The Republican emerging nationally as a counterweight to former President Donald Trump isn’t running for president—an ominous sign for the GOP’s 2024 chances.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who won reelection handily last year after facing down a Trump-backed primary opponent, is the most popular Republican in his state, with 80% job approval among GOP voters, according to a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll. Trump, however, still dominates the Peach State’s 2024 GOP presidential primary, with 57% of the vote among likely Republican voters, besting his closest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, by 42 percentage points.
Free from the distractions of trying to win a presidential primary, Kemp, a staunchly anti-abortion conservative, is leveraging his popularity among Republican voters in a sustained effort to wrest control of the party from Trump.
On Thursday, Kemp took a hatchet to Trump during a press conference in which he pointedly rejected Republican calls to impeach Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for indicting the former president over his bid to overturn the state’s 2020 election.
Kemp said that he had “not seen any evidence” that Willis’ conduct warrants action against her, and that calling a special session to do so would “directly interfere with the proceedings of a separate but equal branch of government.”
“The bottom line,” he said, “is that in the state of Georgia, as long as I’m governor, we’re going to follow the law and the Constitution regardless of who it helps or harms politically.”
Kemp also had some political advice for his party: Start focusing on pocketbook issues, tax cuts, rebates, teacher pay raises, etc.
The way to win the state politically is “not focusing on the past, or some grifter scam that somebody’s doing to help them raise a few dollars into the campaign account.”
This is not the first time Kemp has taken on Trump and his election-denying MAGA cultists. Not only did Kemp certify the 2020 election against Trump’s wishes, he has also been outspoken about his view that continuing to perseverate over Trump’s election lies will be a sure loser at the ballot box in 2024.
After Trump claimed last month to have an “irrefutable report” detailing fraud in 2020, Kemp subtweeted the claim, writing, “The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen. For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward – under oath – and prove anything in a court of law.”
In July, Kemp told CNN Trump would surely lose Georgia in 2024 if he continued to focus on his 2020 election lies. “There is no path for us to win the White House if we can’t win Georgia,” Kemp added.
In April, at an exclusive Republican National Committee retreat in Nashville, Kemp warned Republican donors that “not a single swing voter” would vote for a Republican nominee who continued to insist 2020 was stolen.
AJC reporter Greg Bluestein notes that “there are still deep misgivings about Trump” among many of the 43% of Republican voters who aren’t currently supporting him in the Georgia GOP primary. “And if recent Georgia history is a guide, a small number of middle-of-the-road independent voters can decide an election in this swing state.”
Despite Kemp’s decision so far to sit out 2024, he has become Trump’s biggest Republican critic as well as his biggest threat. And that clearly hasn’t been lost on Team Trump. In a Friday tweet, Trump ally Roger Stone accused Kemp of cheating to defeat Democrat Stacey Abrams.
“Kemp likely stole his election over Stacey Abrams which is why he doesn’t want us looking too closely at the 2020 Election,” wrote Stone. “I never want to believe it, but now I do.”
As I wrote earlier this month, “Politically speaking, no single person in recent history has cost the Georgia Republican Party more than Donald Trump.” And at this early juncture in ’24 cycle, all signs suggest recent history will once again repeat itself.
Sign the petition: Disqualify Trump from running for public office.
The far-right justices on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court just can’t handle the fact that liberals now have the majority for the first time in 15 years, so they’re in the throes of an ongoing meltdown—and their tears are delicious. On this week’s episode of “The Downballot,” co-hosts David Nir and David Beard drink up all the schadenfreude they can handle as they puncture conservative claims that their progressive colleagues are “partisan hacks” (try looking in the mirror) or are breaking the law (try reading the state constitution). Elections do indeed have consequences!
Kerry Eleveld
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