Red State Reckoning: How Georgia GOP’s Leadership Flipped Rural Red to Razor-Thin Pink

In this fiery episode of BKP with Geor­gia Hour on VoiceofRuralAmerica.com, host BKP launch­es a no-holds-barred cri­tique of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty’s (GOP) chron­ic lead­er­ship fail­ures, using fresh elec­tion loss­es as Exhib­it A. Kick­ing off with a folksy analogy—comparing the need for gen­er­als in the mil­i­tary or CEOs in cor­po­ra­tions to the GOP’s appar­ent void at the top—BKP lam­basts cur­rent Chair­man Josh McK­oon as an inef­fec­tive fig­ure­head who’s been “proven time and again” unfit for the role. He argues McK­oon’s reelec­tion at a “cor­rupt, rigged” state con­ven­tion was a cat­a­stroph­ic mis­take, insist­ing alter­na­tives like David Cross or for­mer 9th Dis­trict Chair Rebec­ca Yard­ley (despite their past clash­es) would have inject­ed the tough, results-dri­ven guid­ance the par­ty des­per­ate­ly needs.

BKP dives into the imme­di­ate fall­out: two shock­ing Repub­li­can defeats in state elec­tions to Democ­rats just the night before, includ­ing key Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) races that flipped two seats blue. He frames this not as iso­lat­ed flubs but symp­toms of a broad­er “plan” gone awry—or rather, a total absence of one. Draw­ing par­al­lels to Vir­gini­a’s rur­al vot­er dynam­ics, BKP zooms in on Geor­gia’s geog­ra­phy: While South Geor­gia remains “ruby red” agri­cul­tur­al­ly, the real Repub­li­can muscle—61% of the statewide GOP vote—hails from North Geor­gia’s rur­al strong­holds like the old 9th and new 14th dis­tricts. Yet, with­out Trump on the bal­lot, turnout cratered, turn­ing these bas­tions from over­whelm­ing red to per­ilous­ly pink.

Armed with gran­u­lar vot­er data (sourced from coun­ty-lev­el results), BKP method­i­cal­ly dis­sects the car­nage across mul­ti­ple coun­ties, con­trast­ing Novem­ber 2024’s Trump-fueled highs with the PSC race lows. High­lights include:

• Pauld­ing Coun­ty (a GOP cor­ner­stone Trump won 62–38): Near­ly split even, with Democ­rats surg­ing in metro Atlanta bleed-over, erod­ing Repub­li­can-friend­ly sub­urbs.
• Gilmer Coun­ty (Trump 81%): Democ­rats hit 23.5%—a 5‑point jump—despite no vote-split­ting, as only ~5,300 vot­ers showed up ver­sus Trump’s 15,000 haul. BKP calls out the fail­ure to “pry low-propen­si­ty vot­ers off the couch” via tar­get­ed ear­ly vot­ing out­reach.
• Fan­nin Coun­ty (Trump ~77%): Just 2,000 votes for Repub­li­can Tim Echols; Democ­rats at 27.7%, leav­ing 11,000+ Trump vot­ers AWOL.
• Walk­er Coun­ty (14th Dis­trict): Democ­rats climbed to 26.9%, squan­der­ing a 25,000-vote Trump edge.
• Hall Coun­ty (split 7th/9th): Democ­rats bal­looned to 35.3% (up from 27.8%), with 16,000 Repub­li­cans vot­ing but 50,000+ side­lined.
• Chero­kee Coun­ty (fresh off a Demo­c­rat state Sen­ate upset): A whop­ping 40.1% Demo­c­rat share, ver­sus Trump’s 56.9% plurality—24,000 vot­ers turned out, aban­don­ing 90,000 poten­tial reds.
• Cobb Coun­ty (blue-lean­ing but with untapped GOP poten­tial): Democ­rats dom­i­nat­ed 71%, flip­ping from Trump’s 43% Repub­li­can split, as local influ­encers like Sal­ly Grubbs pri­or­i­tized “make­up coun­ters at Belk’s” over door-knock­ing.

BKP attrib­ut­es these drops (often 15–20% off Trump’s totals) to inex­cus­able GOP fails: zero get-out-the-vote (GOTV) targeting—no calls, texts, or mail­ers even in his own rur­al precinct (where a lone Demo­c­rat sign screamed “Pow­er bills too high? Vote [Democ­rats]”); alien­ation of the base via con­ven­tion purges; an emp­ty par­ty check­book crip­pling fundrais­ing; and tone-deaf ads (e.g., fear­mon­ger­ing $800 bill hikes with­out evi­dence, ignor­ing six PSC-approved rate increas­es under Repub­li­can con­trol). He con­trasts this with Democ­rats’ savvy lead­er­ship under fig­ures like Char­lie Bai­ley, who clawed 40% in recent red dis­tricts by method­i­cal­ly erod­ing rur­al edges—potentially “game over” for Geor­gia if Repub­li­cans don’t counter.

Weav­ing in state his­to­ry, BKP recounts the GOP’s 20-year ascent from Demo­c­rat stran­gle­hold (full con­trol of leg­is­la­ture, con­sti­tu­tion­al offices, PSC, and U.S. Sen­ate seats like Zell Miller, Max Cle­land, and Sam Nunn) to total dom­i­nance under Son­ny Per­due and beyond—only for Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kem­p’s 2020 appoint­ment of Kel­ly Loef­fler (over Trump ally Doug Collins) to ignite the rever­sal. Now, with Jon Ossof­f’s reelec­tion loom­ing and Warnock entrenched, the PSC’s new Demo­c­ra­t­ic duo sig­nals a full tide turn. BKP, who cam­paigned hard for Kemp in 2018, insists his gripes are “facts, not pet­ti­ness,” urg­ing a statewide chair sum­mit to set turnout tar­gets (e.g., “60,000 in Chero­kee, not 24,000”) and ener­gize “hot red” and couch-pota­to vot­ers.

The episode builds to a blis­ter­ing “Bad Peo­ple” seg­ment (teased but cut off by break), nam­ing names like Katie Frost, Steve Kramer, and Q Ball for sab­o­tag­ing Cross, while shad­ing influ­encers like Grubbs for Demo­c­rat dal­liances and Hall Coun­ty Chair Rich Asare­li for backchan­nel snubs. In a mic-drop moment, BKP vol­un­teers to replace McK­oon (“I’ll take the job… it’s like Biden clean­ing up Trump’s mess—tough, but doable”) and vows post-break con­tro­ver­sy that’ll “shake Geor­gia pol­i­tics.” Clock­ing in as a raw, data-dri­ven train­ing man­u­al for GOP activists, this rant blends rur­al pride, sta­tis­ti­cal take­downs, and unfil­tered fury—proving why BKP’s voice cuts through the sta­t­ic.