abortion, as texans head to the polls. and news tonight the january six committee will only hold six public hearings next month. committee member, jamie raskin, i ll ask him about that. all in starts right now. good evening from new york. i m chris hayes. or just 11 hours away from polls opening in tomorrow s crucial primary electorate in georgia. and the two marquee races that republican primaries for governor, and for secretary of state. to trump back candidates are essentially running single issue campaigns, on the ex presidents big lie of a stolen election. you ve got former senator david perdue, close trump ally, who lost his senate seat last year. he s challenging the incumbent republican governor, brian kemp. and you ve got far-right congressman jody hice, who s hoping to oust the current incoming secretary of state, brad raffensperger. these races are notable, not only as a referendum on trump s attempt to do, but also to set the groundwork for the next one. b
republican primaries for governor, and for secretary of state. two trump backed candidates are essentially running single issue campaigns, on the ex president s big lie of a stolen election. you ve got former senator david perdue, close trump ally, who lost his senate seat last year. he s challenging the incumbent republican governor, brian kemp. and you ve got far-right congressman jody hice, who s hoping to oust the current incoming secretary of state, brad raffensperger. these races are notable, not only as a referendum on trump s attempt to do, but also to set the groundwork for the next one. because out of all of trump s attempts to overturn the will of the voters and steal the election, what is the state of georgia, where he put his most effort? part of that of course has to do with how humiliated trump appears to have felt by his defeat over there, not only because the election was widely seen as repudiation to him and his movement, and it has been years since a democr
certification. texting him, quote, mister secretary, mark meadow is here. if you could give me a brief call at your convenience, thank you. it s funny, he doesn t ask in text. maybe he sort of knows. as far as we know, raffensperger didn t return the call. and the next day, georgia certified biden s victory as expected. trump later went on fox news to publicly land bask governor kemp, for not playing along with trump scheme, to steal the election. they had judges making deals, and they had electoral officials making deals, like this character in georgia, who s a disaster. and the governor has done nothing, he s done absolutely nothing. i m ashamed that i endorsed him. now, a few days later, trump actually called kemp personally, to pressure him into calling a special legislative special, where state republicans in the state legislature could throw out biden s victory, and instead, appoint a slate approach from election, which you might remember was also the basis of trump lawyer jo
himself, mostly honestly, but just throwing the republican secretary of state, raffensperger, out of the bus. get this, here s a statement. he releases it back then, reading in part, quote, georgia law prohibits the governor from interfering in elections. the secretary of state, who is an elected constitutional officer, has oversight over the elections that cannot be overridden by executive order. of course, we already know that trump was targeting raffensperger as well. on december 5th, the same day that he called camp, mark meadows tried to get through to the georgia secretary of state, again. meadows texting him, quote, mister secretary, can you call the white house switchboard for a call, your voice mail is full. the white house put raffensperger, who was clearly backing their calls in the back burner, because he didn t have a new strategy. the same with trump made those calls, his lawyer, rudy giuliani, went in person, down to georgia, pushing baseless claims of voter fraud, surro
thinking that even people who support trump, and would vote for him again, if he was on the ballot in 2024, are tired of the 2020 election grievance narrative. and want to move on and i think that both brad raffensperger and brian kemp have capitalize on that fact by focusing on you know their conservative credentials. by not necessarily shining the way for, from their decision to defy president trump. both of them had a role in certifying the election in 2020. but, by kind of skipping past it, and also embracing the sort of election integrity that has become a necessary element in many states for running for office as a republican. and i think we ve seen that in both of these races, and i think that brad raffensperger, for instance, his top campaign issue this year has been making sure that non-citizens don t vote in georgia, even though there s eventually small number