THOMASVILLE — Less than three months removed from a defeat in the runoff for the U.S. Senate seat he held, David Perdue said he’s never been more optimistic about the state.

Perdue, speaking to the Georgia Federation of Republican Women meeting in Thomasville, said he is not running for office again. But he had words of advice for Republicans seeking to recapture the other Senate seat lost in January’s runoffs in 2022.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said. “We’ve got to bring together the Republican party. It is broken in the state of Georgia right now. Nobody is going to win a statewide race unless they get the suburban vote and they get the Trump base vote.”

Perdue further pointed out that the Senate seat, which Raphael Warnock won against Kelly Loeffler, is far from the only race state Republicans need to worry about next year. Every statewide constitutional officer seat, including those of governor and lieutenant governor, will be contested.

“The Democrats are lining their docket up right now,” he said. “The 2022 race, unless we do something different, will look like the runoff. We have a lot of things in our plate. We cannot sit around picking on each other about what happened on November and January. We’ve got to move on.

“We can whine about that and continue to get beat, but we’ve got to change our mentality.”

Perdue got the most votes in the November election, but under state rules, he needed 50% plus one to retain his seat without a runoff. To him, the November results should have sent a message. 

“There is something bad wrong, bad wrong, when 52.5% of the state voted no to Jon Ossoff and the Democratic agenda in November,” he said. “That’s the best poll I can give you.”

Perdue also pointed to the rapid growth in the use of mail-in and absentee ballots. Historically, he said, absentee ballots accounted for 5% of votes cast. This time, it was more than 30%. 

“Most of our votes were on election day. and thank goodness we turned out on election day,” he said.

However, some conservatives, wary of the election process, didn’t come back to the polls in January. 

“But because of that, we wound up going into a perfect storm going into the runoff,” Perdue said. “We just couldn’t get the Trump base back out. We all tried. Even he did, in his heart.”

Loeffler, who also addressed the group, urged them not to wait until next year to start work on the campaigns.

“I want to impress upon you how important this moment is,” she said. “We’re at a crossroads in Georgia. We are truly at a crossroads in this country. You see at the border.”

Loeffler pointed out that former gubernatorial candidate and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams took a decade to build up her organizations. Loeffler, now the head of Greater Georgia, said her group is going to help identify and register more voters.

“We have 2 million people who are unregistered and qualified to vote,” she said. 

There also are 2.5 million voters who are registered but don’t vote, Loeffler added, and that the Republican party needs to leave its tent up, not take it down.

“We have to grow the vote,” she said. “They have to know we care about them. We’re going to hold Democrats accountable and we’re going to educate people about what’s going on.”

Conservatives win on the issues, she said, because those ideas resonate.   

“We know families want safe communities, school choice, they want their freedoms, they want their jobs and economic opportunity and energy independence,” Loeffler said, “all the things the Democrats are trying to crush right now.” 

Both Perdue and Loeffler applauded the recently-enacted Senate Bill 202, which now stipulates voter ID for mail-in and absentee ballots. It also shortens the time between an election and a runoff, places new limits on where ballot drop-off boxes are located and reduces hours for early voting, although it does expand the days of early voting to a second Saturday and grants counties two Sundays to conduct early voting.

U.S. Rep. Austin Scott (R-Tifton) pointed out that in his last presidential election, Barack Obama got 85,000 votes through absentee ballots. In November, Joe Biden got 850,000 votes via mail-in and absentee ballots.  

“The number one issue with Republicans in the state is election integrity,” Loeffler said “I’m really thrilled the state House and Senate have done to get us this far to this bill. It’s common sense.”

Loeffler said she was at the Capitol for two weeks before the bill was passed and signed and urged lawmakers to address the lack of uniformity, transparency and adhering to procedures in election laws. 

Perdue said the new law isn’t everything he wanted but that it will go a long way in establishing confidence in voting results.

“Now we’ve got to defend it,” Perdue said. “I’m very optimistic we were able to defend this. This is a big deal.”

Perdue also implored Republicans to open the party up. 

“We need to be more inclusive,” he said.  

Said Loeffler, “We have been holding roundtables to grow diversity in our party. We have to make sure more women come into the party.” 

But watching the Democrat House and Senate in the nation’s capital also imbues Perdue with a sense of optimism, he told the crowd.

“I have never been more optimistic about the future of our country. Why? Because every time we get some sort of radical move,” he said, “the vast majority of Americans stand up and say, ‘no.’” 

Editor Pat Donahue can be reached at (229) 226-2400 ext. 1806.