Trump’s sustained attacks on Kemp for his refusal to nullify Biden’s victory in the state are making the governor of Georgia even more vulnerable, and Trump threatened to support a major challenger against Kemp next year. All of this is damaging the Republican Party’s position in the historically red state at a time when Democrats continue to make significant inroads here.
“I really believe that we have a chance at every state office in 2022,” said Kelly Girtz, the Democratic mayor of Athens, the university town of northern Georgia. “This would already have been true, given the strength of the candidates we will have at the polls. But it doesn’t hurt that Trump continues to kick sand in everyone’s face. “
Abrams, the former leader of the state minority that national Democrats unsuccessfully recruited to run for the Senate this year, is staying away from the Republican imbroglio. But the powerful group she created after losing to Kemp in 2018, Fair Fight, raised more than $ 22 million in the last month before the election, registered thousands of new voters and significantly improved the Democrats’ ground game here.
And while she did not attend the rally for Vice President-elect Kamala Harris by Ossoff and Warnock in neighboring Garden City on Sunday night, Democrats celebrated their efforts to register and expel more Georgians, particularly African-Americans.
On the eve of the second round that will determine which party controls the Senate, Georgia’s Republicans are also considering going to the polls to contain the strong number of Democratic votes. They see Trump as their best asset to stimulate the GOP base, but are increasingly concerned about the turmoil he has unleashed.
“Most Republicans are not going to say this publicly, but while the president has been clear in supporting David and Kelly, at the same time he is hurting the Georgia Republican Party,” said former MP Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) , a Kemp ally who lost to Perdue in the 2014 primary in the Senate. “And we need all the votes we can get. We need unity. And that is a challenge now. “
It won’t just be a race for governor shaping Georgia’s political future next year: the state will have yet another race for the Senate, when Loeffler or Warnock will be re-elected for a full term. Republicans say their goal is to neutralize Abrams’ lead efforts to seize Biden’s victory in 2020 – or just try to catch up.
“I am excited that Georgia is a competitive state, which is a matter of nail biting,” said Abrams on Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. “And my hope is that Democrats will show up and demonstrate that November is the beginning of a pattern.”
Trump’s persistent attacks on Kemp are dividing the GOP at a time when the party needs total unity. Rich McCormick, a Republican who narrowly missed a run to the Atlanta suburban House in November, was even more blunt, arguing that Trump’s attacks on Kemp made the governor more vulnerable in 2022.
“There is a phrase in the military: You praise in public and admonish in private,” said McCormick after meeting Loeffler and Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in the Atlanta suburb on Saturday. “I really think we can divide our party to the point where we don’t win the next election, when we could otherwise win it.”
Republicans are counting on Trump to help put Loeffler and Perdue over the top and thus maintain control of the party in the Senate. They see Trump’s visit to northwest Georgia on Monday night as critical to getting the president’s supporters to the polls. Kemp is unlikely to attend the rally, according to two people familiar with planning.
“It is certainly not useful for Governor Kemp, and the President knows it. But this is the president, ”McCormick said of Trump’s attacks. “He fights. When he sees something he doesn’t like, he immediately speaks. He doesn’t want to think about the ultimate consequences of how it will affect everyone, because he is a fighter. That’s what he does.”