The Republican presidential nominee’s penchant for papering over prolonged intra-party fights has once again surfaced but this time arguably on the most important state on the electoral map.
“Thank you to Brian Kemp for all of your help and support in Georgia, where a win is so important to the success of our Party and, most importantly, our Country,” Donald Trump tweeted Thursday.
Much will be made of the soon-to-be-public alliance between Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr. The two are both in Arizona Friday. Kennedy has already withdrawn from that state’s ballot and is set to address his dwindling band of diehards about the “present historical moment and the path forward,” airy language that means his campaign is history and the path forward is with the GOP campaign.
The rapprochement with Georgia Gov. Kemp is likely an even bigger deal for the Trump campaign, though, serving as the second potent play for battleground states this week. But whereas the RFK alliance could provide a marginal bounce for the campaign in those states within the margin of error, cooling down tensions with Kemp is more of a single-state strategy.
Yet what a single state it is. One that arguably is the most important on the ballot, given polling consistently shows Georgia could be the ultimate battleground when votes are counted in November.
And Kemp seems to be regarded as an honest broker throughout the state, based on current polls and past electoral performance. As the local Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, the governor has a gaudy 63% approval rating in his state as of June. He got 53% in 2022’s re-election bid, showing again his political potency in a state Trump lost very narrowly in 2020.
For Kemp, the alliance is about the good of the GOP as much as it is about a reconsideration of Trump.
“We need to send Donald Trump back to the White House. We need to retake the Senate. We need to hold the House,” Kemp told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Thursday night.
He went on to predict Harris’ strength in polls would prove fleeting because “when the sugar high of the convention subsides, people are going to really start thinking, ‘It’s not so joyful when I look in my bank account. It’s not joyful when I can’t make my car payment or my rent payment or I have to decide to buy gas or buy groceries.’”
Some Trumpers may have wanted something more obsequious, but what Kemp did here is a plausible pivot, rooted in specific outcomes at the expense of personal animus.
And given the narrow margin in play in the state, Kemp can be especially helpful to Trump in delivering the state’s 16 electoral votes.
Consider, for example, the latest Redfield and Wilton poll of 10 swing states, which found Georgia was the fulcrum in that sample of battlegrounds. Both Trump and Harris sat at 46%, with 5% of voters undecided and 3% committed to other candidates.
Another survey this month from the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) also showed the race tied in the state.
This polling dynamic has been remarkably static. Days after Harris got into the race, a Landmark Communications poll of the Peach State showed Trump leading by between 1 and 2 points in both surveys of an expanded field that included Kennedy and other long shots and a two-way ballot test with Harris.
The Trump-Kemp alliance offers one more reassurance for GOP-leaning voters in Georgia and beyond. It also represents a potential offramp from years of stolen-election claims, allowing the former president to moderate that part of the message as he narrows the path for Harris in Georgia by bringing voters on his side from the Atlanta suburbs who voted for Kemp 2022 but not Trump 2020.
As exciting as litigating the 2020 election might be for Trump, the path to victory is reminding people Harris is a big reason for the Biden record.
The election is about what has happened to Americans since Trump left office, after all, in terms of the economy, national security and so on. The GOP nominee needs to prosecute that case, and to that end Brian Kemp can be a powerful ally whose presence signifies the former president is more of a “serious person” than the Democratic nominee claims.
