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With Republicans Herschel Walker and Gov. Brian Kemp convincingly winning their party’s nomination for U.S. senator and governor, pundits will be analyzing for days the factors that contributed to their success. The same goes for U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, who beat fellow Democratic U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bordeaux for their party’s nomination in the 7th District. And, as this is written, GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is doing surprisingly well against is opponent U.S. Rep. Jody Hice. 

Here is a brief post-mortem from InsiderAdvantage CEO and Fox5Atlanta Georgia Gang pundit Phil Kent on the governor’s race: 

“It will be said that former President Trump ‘lost’ in Georgia because his endorsed candidate David Perdue was defeated by the incumbent governor. But it appears that a large majority of Georgia Trump voters liked and voted for Kemp because they felt he’s the better candidate to defeat Democrat gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams in the November general election. The Trump voter clout is not gone, and Kemp will need all those Trump/Perdue voters in November.  

“There are two other major factors for the governor’s victory,” Kent continues. “Kemp was the first governor in the country to lift COVID lockdowns in Georgia. That is appreciated by the GOP base and a lot of independents. Second, he is the incumbent– and it’s always harder to defeat someone in office. And Kemp had a very successful General Assembly session which passed many of his legislative initiatives. By the way, incumbents did great elsewhere. It appears no sitting state legislator lost their election.” 

InsiderAdvantage Chairman Matt Towery:

“Kemp had an excellent legislative session which his campaign used to create effective ads that overwhelmed the Perdue campaign. We will never know where the alleged Perdue PAC disappeared to or why the Perdue campaign went dark with no ads in the final weeks of the campaign. But what we do know is that Kemp scored an almost inconceivably high win. Our poll was, for the first time in memory, substantially off. Someone reminded me, as Bob Uecker said in Major League, ‘just a bit outside!’ Make a guess who that was!”

The most interesting races of the night may have been down the ballot in the Congressional primaries.

A look at Georgia’s Congressional primaries

In the 2nd District, where some pundits think incumbent U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop could be vulnerable in November, Republicans Chris West and Jeremy Hunt will move on to a runoff for their party’s nomination.

One of the most watched races was the Republican primary in Metro Atlanta’s CD-6, which following redistricting now leans right and attracted a host of GOP candidates.  Rich McCormick took home the most primary votes but fell short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff.  He will face Trump-backed Jake Evans, who emerged from a crowded primary field. 

In CD-7 U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, formerly of the 6th District, dominated colleague U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux to take the Democratic nomination in a district that was redrawn to be more blue. 

The GOP primary in CD-10 was the most competitive race of the evening.  Mike Collins and Vernon Jones are headed to a runoff out of an eight-candidate field that saw four of those finish with more than 10 percent of the vote.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene faced a wide primary field but lapped the competition in CD-14, taking nearly 70 percent of the vote en route to a resounding primary win.  She will face Democrat Marcus Flowers in November, who despite a massive fundraising haul will remain a significant underdog.