Congress braces for another battle over US debt ceiling – live

David Perdue’s announcement that he will challenge sitting Governor Brian Kemp for the Republican nomination comes less than a week after Democrat Stacey Abrams launched her own gubernatorial campaign.

Abrams’ campaign sets up a potential rematch against Kemp, depending on whether he can best Perdue. Kemp narrowly defeated Abrams in the 2018 gubernatorial race, although she blamed the loss on voter suppression.

In the years since, Abrams has devoted herself to voting rights, establishing the organizing group Fair Fight to help register hundreds of thousands of voters in Georgia.

Democrats have credited Abrams with helping to carry Joe Biden and Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to victory in Georgia. The gubernatorial race will test whether Democrats can achieve another statewide victory in the historically conservative state.

Former Republican Senator David Perdue has officially launched his primary challenge against Georgia Governor Brian Kemp.

In a video announcing his bid, Perdue warned of the potential peril of electing Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and blamed Kemp for Republican losses in the Georgia Senate runoffs earlier this year.

Perdue narrowly lost his own runoff race to Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff, who was elected alongside fellow Democrat Raphael Warnock in January.

“This isn’t personal; it’s simple. He has failed all of us and cannot win in November,” Perdue said of Kemp in his announcement video.

“Instead of protecting our elections, he caved to Abrams and cost us two Senate seats, the Senate majority, and gave Joe Biden free rein.”

Donald Trump had encouraged Perdue to jump into the race, as the former president has continued to attack Kemp for refusing to attempt to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory in Georgia.

Trump is expected to soon formally endorse Perdue’s primary challenge, according to CNN.

Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.

Congress is bracing for another battle over the debt ceiling, as lawmakers look to avoid a default that would have devastating effects on the US economy.

The debate comes two months after Congress approved a short-term debt ceiling suspension that delayed a potential default.

Politico reports:

House Democratic leaders have discussed adding a provision addressing the debt ceiling to the final National Defense Authorization Act and voting on it as soon as this week, according to a senior Democratic aide. That’s assuming, of course, that compromise NDAA language is ironed out between the two chambers. Senate Minority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL has privately signaled to Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER that he could go along with this idea, which would end their months-long stalemate.

But as Politico notes, it remains unclear whether such a proposal can pass the Democratic-controlled House, given some progressive pushback to the NDAA.

And with Democrats’ extremely narrow majority in the House, speaker Nancy Pelosi can only afford a few “no” votes in her caucus if she wants to pass the bill.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.