ATLANTA — Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger won reelection Tuesday, keeping his job as Georgia’s chief elections officer after he defied Donald Trump’s demands to “find” more votes in the presidential election two years ago.
Raffensperger defeated Democrat Bee Nguyen and Libertarian Ted Metz on his way to a second four-year term.
He ran on a platform of election integrity, telling voters he would defend results no matter which party won — as he did in 2020, when Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump by about 12,000 votes.
“My job as secretary of state is to make sure you have honest and fair elections, and that’s what we do here in Georgia,” Raffensperger said Tuesday. “We know that in any race, half the people that are on the ballot will win and the other half lose. It’s just how it works.”
Nguyen said she conceded in a phone call to Raffensperger.
“The past years haven’t been easy in Georgia,” Nguyen wrote on Twitter. “I’m grateful to be in a race where we can have a phone call and wish each other well.”
After Raffensperger lost favor among some Trump supporters following the presidential election, he was able to regain support among Republicans as he ran as a principled conservative. Some Democratic voters said they crossed party lines to back Raffensperger.
Nguyen campaigned as defender of voting rights, criticizing Georgia’s election law past year and pledging to increase access for voters. Metz had based his candidacy on opposition to much of Georgia’s electronic voting equipment, which he said was untrustworthy.
