EXCLUSIVE: Kelvin King says thesenate’s at a crossroads.
“We have to decide right now if we’re going to be knocked down or knocked out,” the GOP senate”>Senate< told Fox News in an interview. “Personally, I’m ready to take back the state and fight for our future and the future of our country.”
WARNOCK, AMONG THE GOP’S BIGGEST 2022 SENATE TARGETS, HAULS IN BIG BUCKS
Last week King, the owner of an Atlanta-area construction company, became the first Republican candidate to launch a elections challenge against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, whom the GOP sees as one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats up for reelection next year.
Georgia Republican Senate candidate Kelvin King
King, a military veteran and one of the most prominent Black supporters in Georgia last year of donald-trump”>then-President Trump<
While Ossoff won a full six-year Senate term, Warnock is serving the final two years of retired GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term. Republicans need a net gain of just one seat to regain the Senate majority in the 2022 midterm elections, and Warnock is one of the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s top targets.
Asked about Warnock, King said in his interview Tuesday with Fox News, “I think what Georgia is looking for is someone who is not to the extreme.”
“His policy positions, they’re very left-leaning and he just doesn’t have our values. In Georgia we value life, we value the Second Amendment. And there’s nothing that comes out of Sen. Warnock that speaks towards that….he’s not really in lockstep with Georgia,” King said as he tied the incumbent senator to President Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Last week Warnock unveiled some eye-popping elections
Biden edged Trump in Georgia by less than 12,000 votes in the November election, becoming the first Democrat to carry the state in the White House race in over a quarter-century.
The ballots in Georgia were counted three times — the original Election Day count, a mandatory hand recount and a recount requested by Trump’s campaign.
Trump refused to concede to Biden and claimed for two months that there was massive voter fraud in Georgia and five other states where Biden narrowly won. Dozens of legal challenges by Trump and his allies were shot down, and then-Attorney General William Barr said his Justice Department did not see fraud on the kind of scale that could flip the election. Trump continues to claim without providing proof that the election was “rigged” and “stolen.”
Asked about Trump’s unfounded claims, King said, “I think there are a lot of disenchanted voters here in Georgia, a lot of distrust, rightfully so. I don’t know what happened in terms of improprieties, but a lot of people in the state feel that way and they deserve to be heard.”
He added that he’s “a fan” of Georgia’s new controversial voting law, which he argued “will restore voter integrity in the state, and I think that that bill will serve its purpose and will re-encourage people to go out and vote.”
A couple of days after King announced his candidacy, military veteran and businessman Latham Saddler became the second Republican contender to launch a Senate campaign.
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Loeffler has left the door open to a rematch with Warnock, and former Rep. Doug Collins, who ran in last year’s special Senate election and came in third behind Warnock and Loeffler in the November contest, is also mulling a Republican challenge.
President Trump (right) and Herschel Walker (left) walk as they watch young participants during the White House Sports and Fitness Day on the South Lawn on May 30, 2018, in Washington, D.C. (Oliver Contreras-Pool/Getty Images)
Herschel Walker, the former star college and professional football player whom Trump has encouraged to run, said in a Fox News interview earlier this month that he’s considering a bid.
King highlighted that regardless of what other candidates potentially enter the race, he’s “definitely in this for the long haul. There’s been lots of rumors but we can’t base our campaign off of rumors. We’re focused on running our race.”
