Trump Makes First Big Investment in GOP Race

For the first time, former President Donald Trump’s political operation has invested in a candidate's midterm election campaign. Trump’s Save America PAC sent $500,000 to a super PAC working to defeat Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, whom the former president has wanted out of office since he rejected Trump's request to overturn the state's 2020 presidential election results, Politico reports. Trump has endorsed former Sen. David Perdue in the May 24 Republican primary. The PAC donation marks a major change for Trump.

Until now, he's written only small checks to candidates he's backing, though donors have given Trump more than $110 million to spend. The anti-Perdue investment was described as just the first Trump donation of the campaign. It was used to pay for an ad with false claims about the 2020 election, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "If Kemp can't beat voter fraud," the commercial said, "he won’t beat Stacey Abrams," the leading Democratic candidate, in the general election. Trump has held a rally for Perdue and a fundraiser, and he cut his own TV commerical for him.

But Kemp has a major financial advantage. Through Tuesday, AdImpact counted Kemp and supporters as having bought or reserved campaign TV ads totaling $11.4 million, while the figure for Perdue is $2.7 million. Polls show Kemp ahead by double digits, and Trump's doubts about Perdue's chances have him undecided about going back to Georgia for another rally, per Politico. "It's always hard to beat a sitting governor," Trump said recently in a radio interview. (More Donald Trump stories.)