Brian Kemp with VOZ: Trump, Biden and the GOP's keys to winning in 2024

Brian Kemp took over in 2019 as governor of Georgia, after spending eight years as secretary of state and senator in the Peach State. Also a businessman and current standard-bearer of a family political tradition that goes all the way back to his grandfather, he achieved national fame by twice depriving Stacey Abrams of becoming governor and also for his strained relationship with Donald Trump after the 2022 presidential election. Even POLITICO remarked that this is "a rare Republican who stood up to Trump and came out of the imbroglio unscathed."

One of the most popular governors in the country, he boasts three consecutive years of surplus, of pushing school choice through the 'Georgia Promise' grant and to sign the "major income tax cut in the state's history". 

Months away from the November presidential election and just over two years away from saying goodbye to his job, which he defines as "the best" in the country, Kemp welcomed VOICE to his Georgia Capitol office, where he discussed his priorities for the remainder of his term in office, his relationship with Trump, the Biden Administration and the winning formula for the GOP at the polls. 

We accomplished "everything I promised in the 2018 campaign."

In 2023, Georgia was the sixth highest state for domestic migration in the country. Asked why people choose to move to his state, the governor asserted that within its borders coexist a "great economy" and a "very competitive business environment" while also making the Peach State a "great place to raise your family." 

Kemp declined to name his biggest accomplishment in office, but celebrated having accomplished "everything I promised in the 2018 campaign" and appreciated the work of Republicans in the local Legislature. "My biggest accomplishment then was to have done what I told people I was going to do, people are tired of politicians who say one thing and do another," he added. 

As for the top priority for his final two years in office, he mentioned "keeping people safe" and "communities safe" so that businesses can thrive. He also added that one of the reasons he won was because his opponent, Stacey Abrams, was proposing to "defund the police." 

"I don't think Georgia is a purple state"

In the last ten presidential elections, Georgia voted Republican eight times and Democratic only twice, in 1992 and 2020. In turn, the state currently has two Democratic senators for the first time since 2001. However, Governor Kemp does not believe Georgia has become a "purple" state, a term that alludes to the fact that it is not clearly Republican or clearly Democratic. 

"On the generic ballot, I think we're probably a 52 percent Republican and 48 percent Democratic state. In the 2020 election, there was a lot that was wrong that caused us to end up with two Democratic senators.(....) I don't think we should have lost the 2020 presidential election," he said and then remarked that the mistake was political because there was not a good 'ground game', that is, a good organization of the party when it came to go out to the voters and convince them face to face that the Republicans were better than the Democrats. 

The most important thing in an election is to have "good candidates"

Kemp compared that election to the 2022 election, when the GOP won eight of the state's seven races. He remarked that his re-election campaign focused on attracting more African-Americans, Latinos and Asians, while also winning back some suburban voters who had voted Democratic in 2020 

"I won by seven and a half points, it was a 'red wave' statewide. The rest of the statewide Republicans won without a runoff and we all had Libertarians on the ballot," he added. 

At the same time, he said that the most important thing to win an election is to have "good candidates" who can win in November. The governor assured that the GOP has that in 2024 and that the "head of the ticket" will be very important in these elections. 

"I'm going to endorse the Republican nominee"

The relationship between Donald Trump and Brian Kempwasn't always so distant. In the 2018 gubernatorial election, Kemp faced Casey Cagle in a runoff to decide who would be the Republican nominee. The then-president endorsed him before the election and even sent Mike Pence to campaign in the state. 

Kemp then won the primary, then the general against Abrams and since then maintained a good relationship with Trump, which changed in 2020 when the governor certified the presidential election. Since then the relationship broke down and Trump attacked Kemp repeatedly, even endorsing a heavyweight opponent in the 2022 Republican primary, David Perdue. 

However, despite acknowledging that he has not spoken to Trump once since that 2020, Kemp assured that he would back the Republican nominee in 2024. "I'm going to support the entire Republican ticket, including President Trump," he remarked. 

The 2024 election is going to be "pocketbook"

When it came to talking about Joe Biden's stewardship, he said Trump has a very easy speech to make on the campaign trail, coincidentally the same one Ronald Reagan used against Jimmy Carter in 1980: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?". "Most Georgians will answer no," he assured. 

"They are paying more for their groceries, more for their rent, more for their insurance, more for gasoline and for energy. The border is a mess, our weakness around the world...there are a lot of things that make Biden not a good president," he added. 

Fully on the 2024 elections, he anticipated that they will be a "pocketbook" election, mostly focused on the cost of living of the citizens. At the same time, perhaps in a nod to the Trump Administration, he said that things were better four years ago. 

Kemp also anticipated that Democrats are going to try to distract voters about their reality and try to take them back to "the past." 

"Republicans have been just as guilty of spending as Democrats"

The Georgia governor also claimed to be very concerned about the public deficit at the national level. Indeed, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan body that has been producing budget analyses since 1975, the national debt will reach $50 trillion by that year.

"Republicans have been just as guilty of spending as Democrats," he said, later adding that Joe Biden has done the country a great disservice with his spending policies. Far from seeing the president and his team as incompetent, he asserted that they "want it that way." 

"They want people to be dependent on government, but we Republicans seek limited government, individual liberty and free markets. Their policies pick winners and losers depending on the industry, supporting unionized businesses instead of flattening the playing field for everyone," Kemp sentenced. 

Full interview with Brian Kemp