Geoff Duncan, a Republican who was lieutenant governor of Georgia when then-President Donald J. Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election results there, endorsed President Biden for re-election on Monday.
“I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass,” Mr. Duncan wrote in an opinion piece in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
He joins a small minority of prominent Republicans who have deemed Mr. Trump’s conduct — especially his refusal to accept his loss — egregious enough to set aside party loyalty and refuse to vote for him. Mr. Duncan also cited Mr. Trump’s “erratic” handling of the coronavirus pandemic and his “incendiary” public statements for his reasoning.
The list of other prominent Republicans who say they will not vote for him is short. It includes former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah, and former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. Even fewer Republicans — among them the former Trump spokeswoman Sarah Matthews and the former White House lawyer Ty Cobb — have gone a step further and said they would vote for Mr. Biden, as opposed to a third-party or write-in candidate.
Arguing that “elections are a binary choice,” Mr. Duncan wrote: “The G.O.P. will never rebuild until we move on from the Trump era, leaving conservative (but not angry) Republicans like me no choice but to pull the lever for Biden. At the same time, we should work to elect G.O.P. congressional majorities to block his second-term legislative agenda and provide a check and balance.”
“The alternative,” he wrote, “is another term of Trump, a man who has disqualified himself through his conduct and his character.”
Mr. Duncan criticized Republicans who have fallen in line behind Mr. Trump, a majority of the party that includes many who previously spoke against him. Mr. Duncan cited three by name: Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader; Bill Barr, Mr. Trump’s former attorney general; and Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire.
James Singer, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, said it “welcomes and is actively reaching out to Americans like Geoff Duncan, who put their country and concern for protecting our democracy before blind loyalty to Donald Trump and his self-centered campaign of revenge and retribution.” A spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Alongside Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, Mr. Duncan affirmed Mr. Biden’s victory in Georgia in 2020 and condemned the efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn it. “The mountains of misinformation are not helping the process; they are only hurting it,” he told CNN that December. “I voted for President Trump. I campaigned for him. And, unfortunately, he did not win the state of Georgia.”
