Kemp was pressed on Walker’s absence from the daylong trip, which ends with separate rallies a few miles from each other in Cobb County. Kemp and statewide contenders will hold their event at a local airport, while Walker and several big-name supporters will be at a nearby shooting range.

The governor said Walker is “definitely part of the team” before swiping at U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock.

“I don’t think people should read anything into that. We’re dividing and conquering,” Kemp said. “The other question would be: Why isn’t Raphael Warnock campaigning with Joe Biden?”

State Schools Superintendent Richard Woods also wasn’t part of the tour.

With polls showing a neck-and-neck U.S. Senate race, Warnock has tried to appeal to swing voters by distancing himself from Biden.

Kemp’s feistiest moment came when a reporter asked him whether he needs “to restore the public’s trust in the vote-counting process?”

“Do I?” Kemp said. “That would be a great question for Stacey Abrams. She’s the one who has been destroying trust in the voting system for 10 years, and she’s profited personally from that. And she’s cost Georgia taxpayers $6 million and counting in legal fees to defend their bogus lawsuit.”

He was referring to a failed legal challenge concerning Kemp’s race against Abrams in 2018 that was brought by Fair Fight Action, the voting rights group she founded after that election.

***

Warnock assails Nikki Haley for suggesting he should be deported

MACON - Raphael Warnock fired back at former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley for saying he should be deported.

At a rally on Sunday, where she campaigned with Republican Herschel Walker, Haley said, “legal immigrants are more patriotic than the leftists these day.”

“They worked to come into America, and they love America. They want the laws followed in America. So, the only person we need to make sure we deport is Warnock,” she quipped.

Warnock called that comment, “beyond the pale.”

“This is the kind of ugly and divisive language that is not helpful to any of us. To Democrats, Republicans, independents, or moderates,” Warnock said.

Jerry Gonzales, head of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials Impact Fund, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday the remark — even couched as a joke — “feeds a dangerous pattern of extremism and distraction.”

“It continues a pattern of trying to make points with a voting bloc of white nationalists,” Gonzalez said.

Haley also attacked the Biden administration — and Warnock — for allowing immigrants to enter the country illegally along the southern border.

The daughter of immigrants from India, Haley is a potential 2024 Republican presidential contender. She has been in the state several times stumping for Walker. She also served as the governor of South Carolina.

Christina Matacotta

Christina Matacotta

***

Ossoff joins Warnock in Macon, stresses their accomplishments in Washington

MACON — U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff said he had come back out on the campaign trail with his counterpart, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, to remind supporters all they accomplished since winning their seats in January 2021. He mentioned improving health care for veterans, expanding access to high speed internet and removing lead from drinking water among their victories.

“This is a man who gets up every day not to put one political party over the other, not to put himself over anybody else, but to do what’s right for the people he represents here in the state of Georgia,” Ossoff said. “It has been such a pleasure to work alongside Raphael Warnock for the last two years and we are ready to continue serving you together.”

The two referred to each other as “brother” and even “twin” during the rally attended by about 100 supporters. “He just got all the hair,” Warnock quipped.

Warnock told the crowd that he was confident on Election Day eve, finishing with a line from a gospel song often sung in Black churches.

“We started this journey together making the case about three years ago, and now we’re down to one day,” he told the crowd. “And I’ve got a feeling that everything is going to be alright.”

arvin.temkar@ajc.com

arvin.temkar@ajc.com

***

Abrams supporters send 1.6 million election eve GOTV texts

Dozens of volunteers packed Best End Brewing in Atlanta to participate in a text- and phone-banking party on behalf of Stacey Abrams this evening.

They huddled around laptops and gripped their smartphones, using apps to identify voters who they encouraged to show up to vote on Tuesday. The campaign announced that 1.6 million texts had been sent throughout the day on Abrams’ behalf.

Earlier, the Democratic candidate for governor made a stop at Georgia State University’s campus as part of hear appeal to young voters.

Abrams gave the supporters at Best End a pep talk that contained many of the same notes as her usual stump speech. She told them that she had a vision for Georgia that included access to abortion, Medicaid expansion, new affordable housing and stricter gun laws that all contrast with the position of incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican.

“If you make me governor, I will make you proud to know that we can get this done,” she said, adding later: “It took a man to break our promise in Georgia, it’s going take a woman to put it right.”