Georgia’s Kemp departs from Trump, but state GOP goes no further

BUFORD, Ga. (AP) — A line of Georgia Republicans led by Gov. Brian Kemp easily won re-election last year against far-right key opponents backed by Donald Trump and backed by the state party leader, pushing the limits of the former President and the USA His 2020 election is in a critical swing state.

Despite these stinging primary losses, the state GOP shows little interest in moving away from Trump.

Last weekend, Republicans in Georgia’s 1st congressional district, which includes Savannah, elected Kandiss Taylor, a Kemp gubernatorial challenger who ran on a “Jesus Guns Babies” platform and disputes the legitimacy of her primary defeat, as their leader. In Metro Atlanta’s 6th congressional district, Republican activists were considering a resolution rejecting the results of the 2020 election and declaring Democrat Joe Biden the “acting” president.

“In many ways the Georgia Republican Party is a train that has left Crazytown and the governor is trying to present and lead a scenario and demonstrate that this is not the path to success,” said John Watson, a past chairman of the Republican Party with Kemp.

Kemp and a handful of other elected Republicans said this week they will not attend the state’s GOP conference in June when the state party’s new leader is elected, citing dissatisfaction with current party leaders.

Georgia is one of several states where far-right Republicans aligned with Trump are joining the ranks of the party leadership, giving them increasing leverage over the party’s leadership. But mounting electoral losses, including in last year’s midterm elections, are raising questions as to whether state parties are not keeping up with the voters they are supposed to represent.

Republican delegates in Michigan earlier this year elected Kristina Karamo as state party leader, upending an election conspirator who was defeated in November’s run for secretary of state. In Kansas, Mike Brown, a conspiracy theorist who lost his principal bid for secretary of state, was appointed leader of the state party. And in Idaho, Dorothy Moon, an election denier and former state representative, became chair of the state’s GOP last year shortly after her unsuccessful primary as secretary of state.

Adding to concerns about the party’s direction, Georgia Republican incumbents are still mad at outgoing party leader David Shafer, who promoted a Trump-leaning ticket from key challengers against them in last year’s primary. These state officials, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr, not only won their primary, but also beat their Democratic rivals by a convincing margin.

“I will stand up for those who believe in Republican election and support, but I don’t think it’s right if you have a party that’s been chasing an entire statewide ticket and has undermined our ability to get elected ‘ Carr said Wednesday after a bill signing in Buford.

Carr and others are hoping that one of the three candidates replacing Shafer as party leader will put things right. Shafer, who has served as chairman since 2019, is stepping down while he is the subject of an investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis seeking to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 Democratic victory in Georgia.

Shafer said he is not seeking re-election because he wants to focus on his family again.

Republicans have also lost three races for the US Senate since January 2021 under Shafer. Representing a once-reliable Republican state, Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are ceding the latitude of Senate control to their party.

Kemp has been attempting to promote a dissenting vision for Republicans since shortly after the 2020 election, when he defied then-president demands to make up for Trump’s narrow loss in the state. His impressive win over Democrat Stacey Abrams last year has fueled presidential speculation, but Kemp has said he won’t be aiming for the White House in 2024. However, he has sought national influence through the Republican Governors Association and could set up a Senate run against Ossoff in 2026.

“If you look in the rearview mirror for too long while driving, you’re going to look up and hit someone, and that’s not going to be good,” Kemp said in mid-April, shortly after delivering the same message at the Republican National Committee’s donor retreat in Nashville had.

But it’s not Kemp who chooses the leader of the state party — it’s activists. And this setup has caused conflict before.

Kemp was booed at the 2021 convention, with some members attempting to reprimand Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, Kemp’s predecessor. Deal skipped the two conventions in his second term.

“The people who show up at party events are not representative of Georgia’s primary Republican electorate,” said Brian Robinson, a political adviser who was Deal’s chief spokesman. “They are, by and large, much further to the right, much more ideologically driven.”

The discord also raises the question of whether control over the party apparatus still matters. In Georgia, voters do not register by party and can vote in any primary. Unlike some states, Georgia party leaders cannot throw candidates out of the general election for disloyalty. And a new law in Georgia allows Kemp and some other state officials to raise unlimited amounts of money and coordinate with campaigns that used to be key party functions.

Kemp kept his political operation going after his re-election, lending his efforts to get the votes to Herschel Walker’s unsuccessful Senate runoff campaign while he formed a federal political action committee that allows the governor to run for Congress and the president to influence.

“I have no disagreements with the state GOP,” Kemp told reporters in Atlanta on Tuesday. “You know, I just think we need to have robust ground ops to win. The state GOP did not. And we did that ourselves.”

The three candidates running for leadership of the state party recognize that a new leader must focus on rebuilding an organization that has shrunk to two employees, increase fundraising and do more to train party activists on how you win votes. Shafer supports Josh McKoon, a former state senator who is now an attorney for the state technical college system. McKoon acknowledges the need for unity and says a focus on ousting Biden in 2024 should help.

“There was a lot of power struggles, not just within the primary, but between Republicans, between party officials and elected officials,” McKoon said. “We have to put that aside.”

But Watson said that could be difficult to achieve if activists aren’t willing to change.

“If the party and party organization continue to focus on conspiracy, backwards thinking, fringe ideas and fringe politics, then they will have completed their path to insignificance again,” Watson said.