Trump’s continued attacks on Kemp over his refusal to overthrow Biden’s victory in the state make the Georgia governor even more vulnerable, and Trump has threatened to back a primary challenger against Kemp next year. This is all which harmed the position of the IDP in the historic red state at a time when the Democrats here were constantly turning around.
“I absolutely believe that in 2022 we will have a chance at every office across the country,” said Kelly Girtz, the Democratic mayor of Athens, North Georgia University town. ‘That would have been true given the strength of the candidates we are going to have on the ballot. But it does not hurt that Trump is still kicking sand in everyone’s face. ”
Abrams, the former State House minority leader for whom the National Democrats unsuccessfully recruited to run for Senate this year, remains far removed from the Republicans’ imbroglio. But the power group she created after losing to Kemp in 2018, Fair Fight, raised more than $ 22 million in the last month before the election. thousands of new voters registered and the Democrats’ ground game here improved significantly.
And while she did not attend Vice President-elect Kamala Harris for Ossoff and Warnock in neighboring Garden City on Sunday night, the Democrats celebrated her efforts to register and expel more Georgians, especially African Americans.
On the eve of the run-off that will determine which party controls the Senate, Republicans in Georgia are also thinking of the rise to counter the strong early votes of the Democrats. They see Trump as their best asset to fuel the GOP base, but they are becoming increasingly concerned about the unrest he has unleashed.
“Most Republicans are not going to say it in public, but although the president clearly supported David and Kelly, he hurt the Republican Party in Georgia at the same time,” former Representative Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) Said. A Kemp ally who lost to Perdue in the 2014 Senate election. “And we need every voice we can get. We need unity. And that’s a challenge right now. ‘
It will not just be a government race that will shape Georgia’s political future next year: the state will have another Senate race, when Loeffler or Warnock are re-elected for a full term. Republicans say their goal is to force – or just catch up with – the Abrams-led efforts to build on Biden’s 2020 victory.
“I’m excited about Georgia being a competitive state, and that it’s a nail-biter,” Abrams said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And I hope the Democrats will show up and demonstrate that November is the beginning of a pattern.”
Trump’s persistent attacks on Kemp divide the IDP into a time when the party needs total unity. Rich McCormick, a Republican who lost a suburban race at Atlanta House in November, was even more direct, arguing that Trump’s attacks on Kemp would make the 2022 governor more vulnerable.
“There’s a phrase in the military: you praise in public and reprimand privately,” McCormick said after meeting with Loeffler and Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in suburban Atlanta on Saturday. “I really think we can split our party to the point that we would not win the next election, if we could have won it otherwise.”
Republicans count on Trump to help put Loeffler and Perdue down above and thus retain the party’s control over the Senate. They consider Trump’s visit to northwest Georgia on Monday night critical of getting the president’s supporters to the ballot box. According to two people familiar with the planning, Kemp is unlikely to attend the protest.
‘It’s definitely not useful for Government Kemp, and the President knows it. “But this is the president,” McCormick said of Trump’s attacks. “He fights. If he sees something he does not like, he immediately speaks out. He does not want to think about the ultimate consequences of how it will affect everyone, because he is a fighter. This is what he does. ”