ATLANTA — With Gov. Brian Kemp’s convincing primary victory Tuesday, the question is whether he can pull together divided Republicans for the November election.
Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams are expected to spend tens of millions of dollars on TV advertising to make their cases. But a wild card remains.
Kemp will have two major obstacles to winning re-election: Democrats who would never consider voting Republican, and Republicans who still want punish Kemp for crossing former President Donald Trump.
"I really feel like it’s been a tough primary but folks will come together for November," GOP Attorney General Chris Carr said in an interview at Kemp's victory party Tuesday.
Like Kemp, Carr won his primary against a Trump-backed challenger.
"We’re all in the same party and we’re going to get together and make certain we have a Republican governor in November," Carr said.
Kemp won in spite of the fact that he crossed Trump, who wanted Kemp to try to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
Georgia GOP state chair David Shafer is among those who thought Trump had a good case. Shafer is hoping Trump will refrain from trying to continue to injure Kemp politically.
"I believe he is as committed to beating Stacey Abrams and (Democratic U.S. Sen.) Raphael Warnock as the rest of us are."
Yet, Kemp and other Republicans will have to reckon with Trump loyalists like Debbie Dooley, a Tea Party founder who supported David Perdue – and told us by text “I will not vote for Kemp. Will write in ‘Stolen Election’ for Governor…. I will not reward Kemp for turning his back on election fraud…”
Dooley predicts 15 percent of Republican voters will skip the governor's race in November.
After Trump baselessly complained about the 2020 election, fewer Republicans turned out to support Perdue and then-senator Kelly Loeffler in their runoff elections. Messaging instigated by Democrats targeted disgruntled Republicans – and helped put Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in the U.S. Senate.
A similar effort is likely this fall targeting Kemp. Shafer expects Kemp to overcome it.
"General election choices are generally binary. You're either for Kemp or for Abrams. I think the vast majority of Republicans and a substantial majority of Georgians will be for Brian Kemp over Stacey Abrams," Shafer said.
Dooley said she thinks 15 percent of Republicans will decline to support Kemp in the fall – in what stands to be a close contest with Abrams.