrity,” she added.
Secretaries of state for several key states have said they have found no evidence of voter fraud that would overturn the results of the 2020 election.
