Former President Trump and his allies are showing no signs of backing down from their vow to challenge Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) reelection effort, setting up a potentially brutal intraparty fight during a critical election year.
Kemp has become an outcast within the GOP after resisting Trump’s demands to reverse his loss in the 2020 presidential election. Kemp had hoped that signing an expansive elections bill into law last month would help rehabilitate his once-strong standing among conservatives.
So far, however, it has done little to smooth over tensions with the Trump wing of the party.
The former president has continued to criticize Kemp, arguing that the recently signed election law, S.B. 202, does not do enough to address his baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. Last week, several county Republican parties in Georgia voted to censure Kemp. And on Friday, Vernon Jones, a staunchly pro-Trump Republican, launched a primary challenge against the first-term governor, who’s up for reelection next year.