Donald Trump Taps Former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue as Secretary of Agriculture

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue to lead the Department of Agriculture, senior transition officials tell NBC News.  Perdue served on Trump's agricultural advisory committee during his presidential campaign. orn and raised in Georgia, the 70-year-old veterinarian served as a state senator for 10 years beginning in 1991. In 2003, he became Georgia's first Republican governor since Reconstruction.  Perdue was reelected in 2006 — an accomplishment that provides the nominee a sense of familiarity that might make for an easier confirmation process compared to what could be in store for some of Trump's more politically inexperienced cabinet picks. Like Trump in the 2016 election, Perdue won his first gubernatorial bid thanks in large part to disillusioned white voters.Upset that Georgia's legislature had stripped the state flag of its large Confederate battle cross in 2001, rural whites the next year overwhelmingly flocked to Perdue, who had promised a referendum on bringing the emblem back. Georgia voters in 2004 ended up choosing a design resembling the national "Stars and Bars" flag of the Confederacy over the more infamous battle cross.'