The Georgia Hour, episode 138: Fulton County’s Election Board Battle Explodes: Republicans Fight for Seats

Ful­ton Coun­ty, Geor­gia, is at the cen­ter of a heat­ed legal bat­tle as Repub­li­cans push to appoint Julie Adams and Jason Fra­zier to the Board of Elec­tions, despite Demo­c­ra­t­ic resis­tance. A judge ruled the coun­ty can­not veto qual­i­fied GOP nom­i­nees, spark­ing a motion to recon­sid­er or stay the man­damus. Mean­while, Georgia’s polit­i­cal land­scape is frac­tur­ing: Bri­an Kemp’s endorse­ment of Derek Doo­ley, labeled “Rom­ney 2.0,” alien­ates MAGA vot­ers, while Mike Collins stands firm with Trump’s sup­port. Brad Raf­fensperg­er gains trac­tion with vot­er roll cleanup, and Burt Jones eyes the governor’s race with Trump’s back­ing. Demo­c­rat Jason Esteves pro­pos­es a $1B fund for small busi­ness­es, chal­leng­ing GOP tax breaks. Lau­ra Loomer’s attacks on MTG’s cam­paign finances add fuel to the fire. Stay updat­ed on Georgia’s elec­tion integri­ty and polit­i­cal pow­er strug­gles.

• In Ful­ton Coun­ty we are attempt­ing to get 2 repub­li­cans on the board of elec­tions. Ful­ton Coun­ty is try­ing to stop us from see­ing the data on elec­tions. In the state of GA with the con­trol of the leg­isla­tive body and con­sti­tu­tion­al office by repub­li­cans, we should not have a sin­gle coun­ty that does­n’t have the strength and legal pow­er to have repub­li­cans in their appoint­ments. We should not be in any coun­ty in the state of Geor­gia fight­ing with a court to put repub­li­cans in any board of elec­tions. There are five dif­fer­ent doc­u­ments that will give the rules in plac­ing repub­li­cans on the board of elec­tions. The repub­li­can par­ty has had a chance to get it cleaned up. DeKalb coun­ty is hav­ing to put up anoth­er repub­li­can because the courts reject­ed one of the nom­i­nees, set­ting prece­dence. In Ful­ton Coun­ty, the judge sided with the repub­li­can par­ty rul­ing the Board of com­mis­sion­ers did not have the author­i­ty to reject the nom­i­nees. The defen­dants are mak­ing a motion to recon­sid­er or a stay on the man­damus pend­ing appeal. 
• Right from the top they want divi­sion in GA. Mar­ty and Bri­an Kemp have zero inter­est in uni­fy­ing the par­ty. Right now accord­ing to the hand­shake between Kemp and Trump, the agree­ment they would find a can­di­date that will have us all singing kum­baya and Don­ald Trump was pre­pared for that. We were going to focus togeth­er to defeat Jon Ossoff. The chief divider decid­ed that we were not going to sing kum­baya, he gave us Derek Doo­ley, Mitt Rom­ney 2.0. We are not ready to de-MAGA-nify Geor­gia. MAGA is not going to vote for a guy that has nev­er sup­port­ed Don­ald Trump, vot­ed for Don­ald Trump because Bri­an Kemp wants me to vote for him. Remem­ber Derek Doo­ley has blocked his per­son­al social media to block his past. They had a fam­i­ly clean up meet­ing. Derek Doo­ley is not Trump endorsed, they are try­ing to give you the impres­sion that he is. 
• The AJC is lov­ing this and lov­ing it for Jon Ossoff right now. 
• Mike Collins has nev­er wavered from Don­ald Trump. Mike Collins is ready for a fight. He is not play­ing any games with Bri­an Kemp or Mar­ty Kemp. Bud­dy Carter came out first and put a lot of mon­ey in ads to look like the MAGA can­di­date and he didn’t move the nee­dle. 
• What Cody Hall is doing with Rom­ney 2.0, set­ting him up around the state with low hang­ing fruit doing round­table meet­ings with busi­ness lead­ers. Only allow­ing their team to get clips and pic­tures with the soft­ball ques­tions. Every­thing is hand­picked for him. Mike Collins going into the rooms by him­self and tak­ing the ques­tions off the cuff. No one is prep­ping Mike Collins. Doo­ley has his prep team, he has a test and he is get­ting flash cards. 
• When Bri­an Kemp ran against Stacey Abrams in 2018. Bri­an Kemp only won by 50K votes. Noth­ing about Stacey Abrams appeals to the tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly. Burt Jones is the cur­rent LT gov­er­nor and is run­ning against Chris Carr. Jones has the Trump endorse­ment. He is play­ing it safe and talk­ing about end­ing the state income tax. 
• Brad Raf­fensperg­er is get­ting invit­ed to cham­ber meet­ings and being the keynote speak­er. He is pro­mot­ing Geor­gia in keep­ing non-cit­i­zens off the vot­er rolls and keep­ing the reg­is­tra­tion list clean and cur­rent. His next task is to mod­ern­ize the Nation­al Vot­er Reg­is­tra­tion Act (NVRA). Raf­fensperg­er says more than 200K Geor­gia vot­ers must respond to mail­ers to stay active. No longer “Dead Brad Walk­ing” Geor­gia elec­tion chief makes a come­back. Brad Raf­fensperg­er is get­ting into the race. 
• Now once there is a nom­i­nee you are sup­posed to come togeth­er to sup­port the nom­i­nee. How many will vote and sup­port for Brad Raf­fensperg­er, Burt Jones, or Chris Carr was the nom­i­nee or vote demo­c­rat? 
• These peo­ple are jock­ey­ing for post-Trump. 
• Jason Esteves, the democ­rats, floats a $1B fund to help small busi­ness­es. We are tired of repub­li­cans mak­ing huge tax abate­ments for their friends. Repub­li­cans in GA make big deals. But if you are a small busi­ness you would like to get the same deal as Kia or the movie indus­try. Jason Esteves is a demo­c­rat and is mak­ing a plan that helps small busi­ness­es. Esteves pro­posed cre­at­ing a sep­a­rate $1B fund for low-inter­est loans designed to help small busi­ness­es. He said it could help gen­er­ate 30K to 50K jobs a year. “We can attract new busi­ness­es to the state, but at the same time we should be sup­port­ing our small busi­ness own­ers who are tak­ing chances, tak­ing risks on the small towns and rur­al coun­ties across the state.”  
• In GA the state bud­get has gone up $10B in 4 years. Look at the eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment author­i­ties in these coun­ties who have the land deals of friends of friends, the mon­ey has fil­tered around to a friends pock­et. 
• Lau­ra Loomer is on the attack. MTG is in the scope. “I know your daugh­ters lack any real tal­ent because they share your genes, but cam­paign dona­tions aren’t sup­posed to be used as a form of wel­fare. You’re lit­er­al­ly a mul­ti mil­lion­aire fol­low­ing your divorce from your hus­band who is the per­son who actu­al­ly runs your fam­i­ly con­struc­tion com­pa­ny, and yet your kids are get­ting paid via your cam­paign dona­tions and via your cam­paign manager’s con­sult­ing firm. MTG’s daugh­ter and cam­paign man­ag­er are now try­ing to cov­er up the mon­ey trail from MTG’s cam­paign account to the pock­ets of her daugh­ters Tay­lor and Lau­ren. FEC fil­ings reveal that Greene for Con­gress has paid Maw­co Strate­gies a whop­ping $952,323 since July 2024. LinkedIn records con­firm MTG’s daugh­ter Lau­ren has worked as the Cre­ative Direc­tor for Maw­co since 2023.” Loomer also shows how MTG’s cam­paign fun­neled over $113K direct­ly to her daugh­ter Tay­lor, who lives in Texas, as staff pay­roll.