The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State GOP hopes for Trump-Kemp truce
Don’t expect Donald Trump and Brian Kemp to become chummy, but some Georgia Republicans hope they can persuade the former president to tone down the enmity he’s aimed at the governor.
In his bid for reelection, Kemp faces Democrat Stacey Abrams once again after beating her in 2018 by less than 1.4 percentage points.
If he’s going to win again, he’ll need GOP voters to come out for him with the same vigor as last time. That may not happen if even just some of Trump’s Georgia supporters opt to sit out the election, as they did in January 2021 when Democrats swept the state’s two U.S. Senate runoffs.
Now, some Republicans are pursuing a truce between the two camps. They’re hoping to avoid a repeat of Trump’s appearance last year at a rally in
Perry where he suggested that Abrams “might be better than having your existing governor.”
Trump, who blames Kemp for his loss in Georgia during the 2020 president election, still appears to be entertaining that idea.
It was Trump who pushed former U.S. Sen. David Perdue to challenge Kemp in the Republican primary. That didn’t work out so well for the former president: Kemp won by nearly 52 percentage points.
Among those seeking a truce is Derrick Dickey, a longtime Perdue aide who is also trusted in Trump circles.
Dickey urged Perdue to take a hard pass on the idea of running against Kemp. He then led an outside group that spent big to help the governor’s reelection bid.
He and others, hoping it might help sway Trump to use his inside voice when criticizing Kemp, have pointed out that the governor never “once said a bad word” about the former president.
But Kemp did do something that two people close to Trump say could be a deal breaker: The governor got former Vice President Mike Pence to headline a rally on the eve of the primary.