On Monday, I wrote about how Donald Trump continues to attack Gov. Brian Kemp (R-Ga.) with falsehoods and cheap shots at Kemp’s wife Marty. As someone who believes that Trump is our only hope for avoiding a long slide into leftwing authoritarianism but who also wholeheartedly supports Kemp and believes in his conservative leadership in Georgia, Trump’s attacks bother me.
The things that Trump says about Kemp aren’t true, but far too many loyal Trump supporters spread these lies along with conspiracy theories that are even more egregiously false. I worry that it could cost Trump votes in Georgia; as Paula Bolyard pointed out Monday evening, Kemp maintains high approval ratings here in the Peach State.
Kemp did speak out on X shortly after Trump’s attack on Truth Social, but people have been hoping for a more detailed statement from him. At an appearance on Thursday, reporters asked Kemp what he had to say, and he told them that they would have to be present at Erick Erickson’s Gathering on Friday to hear his response.
Guess who happened to be at the Gathering to hear Erickson interview Kemp? That’s right: yours truly. Erickson led with a question about Trump and what he said about the governor.
“I was kidding with a small audience the other day, and I said, ‘You know, we had this big storm come through the state this week, and then now we're still in with Tropical Storm Debby,’” Kemp quipped. “So that's the second storm we've dealt with. But you know what? We've weathered both of them. We're doing great in the state.”
Kemp pointed out that there’s “a lot of noise out there, as you can imagine. A lot of distractions, which, in my opinion, is not what we need to be doing right now in the presidential campaign or on any of the campaigns that we're running in the state of Georgia to keep our majorities in the [state] House and the Senate.”
Related: Trump Attacks Georgia's Popular GOP Governor Again With Falsehoods and Personal Low Blows
Kemp talked about his formidable political operation, which has raised money and seeded a ground game to elect Republicans at every level. He began building his machine in response to the inroads that Stacey Abrams tried to make for Democrats in 2018.
“We cannot rely on other people for our ground game in Georgia,” he noted, adding, “We put our own people on the ground with a lot of great volunteers in the state and had a better operation than the Democrats did in 2022. So we learned what the playbook was, and we've got to do the same thing in 2024.”
Kemp and his PAC are working in every state legislative district to raise the profile of Republicans throughout the state. He is also working with candidates in other states, and he reiterated that we need to focus on winning this November and avoid “distractions.”
“There's a lot of great people out there that can do a lot of really good things in 2026 and perhaps 2028, but we need to keep our eye on the prize for 2024,” Kemp said. “I've said that for a long time. We all need to be laser-focused.”
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