Exclusive — Perdue Airs Ad on Border Crisis, Inflation: ‘That All Started’ in Georgia with Kemp

Former Sen. David Perdue launched a statewide television ad Thursday tying current national crises to Georgia’s 2020 election, in which Republicans suffered stunning losses at the top of the ballot and Democrats took control of the U.S. Senate.

Perdue, who is challenging Gov. Brian Kemp in Georgia’s upcoming gubernatorial primary, is pouring about half a million dollars into the ad, his campaign told Breitbart News.

The 30-second clip redefines Perdue’s messaging after his first television ad campaign, which aired in February, centered around former President Donald Trump endorsing him amid Trump’s quest to unseat Kemp.

The new ad begins with Perdue saying, “Illegals flooding our border, skyrocketing gas prices, crippling inflation, the brink of war, folks, that all started right here when Brian Kemp sold us out and allowed radicals to steal the election.”

Watch:

Unlike the last ad’s direct-to-camera appeal from Trump, this one instead shows Perdue taking aim at Kemp and only subtly features Trump, through a written “endorsed by Trump” under Perdue’s name and a brief claim that Kemp “fought Trump” over the 2020 election process in Georgia.

“Kemp is just another establishment politician who fought Trump,” Perdue says in the video. “Enough is enough. I’ll make sure our elections are never stolen again. We’ll eliminate the state income tax and stop the woke mob from indoctrinating our kids. It’s time to fight back.”

Perdue has been trailing Kemp by ten points or more in polls for months. Trump, in an attempt to elevate his endorsee’s campaign, has rallied in Georgia, endorsed several other Georgia primary candidates who align with Trump’s anti-Kemp mission, and boosted Perdue financially through an expensive Mar-a-Lago fundraiser and a hefty donation from his Save America PAC.

But while the polls early on had indicated many Georgians were not aware of Trump’s endorsement and that raising that awareness could help his campaign, as a recent Cygnal poll put it, the “Trump effect is baked in” now and has not appeared to move the needle for Perdue.

Perdue’s campaign told Breitbart News the goal of the new ad is to “motivate Republican primary voters” and “sway undecideds who believe something happened with the 2020 election but may not have connected the dots to Kemp.”

The ad marks another dimension of Perdue’s campaign message, which was initially Trump-centric and hyper-focused on concerns about alleged widespread voter fraud in Georgia’s 2020 election.

Perdue now strategically threads the 2020 voter fraud conversation with pressing national issues currently affecting Americans, such as surging illegal migration and suffocating inflation rates. Perdue makes the case that Kemp could have prevented the 2020 election from being “stolen,” a notion that Kemp has consistently disputed as legally outside his realm of powers as governor. Perdue incidentally was one of the two Senate incumbents who narrowly lost in the high-profile pair of Georgia runoff races, which resulted in Republicans losing their Senate majority in 2020.

While Perdue tests out his new ad messaging, Kemp has a trove of gubernatorial accomplishments he is promoting as he seeks reelection and tries to stave off a primary defeat or runoff scenario.

Kemp released a new ad this week with testimonials from Georgians about how they were grateful the governor expeditiously relieved Georgia of coronavirus closures while most states stayed locked down in 2020, and the governor has been on a signing spree as he inks his state legislature’s newly passed slate of bills into law, such as constitutional carry and income tax exemptions for military.

Kemp and Perdue are set to debate for the first time on Sunday, and the primary takes place May 24.

Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com. Follow her on Twitter at @asholiver.