This time, she dialed Kemp around 11 p.m. Tuesday to congratulate him on his win — a call that came before the networks projected his win.
Beyond their personal histories, the two candidates had starkly different views on virtually every policy, with starkly contrasting agendas for economic, public safety, health and education issues dominating the race.
Kemp’s win seals a remarkable turnaround for a governor who wasn’t even the heavy favorite to win his party’s nomination — let alone the defeat of Abrams, a former Georgia House minority leader and rights advocate. poll who has been steadily preparing for another race after losing in 2018.
Over a six-month span, Kemp thwarted Donald Trump’s quest for revenge by routing his hand-picked challenger, former U.S. Senator David Perdue, in the GOP primary and then defeating a Democratic star considered by many in his party as a potential White House. candidate.
“Well, it seems the reports of my political death have been greatly exaggerated,” Kemp said in a fiery victory speech to cheering supporters.
The midterm ended Abrams’ historic quest to become the nation’s first black woman elected governor – and leaves her at an uncertain crossroads as she considers her future in politics.
After his loss in 2018, his national profile soared; top Democratic leaders begged her to run for the US Senate and many saw her as a serious candidate to be Joe Biden’s running mate. She has repeatedly said that she dreams of running for president herself.
His next step after two straight statewide losses to Kemp in his home state is unclear.
“While I may not have crossed the finish line, we will never stop running for a better Georgia,” she told Democrats in downtown Atlanta.
Although Kemp’s allies were brimming with confidence in the final weeks of the race, his re-election bid was never as inevitable as recent polls suggested.
A year ago, Kemp was routinely booed at GOP rallies by activists angry for refusing Trump’s demand to annul the 2020 presidential election. The former president called Kemp a ‘total failure’ and even thought he’d rather Abrams win the highest state office.
Trump persuaded Perdue to run against Kemp shortly after his loss to Democrat Jon Ossoff, part of a tandem of GOP losses in the January 2021 runoff that upended Senate control. Perdue centered his offer on loyalty to Trump — and his lies about widespread voter fraud.
But Perdue ended up helping Kemp more than hurting him. Leveraging his office’s broad powers, Kemp has worked with GOP lawmakers to cut income taxes, ease gun restrictions and pass other measures to bolster his support among conservatives and independent voters. .
Credit: Natrice Miller / [email protected]
Credit: Natrice Miller / [email protected]
Perdue’s far-right stances made Kemp appear more moderate in contrast, giving the governor an opening to woo swing voters who applauded him for standing up to Trump. He also tried not to alienate the “Make America Great Again” base by insisting he would “not say a bad word” about the ex-president.
Kemp’s 52-point win over Perdue — and the failures of many other Trump-backed challengers in the Republican primary — silenced critics of the ex-president. With polls showing overwhelming GOP support for the governor, Kemp was free to try to broaden his base of support.
Thanks in part to new fundraising rules, Kemp raised around $70 million to promote his record and beat Abrams. Although the Democrat has always outpaced him, he has invested resources in basic infrastructure to compete with Abrams’ prized voting apparatus.
While Democrats hoped the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would upend the race, Kemp barely spoke about anti-abortion limits that polls showed were widely unpopular among likely voters in Georgia.
During their second debate last week, however, Kemp did not say whether he would sign more abortion restrictions into law in a second term. That fueled fresh warnings from Democrats that he intended to go beyond state law that barred the procedure as early as six weeks.
The governor preferred to keep his focus on the state’s economy, blaming Biden and Abrams — an architect of his 2020 victory in Georgia — for decades-high inflation and an uncertain financial climate.
He reminded voters of his decision to lift economic restrictions in the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic shutdown, suspended the state gasoline tax to reduce energy prices and struck deals for the huge Hyundai and Rivian car factories.
It was his policies, Kemp told the crowds, that protected Georgians from more economic suffering. And while he didn’t make many campaign promises, he did promise to tap into the state’s bloated surplus to fund a $2 billion tax refund in a second term.
“There’s a catastrophe going on in Washington right now that’s hitting Central America in the pocket right now and hurting hard-working Georgians,” he told supporters in a rural town, “and it’s That’s what I’m going to focus on.”
Credit: Christina Matacotta for the AJC
Credit: Christina Matacotta for the AJC
As Kemp focused her campaign energy largely on her first-term record, Abrams unfurled a storm of proposals to bring about what she called “generational” change in Georgia.
She has vowed to roll back anti-abortion boundaries and overturn pro-gun laws. She pledged to adopt many of the initiatives that her 2018 campaign was based on, including the expansion of Medicaid and an overhaul of criminal justice policies.
And she outlined plans to tap into the state’s more than $6.6 billion surplus and legalize casino gambling to raise teachers’ salaries, fund new graduate scholarships and promote greater greater economic equality.
Kemp has long called for more caution with the extra money, saying Abrams’ program would lead to higher taxes. He will now have four more years to implement his plan in a politically divided state that is sure to remain a serious battleground.