Georgia GOP tries to refocus on Harris after Trump tackles Kemp

Georgia Republicans are doing their best to look forward rather than backward amid an intraparty spat that just won’t go away.

Former President Donald Trump, GOP presidential nominee, and Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) have had beef since late 2020, when Kemp refused to entertain Trump’s stolen election claims. The two have never really aligned since then, a feud that cropped up again over the weekend.

“Brian Kemp should focus his efforts on fighting crime, not fighting unity and the Republican Party,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Aug. 3. “He should be seeking unity, not retribution, especially against the man that got him the nomination through endorsement and, without whom, he could never have beaten Stacey Abrams.”

Trump followed his post up with a series of attacks on Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during a rally in Atlanta, prompting each of them to fire back via social media.

“My focus is on winning this November and saving our country from Kamala Harris and the Democrats – not engaging in petty personal insults, attacking fellow Republicans, or dwelling on the past,” Kemp posted on X. “You should do the same, Mr. President, and leave my family out of it.”

Whether or not Georgia Republicans can do that will go a long way toward determining whether Trump wins the state or whether a resurgent Democratic Party keeps it blue for a second straight cycle.

“The focus needs to be on defining the Democratic nominee and defeating her. Those are the two ‘Ds’ — define her and defeat her,” longtime Georgia Republican operative Alec Poitevint said. “It’d be OK with me if we do it in a dominating fashion, so three ‘Ds’ is all right with me. That’s what I’m telling people.”

Poitevint was a Georgia delegate to the Republican National Convention and chairman of both of Sonny Perdue’s Senate campaigns. He has been a leader in the party since the early 1990s when Georgia was still a bastion of southern Democrats.

While he says he wouldn’t have advised Trump to say what he did about Kemp, Poitevint says he’s a big fan of both men and expects his party’s voters to turn out big to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris in November.

Others aren’t so sure.

“Trump is operating in grievance mode,” University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock said. “If he were operating in ‘expand your support’ mode, he wouldn’t be doing that. There is a component of the electorate who will vote for both Trump and Kemp, but many may be more enthusiastic for Kemp than Trump … I don’t know that it drives those people into the Harris camp, but it hurts Trump if they decide to just skip the presidential ticket.”

Trump helped Kemp become governor by endorsing him in 2018 but has been angry at him since December 2020, when Kemp didn’t go along with the “Stop the Steal” narrative, a matter that has never been resolved.

Kemp says he’s supporting Trump, though he may be doing so reluctantly. He called Trump a “loser” following the first Republican primary debate and predicted Trump would lose his big lead in that race. When the GOP primary came to Georgia, Kemp said he didn’t vote in it, and his wife has said she will write in Kemp’s name this fall rather than voting for Trump.

Kemp visited the RNC in Milwaukee last month but was not a speaker at the event, and he and Raffensperger did not attend Trump’s Atlanta rally. Kemp also controls his own campaign funding pool that he can use to help drive turnout for Trump — or use elsewhere.

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Trump’s running mate, who has become an embattled figure over his past comments about childless Democrats, tried to make nice Sunday by praising Georgia’s new elections laws in a Fox News interview, but Trump himself has made no such overtures.

Democrats were fretting over polls that consistently showed Trump defeating President Joe Biden in the state, now the race is believed to have tightened considerably. Trump is clinging to a 0.8% lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average, with one poll even showing Harris ahead.

Kemp remains an overwhelmingly popular figure in Georgia, with a 63% approval rate, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He defeated another election denier, Democrat Stacey Abrams, during the 2018 Georgia governor’s race, then beat her again by a wider margin in 2022.

Atlanta-based conservative commentator Erick Erickson is warning that Trump could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

“This is Donald Trump’s race to lose, and there are times I wonder if he wants to,” he wrote in a Substack letter. “This weekend was one of those times.”