Former GOP Lt. Gov. Duncan at DNC urges Republicans, independents to vote Harris-Walz

Caption

Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan speaks during the Democratic National Convention, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago.

Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Georgia’s former Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan called on his fellow conservatives to cast aside the GOP presidential nominee this year in hopes of moving the country past former President Donald Trump and his brand of politics. 

Duncan may have been speaking Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, but he was really speaking to independents and right-leaning voters far away from the United Center who might help decide the outcome of the presidential election. 

“Look, you don’t have to agree with every policy position of Kamala Harris — I don’t — but you do have to recognize her prosecutor mindset that understands right from wrong, good from evil. She’s a steady hand and will bring leadership to the White House that Donald Trump could never do,” Duncan said in his brief remarks at the convention. 

“Let me be clear to my Republican friends at home watching: If you vote for Kamala Harris In 2024, you’re not a Democrat. You’re a patriot,” he said to applause. 

Duncan said today’s Republican Party acts like “a cult worshiping a felonist.” 

The one-term lieutenant governor became a vocal Trump critic after the former president’s pressure campaign to overturn the election results in Georgia, where President Joe Biden narrowly won by less than 12,000 votes. Duncan, who had previously served in the state House, decided not to seek another term presiding over the state Senate in 2022.

When he left office, he wrote a book called GOP 2.0: A Better Way Forward, which laid out his vision for a post-Trump Republican party, and he explored a potential presidential run on the No Labels ticket, which ultimately did not field a candidate.

Duncan did not endorse his Trump-backed successor or football legend Herschel Walker, who was Trump’s hand-picked candidate for the U.S. Senate race two years ago. He went on to endorse Biden earlier this year and then Harris after she became the likely Democratic nominee, prompting the chair of the state Republican Party to publicly call on Duncan to stop calling himself a Republican.

“I am a Republican,” Duncan said to the Democratic delegates Wednesday. “But tonight I stand here as an American.” 

Duncan was part of a surprising string of Republican figures who made the unusual move to speak at the other party’s nominating convention where Democrats have made repeated appeals to disaffected Republicans and moderates. 

“I have a confession to make. I’m a lifelong Republican,” John Giles, the mayor of Mesa, Arizona, said during a speech at the convention Tuesday night. “So, I feel a little out of place tonight, but I feel more at home here than in today’s Republican party.”

This kind of messaging is an important part of the Harris-Walz campaign strategy in Sun Belt states like Georgia, where Democratic voters alone would not be enough to win, said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.

“I think the reason you would invite (Duncan) would be what he represents more so than what he’s going to say,” Bullock said. “What he represents is that component that is in play in Georgia, and probably in a number of other states also, of folks who generally would consider themselves Republican but Trump’s over the top as far as they’re concerned, and therefore, (Duncan) is a model for that kind of person.

“So, in Georgia, it’s absolutely essential that Democrats make inroads among those kinds of voters,” he added.

Duncan has said he is trying to provide “air cover” for other conservatives who are turned off by Trump. He argues voters like him are an essential ingredient for another Democratic win in Georgia this November, and he has previously pointed to the number of Georgians who voted for then-presidential candidate Nikki Haley, including many after she had left the race.

About 78,000 Georgians — or about 13% of those who cast a GOP ballot in Georgia’s March presidential primary — voted for Haley during the state’s presidential preference primary in March. Haley has since endorsed Trump.

And in Georgia, there is a history of more independent-minded voters influencing the outcome of high-stakes elections. U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, for example, benefited in 2022 from voters who backed both the Democratic senator and Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. 

Georgia Congressman Sanford Bishop, an Albany Democrat, said Duncan is an example of the kind of right-leaning voter in Georgia who might be willing to cross party lines in this election. 

“No question about it. I have Republican friends and supporters who are not very happy with the leadership and the character of 45, and they are looking for an alternative,” Bishop said. “They were not supportive of President Biden, but I think that they’re taking a look at Kamala Harris. And Geoff Duncan is an example, I think, of a person who is really putting the good fortune and the prospects of our nation ahead of partisan politics.” 

This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Georgia Recorder.