There’s stupid and then there felony stupid:
Georgia Republicans are having a bad case of déjà vu.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has once again taken to attacking Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, leaving GOP leaders and strategists fearing that the public and ugly intraparty feud could hurt Trump’s chances in this battleground state.
Trump’s loss here in 2020 left the state’s Republican Party deeply fractured, with Trump blaming Kemp and other statewide GOP officials for refusing to overturn President Biden’s narrow victory in the state. Republican officials have blamed the feuding for repeated losses in Senate races.
“I thought any kind of bad blood had blown over, and I don’t know why President Trump would want to reopen that wound and attack a very popular governor,” said state Sen. Larry Walker III , a member of the Georgia Senate GOP’s leadership.
Trump, at an Atlanta rally recently at Georgia State University, called Kemp “a bad guy.”
“He’s a disloyal guy and he’s a very average governor. Little Brian, little Brian Kemp,” Trump said.
Walker called Trump’s comments “definitely unproductive and unwarranted,” adding: “If we continue with this kind of feud, it will make it more difficult” to win Georgia.
Ryan Mahoney, a longtime Georgia political strategist who has worked for Kemp and other Republicans, called it “political suicide.”
Mahoney added: “We’ve seen this movie before, and the former president’s baseless and ill-advised remarks will make it damn near impossible for Republicans to prevail in November.”
Only weeks ago, with Biden in the race, some state polls showed Trump up by 5 percentage points. Since the president dropped out, Georgia polls show Vice President Kamala Harris running a much closer race, with some surveys finding Harris and Trump tied. Two major political handicappers now rate Georgia as a tossup after previously rating it “Lean Republican.”
Trump pressured Kemp and others publicly in 2020 to overturn his loss. He also made telephone calls to state leaders, pressing them to find evidence of election fraud, including an infamous call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urging him to “find” votes for Trump. Investigations and audits found no evidence of widespread fraud. In August 2023, Democratic Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis announced an indictment against Trump and others, charging them with operating a criminal enterprise to overturn the 2020 election. The case is ongoing.
During Trump’s Atlanta rally, a crowd of thousands booed at the mention of Kemp’s name. Trump said he didn’t want Kemp’s endorsement, adding, “In my opinion, they want us to lose…If we lose Georgia, we lose the whole thing.”
He then posted similar attacks on Truth Social, his social-media platform, calling Kemp “a bad guy” and Georgia’s economy “average.”
“Brian Kemp should focus his efforts on fighting Crime, not fighting Unity and the Republican Party!” he wrote.
Kemp, pathetically, says he’ll be voting for Trump anyway. How embarrassing for him. But then he’s no different than most elected Republicans Trump has insulted. They all say “thank you sire, may I have another” and in doing so make Trump even stronger among their own voters who despise them for being so weak. Their obituaries are going to be scathing.