Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp Keeps Trying to Help Trump Win in November

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp made his first appearance of the 2024 election with Donald Trump on Friday. The event marked another key moment of support by Kemp for Trump’s presidential bid, despite the vitriol Trump has directed at him and his family.

The two appeared together at a relief shelter in the east Georgia town of Evans, which was badly damaged last week by Hurricane Helene. “I want to thank President Trump for coming back to our state again for the second time to tour storm damage and keep a national focus on the state as we recover,” Kemp said.

In 2020, Trump relentlessly pressured Kemp to overturn the election. After Kemp refused, Trump spent years going after him: He tried to oust Kemp in 2022 by endorsing his primary Republican opponent, and this summer criticized him as “the most disloyal guy I’ve ever seen” and “very bad for the Republican Party” during a 10-minute tirade at a rally in Atlanta.

While Friday’s speech was not an official campaign event, Kemp’s appearance with Trump will be used by the ex-president to boost his campaign in the tight battleground state. “Your governor is doing a fantastic job, I will tell you that,” Trump said while surrounded by emergency relief supplies, such as bottled water, toilet paper, and diapers, contradicting his earlier Kemp criticisms. “We’re all with him and with everybody.”

Trump used the event to further weaponize the aftermath of Helene and repeat false claims about the Biden administration, saying there had been a “terrible response from the White House.” During an appearance in Valdosta, Georgia, earlier in the week, Trump claimed Biden had not talked to Kemp, even though the governor said he spoke with Biden and the president offered the state whatever it needed to rebuild.

Kemp’s willingness to prop up Trump stands in opposition to former Vice President Mike Pence, who has refused to endorse Trump‘s campaign after the ex-president incited an insurrection that tried to kill him in 2021. Even before Friday’s speech, Kemp had already helped Trump in other ways: He spoke alongside JD Vance last month at a fundraiser for a conservative Christian group backing Trump.

What’s more, Kemp signed a sweeping voter suppression law in 2021 that will make it harder for Democratic-constituencies to vote in November in numerous ways, including reducing access to mail ballots, slashing the number of ballot drop boxes, adding new ID requirements, and allowing unlimited challenges to voter eligibility. An analysis by the Atlanta Journal Constitution last week found that these restrictions put more of a burden on Black voters than white ones.   

One notable provision of the law removed Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who defended the 2020 results, as chair of the state election board. Three election denier allies of Trump have since taken over the board’s majority and passed a series of rules that could plunge the 2024 vote count into chaos and give GOP officials a pretext not to certify the results if Kamala Harris carries the state. Democrats have asked Kemp to investigate these MAGA board members for ethics violations, but Kemp has not done so.

Georgia Democratic State Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes filed suit against Kemp in late September to force him to take action against the board. “State law is clear, Kemp has a duty to act,” Parkes wrote on X, “but he’s abdicated responsibility.”