It was the third in a four-part series, and four gubernatorial candidates, three Republicans, and one Democrat would easily win the election and attract a broad coalition with their message of dominating ideology. rice field.
R.Republican Brian Kemp credits consistent good management with winning his second match in the Georgia governor’s office by an 8-point margin over Democrat Stacey Abrams. I’m here. In the end, Kemp has faced heavy national media criticism for how he handled COVID, corporate meltdowns over the state’s new voting laws, the vast resources poured into Abrams, and even Donald Trump. It didn’t end with the former president’s fierce opposition campaign. him in the state primary.
“We had a great record to run, which obviously we didn’t have last time,” he said. Washington Jury in an interview. When he ran for office in 2018, he was just a secretary of state. This time, his record included tax cuts, teacher pay raises, and an economy that has suffered less economic damage from COVID than many other states.
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At a time when Trump’s words were often golden in so many states’ Republican primaries, Kemp not only defeated former Senator David Perdue in the Trump-backed Republican primary, I actually made a difference of 50 points.
“I said to those of us in the primary, ‘We have a record of running offensively in this campaign and we don’t want to be defensive.’ I want to fight David Purdue and I want to fight Stacey Abrams,” he explained. “And that’s what we did. I think we’ve done a really good job of keeping the . And I ignored all the outside noise: what she was pushing, what the left was pushing, what President Trump or someone was pushing.”
Kemp said the strength of his candidacy had a lot to do with what his administration was able to do in its first three-and-a-half years in Georgia.
“We are not only building on what our state has done in the past, but we are doing very honestly many of the things I campaigned to strengthen rural Georgia. Having a great partner to work with is, to me, a sign of a great leader with a record of getting things done and doing things,” he said.
Kemp credits how he handled difficult times in both the campaign and the external force as moments that paved the way and set him up for the year ahead.
“Ever since I won the election in 2018, there’s always been the possibility of a rematch,” he said. It provided a message of hope and prosperity that appealed to low-incline voters and fluctuating voters after all. ”
Kemp said he was prepared for the expense, but knew his team should have voted against the voters and provided the arguments against which they should vote.
“We won every other constitutional office, had a good night with the legislative candidacy, and won Herschel. [Walker] “It’s hard to beat an incumbent in a runoff with Warnock, but whenever you get a runoff incumbent in Georgia, you have the opportunity to knock them out.
Governor Brian Kemp campaigns with Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker in Georgia last week.
(Photo from the campaign)
Kemp participated in his first gubernatorial race against Abrams in 2018 as an underdog, and she was a superstar who became America’s first black female governor. Although she failed, the media favorably reported on her false claims that she denied her election results and disenfranchised a large number of voters.
Within two years, many media outlets were already writing political obituaries for Kemp when he became the target of Trump’s ire. Kemp infuriated Trump by certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victorious Georgia presidential electoral list.
A few months later, he faced another form of ire from Biden, Corporate America, and every other news outlet in America. but most of them didn’t even bother to skim the law – they just took the Democratic Party’s word. MLB went so far as to move the All-Star Game out of state. I was.
As then, Kemp shrugged. “His two companies, Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola, which are the largest investment firms in the state, have actually started it,” he said of claims that the voting laws somehow stifle minority votes. . above; there was a lot to face. But when we did that, I think we really kept our focus on what people wanted, not political pressure or what a few people wanted. ”
He also didn’t bow to political pressure when he first reopened a small part of the economy during the COVID outbreak — the first wave of ‘stopping the spread’ and ‘flattening the curve’ has passed. later.
“Of all the governors who were doing it at the time, I was clearly the most saddened,” he said.
As a result, Georgia’s tourism industry has held up pretty well during the worst of the pandemic. Plus, people could actually go outside and walk on the beach.
“We had some regulations about it, but people could go out there and get some exercise and let the kids do something. I have the sanity to do it.”
Kemp said his approach was to strike the right balance and not be paralyzed by public health professionals. [the state’s commissioner of public health] Doctor [Kathleen] So did Toomey, she was one of the best-trained epidemiologists in the world who advised me.
“We didn’t make vaccines or masks mandatory, and Dr. Toomey and I said early on that people had to think about the livelihood impact of not being able to survive economically. , we pushed very hard to get the kids back into the classroom,” he added.
“I felt a lot of sadness from that because of other things that were happening to the president and my political situation about those politics,” he said. In case you forgot, Trump himself and several mayors were very critical of Kemp’s failure to lock down the state.
“It was a tough time,” Kemp said. And he left his criticism of Trump there. “But I was also just hearing people worrying about losing their business. They were worried about where their children were going… …what would happen to their children?” See? And that’s who we were fighting against.”
Kemp has now filed papers with the Federal Election Commission to establish Hardworking Americans Inc., a federal PAC that he plans to use to assist Republican candidates for federal office in Georgia. He says it’s just his job to stand up for policies and principles. He adds that he doesn’t do it for personal gain, but sometimes it works that way.
“In some ways, the way we stood up against Major League Baseball after we passed the election bill was one of the first instances of someone starting to stand up against the awakened cancellation culture,” he said. Both, in retrospect, really helped me in the primary and in general.
Kemp added that he hopes to help other Republicans rise up in similar ways in the future.
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