Allies turned enemies to something in between, Gov. Brian Kemp and former President Donald Trump have a long and complicated history that has helped shape Georgia politics and will play a major factor in each of their political futures.
Here’s a look at their tortured timeline.
October 2015 — Kemp, then secretary of state, pushes an “SEC primary” and “Peanut Poll” to help Georgia garner more attention from presidential candidates. Trump finishes a close second to Ben Carson. “The road to the White House goes through Perry,” Kemp says. “And it’s paved with peanut shells.”
May 2016 — After Trump wins Georgia’s crowded presidential primary with nearly 40% of the vote, some state Republican leaders begin a cautious tiptoe toward the presumptive nominee. Among them is Kemp, who said he would support Trump if he’s the nominee.
October 2016 —Trump promotes lies about a rigged election and “large-scale” voter fraud, putting Kemp and other Republicans overseeing state elections in a tricky spot. Rather than criticize Trump, Kemp warns of the “left’s blatant attempts to disrupt Georgia’s elections.”
November 2016 — Trump’s stunning presidential victory scrambles the race for Georgia governor, leading some potential Republican candidates to keep their distance from the incoming president. Others veer closer to him. Kemp falls in the second group, praising Trump’s “businesses-minded approach that rejects mediocrity” and the political status quo.
Credit: HANDOUT
Credit: HANDOUT
Credit: Curtis Compton / ccompton@ajc.co
Credit: Curtis Compton / ccompton@ajc.co
April 2017 — At a weekend meeting of the Cobb County GOP, Kemp launches a bid for governor borrowing themes from Trump by pledging a “Georgia first” strategy to crack down on illegal immigration while criticizing the news media and political establishment. He continues to model his campaign after Trump throughout the GOP primary.
Credit: HANDOUT
Credit: HANDOUT
July 2018 — Kemp’s attempt to win MAGA voters with provocative ads and bombastic campaign messages pays off when the president issues a surprise “full and total endorsement” of Kemp six days before a runoff against Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle. It helps fuel Kemp’s sweeping victory over Cagle, cementing him as the GOP nominee against Democrat Stacey Abrams.
November 2018 — After proving he can remake a Georgia race for governor with a single tweet, Trump’s polarizing influence looms over the race between Kemp and Abrams. The Republican eked out a narrow victory, helped in the final days by rallies helmed by Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. Though Kemp distances himself from the shotgun-toting image he proudly boasted in the primary, he sticks steadfastly by Trump. The benefits of revving up conservatives, he figures, outweigh the costs of alienating independents.
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
January 2019 — During an inauguration ceremony at Georgia Tech, Kemp is sworn in with a vow to work with Democrats to “put people ahead of divisive politics.” But he sticks to conservative pledges that helped curry favor with Trump and his supporters, and he soon signs into law a strict anti-abortion law.
June 2019 — In one of their first policy rifts, Kemp pressures Trump to sign a long-delayed relief package to free up $19.1 billion for victims of Hurricane Michael and other natural disasters. Trump initially balks at approving the measure over concerns about Democratic-backed aid to the Puerto Rican government, but he ultimately inks it to placate Kemp and other state leaders.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Late 2019 — U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson’s surprising decision to step down at the end of the year triggers an all-out scramble for Kemp’s appointment. Kemp brings business executive Kelly Loeffler, his eventual pick, to a secretive November 2019 meeting with Trump. The president vents his frustration at Kemp’s decision-making process and doesn’t endorse Loeffler. Kemp picks her anyway, foreshadowing a bitter battle between her and U.S. Rep. Doug Collins for the GOP nomination.
Credit: Curtis Compton
Credit: Curtis Compton
April 2020 — As Collins and Loeffler battle for Trump’s favor, the outbreak of the coronavirus forces Kemp to make a series of tough decisions. When Kemp rolls back economic restrictions, Trump lashes out, saying it is “too soon” and that he “totally disagreed” with the governor’s move. He later falsely asserts he never criticized Kemp. Rather than fire back at Trump, the governor criticizes Democrats and the media — a hallmark of his strategy to counter the president’s vitriol.
November 2020 — The Kemp-Trump relationship deteriorates further after Trump narrowly loses Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden, becoming the first Republican presidential nominee in nearly three decades to fail to capture the state. Trump promotes false claims of widespread election fraud in Georgia, and Kemp refuses Trump’s overtures, on social media and in a phone call, to amplify the president’s unsubstantiated claims of a “stolen” election. Trump tells Fox News he’s upset that Kemp has “done nothing” to help him overturn Biden’s vote and adds he’s “ashamed that I endorsed him.” Kemp shrugs off the criticism. “I understand why he’s frustrated. He’s a fighter,” Kemp tells The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an interview. “But at the end of the day, I’ve got to follow the laws of the constitution of this state, and that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
December 2020 — A fed-up Kemp blasts pro-Trump conspiracy theorists — without criticizing the president himself — after they take aim at his wife and three daughters. “We have the ‘no crying in politics rule’ in the Kemp house,” he told the AJC. “But this is stuff that, if I said it, I would be taken to the woodshed and would never see the light of day.” Meanwhile, Trump calls Kemp a “clown,” and at a Valdosta rally he encourages Collins to challenge Kemp in 2022.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Early 2021 — Trump intensifies his war with Georgia Republican officials, disparaging Kemp and others who refused to back his illegal attempt to overturn the state’s vote. He recruits Georgia football icon Herschel Walker to run against Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, encourages challengers to Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and, at a September rally, says he would have rather seen Abrams win in 2018 over Kemp. “Stacey, would you like to take his place?” the former president said. “It’s OK with me.”
December 2021 — Within days of each other, Abrams and former U.S. Sen. David Perdue launch challenges against Kemp, posing his reelection bid a double-whammy. Perdue enters with Trump’s blessing and emphasizes the former president’s support throughout his bid. Kemp ignores overtures to drop out of the race.
May 2022 — Trump does more to support Perdue than any other candidate in the 2022 primary cycle. He traveled to Georgia for rallies assailing Kemp, directly intervened in down-ticket races to clear a path for Perdue’s challenge, starred in TV and radio ads and approved spending more than $3 million from his PAC to attack the governor. Still, Perdue loses to Kemp by 52 percentage points. By the end of the campaign, even Trump distances himself from Perdue as he limps toward the finish line. Other Trump-backed challengers for secretary of state, attorney general and insurance commissioner also lose.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
November 2022 — Throughout the general election campaign, Kemp plays nice with Trump, saying he’s determined not to say a “bad word” about him as he fights to keep MAGA supporters in the fold. That changes on the night of Kemp’s election victory, when he takes a veiled swipe at Trump. Soon, Kemp begins to urge the GOP to move on from Trump and takes aim at the former president himself — including a sharp critique of Trump’s praise for North Korea’s despotic leader.
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Mid-2023 — With Trump’s comeback bid underway, Kemp warns that the former president’s obsession with his 2020 defeat could doom the GOP’s chances in 2024. “Not a single swing voter in a single swing state will vote for our nominee if they choose to talk about the 2020 election being stolen,” Kemp said at an April meeting of the Republican National Committee in Nashville, Tennessee. After speculation, Kemp says he won’t run for president but adds he’s keeping an “open mind” on who he’ll support.
September 2023 — The governor tells the AJC he’ll back Trump’s comeback bid if he wins the GOP nomination despite their fraught history. But he mocks Trump as a “loser” for refusing to participate in the first Republican debate in Milwaukee, saying his strategy reminds him of the epic collapse of the Atlanta Falcons in the 2017 Super Bowl. After Trump is indicted on election-interference charges in Fulton County, Kemp quashes Trump’s calls for a special session to oust District Attorney Fani Willis from office, warning they amount to polarizing “political theater.”
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
Early 2024 — Kemp won’t say whether he voted for Trump after he casts an early ballot in Georgia’s presidential primary, but he says he’ll definitely vote for Trump in November. “I think he’d be better than Joe Biden. It’s as simple as that.” It’s a sign of a crystallizing, if uneasy, truce between the governor and the former president as they both fight to flip Georgia back into the GOP column.
May 2024 — The governor details a busy schedule in 2024 that includes plans to attend the Republican National Convention, beef up his political organization, raise cash for out-of-state contenders and network with high-dollar donors across the nation. It comes as Kemp allies say he’s more likely to run for president in four years than challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff in two.
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
July 2024 — At the Republican nominating convention in Milwaukee, Kemp extends an olive branch to the pro-Trump Georgia GOP and again pledged to support the former president in November. The delicate diplomacy more than 800 miles from the Gold Dome is part of the ongoing efforts to smooth tensions within the GOP and unify against Democrats.
August 2024 — The former president abruptly breaks their uneasy truce during a rally at Georgia State University’s arena in downtown Atlanta. Even before he took the stage, Trump lashed out at Kemp and his wife, Marty, on social media after reports that neither cast ballots for him in the presidential primary and that both were skipping his campaign stop.
On stage, he unleashed a 10-minute tirade that belittled and demeaned Kemp and his wife, calling the governor “a bad guy” and a “very average governor.” As senior Republicans cringed at the attacks, worried they unearthed simmering internal tensions at precisely the wrong time, Kemp told Trump he had crossed a red line: “Leave my family out of it.”
Kemp later tried to calm the waters, saying “despite all of that noise, my position hasn’t changed.” He told Erick Erickson’s The Gathering conference that he would continue to back Trump’s November campaign - and that his formidable political machine would work to boost the former president and down-ticket legislative candidates.
“This is still a state we can win if we have all the mechanics and the things you need to do to win an election,” the governor said. “We’ve raised enough money and we have good candidates. And so regardless of all the noise, we’re flying ahead.”
Aug. 22, 2024: As Vice President Kamala Harris prepared to formally accept the Democratic nomination Thursday in Chicago, Trump did an about-face, thanking Kemp for his “help and support.” Just like that, it seemed, the on-again-off-again feud was off again.
The path to peace — or at least a temporary detente between the two Republicans — involved weeks of back-and-forth between their two camps, pressure from donors and some gentle nudging between their mutual allies.
It also took a timely appearance by Kemp on Fox News, where he repeated the same message he’s delivered for months — that he backed Trump despite their past differences — but at a time calibrated to ensure maximum attention.
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
About the Author
