Trump’s Conflict with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp Threatens to Blow Up Key State

“I don’t want his support. I don’t want his support. I just want them to do their job for Georgia,” Trump said of the Kemps at an Aug. 3 rally in Atlanta. “In my opinion, they want us to lose.”

Trump also called Kemp a “mean guy” and a “very average governor.” Neither endorsed Trump in the Republican presidential primary. Marty Kemp said in April that she would put her husband’s name in place of Trump’s in November. Gov. Kemp endorsed Trump and decided to move on.

Republicans have used a fairly conventional strategy to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris, who has abandoned most of the progressive ideas that defined her 2020 primary campaign. Instead of challenging Harris’ policies, Trump told a room of black reporters that Harris wasn’t really black. He lashed out at Jewish Americans who support Harris, questioning their faith in a way that recalls the worst impulses of anti-Semitism. And now Trump is lashing out at his fellow Republicans again.

Influential Republicans and even Trump allies are pleading with him to backtrack on his message.

“If we lose Georgia, it could be a very long night. So let’s win this election,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a noted Trump ally, told “Fox News Sunday” when asked about the dispute. “What do you think? Let’s win an election that we can’t afford to lose.”

But the renewed feud between Trump and Kemp shows how the former president can damage his own reputation at any time. It is a return to the form that cost Trump the White House and Republicans both houses of Congress.

“If you want to understand the problem Trump has created for himself in Georgia, on the radio today, 9 out of 10 callers are women, and they are all angry at him for attacking Brian Kemp’s wife,” conservative radio host Erick Erickson, who lives in Georgia, wrote earlier this week.

Trump can retake the White House without winning Georgia. But giving the Peach State back to Republicans would preserve what appeared to be a vast electoral map.

Harris can also win the White House without Georgia. If she keeps the state and its 16 Electoral College With positive votes, she could suffer a potential setback in one of the so-called “blue wall” states in the upper Midwest.

There hasn’t been much polling on the state since Harris was nominated, but a recent AARP poll found the race too close to call. Cook Political Report, which had previously put more states closer to Trump, moved Georgia, Nevada and Arizona back into its “undecided” category.

Trump needs Kemp’s organization.

Kemp is more than just a popular governor. He is the leader of a massive campaign that won him reelection by nearly 8 points in a rematch with former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, whom he had defeated by less than 55,000 votes just four years earlier.

Trump’s team needs Kemp’s organization because it has yet to create its own, Erickson said. Unlike Harris, Trump is relying much more on outside groups to do the kind of canvassing and communications efforts expected of a presidential campaign. His campaign leaders have said traditional organizations aren’t as effective as they seem, but Republicans across the country are nervous about that strategy.

Kemp didn’t even have to tone down his positions to win such a convincing victory. In a state with two Democratic senators, the Republican governor supported one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, weakened gun laws and restricted how teachers can discuss race in the classroom. By all accounts, he showed how Republicans can win without compromising conservative principles.

Even after Trump’s rally, Kemp tried to push again. But the former president couldn’t resist taking another dig at the Georgia governor during his press conference Thursday.

“Without me, he wouldn’t be governor. I got him elected,” Trump, who endorsed Kemp in 2018, told reporters at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump also added that he hoped his relationship with Kemp could be repaired. On Friday, Kemp extended another olive branch by jokingly comparing Trump to Tropical Storm Debby, which hit the state.

“There’s a lot of noise out there, as you can imagine, a lot of distractions, which I don’t think is what we need to be doing right now in the presidential campaign or in any of the campaigns that we’re running in the state of Georgia to maintain our majorities in the House and the Senate,” Kemp told Erickson during an onstage interview at a conservative conference Erickson hosts.

What has not been said is that the biggest distraction of all has been Trump. The man Kemp is desperate to put back in the White House, if only he would let him.