The Chamber's Immigration Stance Hurts Their Georgia Pick

All the public and private polling I saw, like this for example, had Jack Kingston ahead of David Perdue. All the buzz privately was Kingston ahead of Perdue.

And Kingston lost. I supported him. He’s one of the few candidates I supported in the Georgia runoffs who lost. And I can tell you why Kingston lost.

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I have evening drive time on the most listened to talk station in America. Every night for the last month on my show I’ve gotten the same concern on the phones, in emails, on twitter, on Facebook, etc. Kingston had the Chamber of Commerce’s endorsement. The Chamber of Commerce is bad on immigration. Therefore Kingston would be bad on immigration. In fact, his opponent and now the GOP nominee for the Senate in Georgia made a point to tell people that Kingston was the Chamber endorsed candidate. His closing argument in advertising made Kingston own the endorsement.

I tried pointing out that Kingston had consistently opposed amnesty, but it did not matter. After the Mississippi Senate primary, the conservative voters in Georgia were having none of it.

In the last two weeks, David Perdue made hay out of walking out of his meeting with the Chamber. He claimed the Chamber wanted him to vote with them 100% of the time. He would not.

That message resonated. Kingston was the career politician in the pocket of the Chamber and would pass amnesty.

Not now. He lost. And he did so largely because David Perdue made Kingston own his Chamber of Commerce endorsement.

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