Georgia's former lieutenant governor backs Biden in high-profile defection from GOP

Not long ago, Geoff Duncan was seen as a rising star in GOP politics. Now, the former Georgia lieutenant governor says he’s voting for President Joe Biden in 2024, and he's urging other Republicans to do so, too.

“Unlike Trump, I’ve belonged to the GOP my entire life. This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass,” Duncan wrote in an op-ed published Monday inthe Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Former President DonaldTrump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia was a breaking point for Duncan, who along with other state GOP officials, like Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, defended the integrity of the state'selections and condemned Trump’s actions and rhetoricas false and undemocratic.

That break with Trump led Duncan to decide not to run for re-election in 2022 and to write a book about re-inventing the Republican Party without Trump.

Duncan, who is also a former professional baseball player and state lawmaker, was recruitedto join the centrist third-party presidential ticket backed by No Labels earlier this year, but he ultimately declined.

The deep-pocketed Washington group announced in March that it was abandoning its 2024 presidential ambitions after being unable to find a credible candidate. Duncan appears to be closest they came to securing a candidate for the top of the the ticket, though No Labels kept much of its work private.

Duncan has since said in interviews that he seriously considered the No Labels ticket, but was not confident that any third-party candidate would have a real path to victory in November and worried he would merely be a spoiler.

With Trump now back atop the GOP and on track