With just days to go before the election, polls suggest an extremely close contest. That reflects a remarkable evolution from a year ago, when Raffensperger was widely seen as politically dead following his showdown with Trump.

“The fact that it’s competitive is a monumental shift in the environment,” said Brian Robinson, a GOP political consultant in the state, noting that many Republican voters are tired of Trump’s election claims whether they like him or not. They want to hear about solutions to inflation and rising gas prices, not about the previous election, he said…

On the campaign trail, Raffensperger is unafraid to blame Trump directly for his 2020 defeat. “Twenty-eight thousand Georgians skipped the presidential race, and yet they voted down ballot in other races,” Raffensperger told the Savannah Rotary. “Republican congressmen collectively got 33,000 more votes than President Trump. And that’s why President Trump came up short.”

Many Republican voters interviewed at polling locations this month said that they believe fraud tainted the 2020 election and that they like Trump, yet they are exhausted by his singular obsession with it and are ready to move on. Raffensperger and Kemp are also attracting moderate Republicans in the Atlanta suburbs who are no fans of the former president.