Georgia’s governor’s race has suddenly become a battle between the Republican party’s two titanic forces: President Donald Trump and the state’s Republican establishment.
It’s a brawl that’s become so bitter that the winner could very well have a rough time beating Democrat Stacey Abrams in November.
Trump’s endorsement Wednesday of Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp over Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle will likely roil what’s already been a divisive, bare-knuckled fight replete with campaign espionage, complaints of craziness, and combatants accusing each other of being more like Democrat Hillary Clinton than Trump.
Trump backed up his nod to Kemp by sending Vice President Mike Pence to Georgia to make campaign stops with the candidate, including a Saturday afternoon rally at the Centreplex in Macon.
In tapping Kemp, Trump ended the debate over which candidate mirrors him most — the secretary of state with the slow baritone drawl and good ‘ol boy persona that he highlights in campaign ads or Cagle, the business-like, bespectacled lieutenant governor who received the endorsement of popular outgoing Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal Monday.
Ron Johnson, chairman of Georgia’s Jackson County Republican Party says he’s worried that hard feelings from the runoff could prompt some Kemp supporters to sit out the general election if Cagle wins.
“I’m not so sure there won’t be a movement like the ‘Never Trump’ people,” said Johnson, as he presided over a block party in his Jefferson, Ga., subdivision that Kemp attended recently.
“I hope they don’t they don’t because I’ve always been one that says you get behind a candidate, no matter if you like them or not. I didn’t support Trump, but I voted for him,” Johnson said.
Melvin Everson, executive director of Georgia’s Commission on Equal Opportunity,vented his runoff worries at a Gwinnett County Republican Party breakfast meeting that Cagle attended.
“I know runoffs are very difficult, but it pains me right now as I see friends whom I’ve known for years, they barely speak to each other because their candidate didn’t make it or their candidate is going up against another candidate,” Everson said. “As Ronald Reagan said, “I will not speak ill of another Republican.’”
Reagan’s so-called 11th commandment has been tossed in this GOP governor’s race.
The Georgia Republican Party is so concerned about fractured feelings following Tuesday’s runoff that it has scheduled a unity rally in Atlanta on Thursday with Kemp, Cagle, Deal, and Sen. David Perdue.
In ads, on the campaign trial and in debates, Cagle has sought to portray Kemp as an incompetent secretary of state. He frequently notes that Kemp’s office inadvertently released Social Security numbers and other information about more than 6 million voters in 2015.
A Cagle television ad takes a dig at Kemp, saying “He wiped the server clean, just like Hillary did.”
Kemp has tried to paint Cagle as a scandal-prone and corrupt career politician. Kemp has pounced on news reports that Cagle bought a downtown Atlanta condominium a decade ago from a lobbyist at a seemingly below-market price and has a penchant for using state aircraft to travel from his Gainesville, Ga., home to Atlanta 55 miles away.
Kemp’s run has been aided by the release of segments of a secretly recorded conversation with Cagle by Clay Tippins, a former Navy SEAL who finished fourth in May’s Republican gubernatorial primary and failed to make the runoff.
In one snippet, Cagle complains that an unspecified “they” “don’t give a (expletive) about” issues in the primary election.
“This primary felt like it was who had the biggest gun, who had the biggest truck,and who could be the craziest,” Cagle said in the recording.
Kemp’s campaign, which features ads of him pointing a shotgun at a teenager, vowing to use his big truck to “round criminal illegals,” and promising to be a politically incorrect governor, has likened Cagle’s comment to Clinton calling some of Trump’s supporters a “basket of deplorables” during the 2016 campaign.
Cagle began the race as the frontrunner, fueled by more than $10.5 million in campaign contributions compared to Kemp’s $4.5 million.
But an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll last week showed Kemp leading Cagle 44 percent to 41 percent. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.
Several Republicans say Trump’s endorsement and the Pence’s Georgia visit could give Kemp an important last minute boost. Pence was met by an enthusiastic Saturday afternoon crowd. At times, it would chant “build that wall,” “Kemp” or “USA.”
Trump, though, has an uneven endorsement record this election cycle. Luther Strange in Alabama’s GOP Senate primary and Rick Saccone in a Pennsylvania House seat race got Trump’s backing but lost.
The president has scored victories, endorsing South Carolina incumbent Gov. Henry McMaster and giving a primary day nod to Katie Arrington, who defeated incumbent Rep. Mark Sanford, R-South Carolina.
Most Georgia voters have already made up their minds, said Brooke Miller, an associate political science professor at Middle Georgia State University.
“Nobody’s going to leave the Cagle camp over this,” she said.
Charles Bullock III, a University of Georgia political science professor, said “I don’t think we have enough of a record to say Trump comes through for you.”
While some state Republicans fret over the fang-and-claw nature of the runoff, they also say the party is strong enough to withstand it and rally around the survivor in the fall.
“We as Republicans have attempted fratricide every two years in our primaries for as long as I’ve been in politics,” said Todd Rehm, a Republican political consultant and editor of GaPundit.com. “We win or lose races based on the strength of our candidate.”
Laura Corley of the Macon Telegraph and McClatchy’s Katie Glueck and Emma Dumain contributed to this story
William Douglas: 202-383-6026, @williamgdouglas