When an underwhelming primary rival to Brian Kemp announced his candidacy I took a look at the Georgia governor’s comeback strategy and wrote it up at New York.
Until March 25, Georgia governor Brian Kemp was looking pretty finished politically. Very publicly and vociferously blamed by Donald Trump for ratifying Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s certification of Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia on November 20, Kemp was persona non grata in MAGA country. He had already been periodically in Trump’s doghouse over his handling of the pandemic in his state, and before that, over his rejection of the Boss’s instruction that he appoint Representative Doug Collins to an open U.S. Senate seat. But getting in the way of the 45th president’s attempted election coup was the final straw: Trump has been publicly and privately vowing to take down Kemp in next year’s Republican gubernatorial primary, as recently as the RNC donor retreat in Florida last weekend. During his brief campaign appearance in Georgia before the January Senate runoffs that ended in defeat for his party, Trump even called on Collins to challenge Kemp in 2022, which wasn’t exactly a Georgia GOP talking point. Nor was Trump’s later suggestion that Kemp should resign.
Kemp managed to keep his mouth shut in the face of all these provocations, grimly promising to support Trump in 2024 and generally taking his medicine. But his comeback strategy became apparent when he made a big show of signing Georgia’s highly controversial new election law on March 25. It’s unclear whether he deliberately courted the appearance of racist impropriety, though he did sign the bill under a painting of a plantation and barred a Black Democratic legislator from his office during his remarks on the bill. (State Representative Park Cannon was subsequently manhandled by state troopers who wrestled her out of the Georgia Capitol to be arrested on multiple felony counts.)
As anger over the legislation mounted (echoing the anger over
Kemp’s own voter-suppression measures as Georgia’s secretary of State, the job he insisted on keeping during his narrowly successful 2018 gubernatorial campaign) and major corporations joined the criticism of the law, Kemp was able to adopt a pose that is legal tender for a GOP pol at present: victim of “race card” politics backed by “woke” corporations. As the Associated Press
reported, it was very clear to Georgia Republicans what the man who had
labeled himself a “politically incorrect conservative” in 2018 was up to:
“[T]he sweeping
election law could be one of Kemp’s last hopes to rekindle a bond with Republicans who remain fiercely loyal to Trump and will be a critical force in next year’s GOP primary. The legislation, which Kemp signed into law, could give him an opening to persuade Republicans that he is an outsider, willing to stand up to Democrats, corporate leaders, and sports leagues who have derided the measure as an affront to democracy that is based on false claims and needs to be rewritten.
“’This is an absolute godsend for Brian Kemp,’ said Brian Robinson, a Republican consultant and former top aide to Kemp’s predecessor, Nathan Deal.”
Kemp has eagerly been making the rounds of conservative media outlets to defend the new law, struggling, no doubt, to hide his glee at the liberal criticism it has attracted. The furor is helping him back home where it matters as well, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Greg Bluestein observes:
“In recent weeks, Kemp has been a mainstay on conservative cable TV shows and enjoyed raucous receptions at grassroots meetings across the state, seemingly dissuading better-known Republican rivals such as former U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, whom Trump once recruited to run.”
Morning Consult reports that Kemp’s job-approval rating among Georgia Republicans rose from 59 percent in mid-March to 74 percent in early April. Nonetheless, a well-known Georgia pol close to Trump has now announced a 2022 primary bid against the governor. But his identity could be a blessing in disguise to the incumbent.
Vernon Jones is a Black former state legislator and county CEO who endorsed Trump’s reelection last year and has more recently switched parties. He got a lot of MAGA attention, particularly after his featured role at the GOP National Convention. He has really taken to his new career in Republican politics, speaking at the notorious January 6 “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington and basking in the affection of the Big Man (“When are you announcing? When are you announcing?” Trump said to Jones at Mar-a-Lago last week).
Jones’s announcement made it clear that he’s the former president’s surrogate.
Jones, however, is a risky proposition as Trump’s instrument of vengeance against Kemp. Aside from the fact that he’s a career Democratic politician from a jurisdiction (the Atlanta inner suburb of Dekalb County) that your average rural Republican wouldn’t visit on a bet, he has always had some issues, as Bluestein explains, calling him “a uniquely polarizing figure in state politics”:
“Jones launched his political career in the early 1990s in the Georgia House before winning the first of two terms as DeKalb County’s chief executive officer in 2000. His stint was marked by controversy …
“[H]is angry outbursts and clashes with other local officials dominated headlines, as did more serious allegations …
“[A] wide-ranging special grand jury report released in 2013, after Jones left office, recommended an investigation against Jones and other DeKalb officials into possible bid-rigging and theft when he was chief executive, painting a picture of a culture of corruption that spanned from his office to workers and contractors in the watershed department.”
Worse yet, Jones was accused of rape in 2005. His successful defense was that the intercourse in question was part of a consensual three-way sexual encounter. This is still not a great look for candidates in the Christian-right- dominated Georgia GOP. And speaking of the Christian right, Jones had a problem with a vote in the legislature against a “fetal heartbeat” abortion ban Kemp had championed in 2019. On the eve of his candidacy, Jones executed a straight-out flip-flop on abortion, stating he now believed zygotes should be protected “from the moment of conception.”
You get the sense that Jones will serve as an irritant to Kemp but not a serious threat unless Trump himself forcefully intervenes in the race (and/or if a more formidable Trump-backed candidate, like Collins, who is reportedly mulling a Senate race, jumps in). And even then, Georgia Republicans will remember that Trump had strongly endorsed Kemp during the last gubernatorial primary. MAGA bravos looking for a pound of flesh may instead focus on Raffensperger, who has drawn an actual member of Congress as his 2022 primary opponent, along with the rival he barely defeated in 2018.
If Kemp does escape, he will likely face a rematch with his nemesis, voting-rights activist Stacey Abrams. And in that contest, all the treasure he has stored up in Republican circles by boasting of his commitment to “election integrity” may earn him a backlash from the voters he and his party have sought to bedevil.
Why are Bush’s numbers still high among Republicans? I have two thoughts:
1) After the “Washington 5” were indicted for the Watergate break-ins, Nixon’s approval ratings were still at 60 percent among everyone (I’m not sure what it was among Republicans, but you can bet that it was very high). It wasn’t until it became painfully obvious that the break-in was a straight-line directly connected to Nixon that his numbers began to plummet. Similarly, I think Democrats see a straight-line connecting Bush to the corruption and incompetence of his administration in everything from the war with Iraq, to our struggling economy, to environmental degradation (or at the very least hold him responsible). Centrist Republicans have a clear disconnect.
Why? Well, thought number 2) the right-wing media juggernaut gives them cover. They need not ever confront the realities of their president or what he has done – and neither does the president. Hannity and Limbaugh are more than capable of mounting a straw man defense against the most egregious Bush missteps and malfeasance. Additionally, the Republicans have so vilified Democrats that a core majority of Republicans would rather deal with Satan than that French looking John Kerry who lies about the severity of his combat-wounds …
In “Independent Voters and the Bush Presidency” (June 5, 2004) the question of turnout/participation in November is briefly mentioned:
“Alas for Bush, this may turn out to be the election where everyone shows up. And, if that’s the case, it’ll be the Republican base that gets swamped, not the other way around.”
But what drives turnout? What sorts of issues and poll numbers make people more rather than less likely to vote?
Won’t Kerry have to emphasize economic populism in order to fire up his base? And isn’t his reported reluctance to speak in those terms cost him in November in terms of turnout? This, of course, was the Dukakis experience.
If the author avoids the “Likely Voter” screen, does this mean that he is agnostic at this point about the shape of turnout come November?
doofus,
one thing that has changed is that touch screens with no paper trail have replaced verifiable levers and ballots. What is being done to ensure that voting will be verified and ballot access will be equal for minorities and poor counties?
some important groups working for voting fairness
see
verifiedvoting.org
fairvote.org
naacp.org
aclu.org
To the poster who wondered why it isn’t obvious to a lot of people that Bush is a complete moron and totally unqualified to be President , let alone anything else I give you this: Many people think about life and the world they live in in simplistic terms. Their minds are incapable of thinking anything because that requires a thought process. Allthroughout Right-Wing history their thought process is it’s the Communists fault, its the fault of liberals, its the fault of big government etc. Being a citizen in a democracy REQUIRES that people pay attention. Many people do not WANT to think therefore “ALL POLITICIANS ARE CROOKS” is easier than thinking about the real differences between the two major political parties. That’s why liberals have problems, most of their issues are not easily boiled down to simplistic phrases like everything will be fine if we just get the government off our backs, etc.
Or it may indicate that (3) if you have enough Gallup numbers to look at, you are bound to find some striking but meaningless chance correlations that hold over several elections.
The correlation is interesting, and it could indicate something like a causal relation. But “incumbent job approval among independents in May of an election year with an incumbent running for reelection” does have the air of those surreallistically overspecified stats that baseball announcers like to report: balls thrown against left-handed hitters in the bottom of the eighth, etc.
That’s a very interesting analysis, PhillyGuy. Also very encouraging. I’m wondering, though, if there might be a new independent variable this year in the extent to which Bush/Cheney is spending its massive war chest on overwhelmingly negative ads. An analysis by the Washington Post a week or two ago showed that, while about 25% of the Kerry campaign’s ads so far have been negative, an amazing 75% of Bush/Cheney’s have been. And they are running these ads in the key battleground states where they can do the most harm. (This doesn’t even take into account the Rove-inspired dirty tricks and election fraud that also will undoubtedly be run “below the radar,” a la South Carolina and Florida in 2000.) Bush/Cheney spokesmen have said, off the record, that their objective is to define Kerry and create enough doubts among undecided voters that — come November — they’ll hesitate to pull the lever for Kerry. My point here is simply that the independent-voter paradigm this year may not follow history, because never has so much money been spent to tear down smear an opposing presidential candidate, rather than build up the spending candidate. Let’s hope that this is not the case.
The most intriguing and beautiful aspect of Gallup’s data is the extent to which the incumbent’s May approval rating among independent voters so closely reflects his eventual popular vote in November:
Year, Incumbent, May Independent Approval, Popular Vote
1996, Clinton, 47, 49.23
1992, Bush, 34, 37.45
1984, Reagan, 58, 58.77
1980, Carter, 36, 41.01
1976, Ford, 51, 48.02
1972, Nixon, 63, 60.67
The average differential between the May approval rate among independents and the popular vote share in November is only 2.8%. In other words, if recent electoral history is any indicator, Bush can count on a popular vote share of between 37.2 and 42.8 percent.
Interestingly, the person who did best in the popular vote compared to his May rating among independents was Jimmy Carter, who’s vote total was 5.01% better than his May rating. Even if Bush were to do as well as Carter, he’d still only end up with 45.01% of the vote. Let us pray…
I think the similarity between May independent approval rating and November popular vote tells us two things: 1) attitudes toward the incumbent have largely hardened by May of his election year; and 2) independent voters truly are the critical key to a presidential election since Republicans and Democrats tend to be loyal to their candidate–if independents dislike you, you’re in big trouble. Bush is in big trouble.
2 points:
1) But, among the 55 percent who strongly disapprove of his performance, 41 percent strongly disapprove.
Um. Shouldn’t it read: …among the 55 percent who disapprove of his performance, 41 percent strongly disapprove
2) Re: Republican streadfastness. Let me paraphrase Robert Jordan here: “As a deer will freeze when it sees a boulder rushing down a mountainside…” I think that’s why. Deer in the headlights.
How precisely could the Republicans “paper over” the fact that the very people they need most to win, hate their guts?
What *I’m* confused by is how nearly 90% of Republicans could possibly continue to support this president and his administration. I suspect that they are simply not paying any attention, and won’t until later in the campaign.
Of course, I include “watches nothing but Fox News” as functionally equivalent to “not paying attention”.
The good thing about this is that at about the same time they really start paying attention, so will the vast majority of Democrats and Independents. And there’s a lot more Democrats and Independents than there are Republicans.
And it’s darn nice of us to point out their weaknesses while they still have time to paper them over, isn’t it?