Kemp says he would back Trump in 2024 election: 'Better than Biden'
ATLANTA - Despite clashing in the past, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp says he will support former President Donald Trump if he gets the Republican nomination.
Over the weekend, Kemp told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he would still back Trump.
"Despite all of that, despite all of his other trials and tribulations, he would still be a lot better than Biden," Kemp said. "And the people serving in the administration would be a lot better than Joe Biden."
The two-term governor has previously survived scathing attacks from Trump over his refusal to endorse the former president’s false claims about the election. In 2022, Trump courted former Sen. David Perdue to enter the race to oust the incumbent, but Kemp soundly beat him by more than 50% of the vote in the Republican primary.
Kemp has been trying to promote a Trump-divergent vision for Republicans since shortly after the 2020 election when he defied the then-president’s demands to help overturn his narrow loss in the state. His impressive win over Democrat Stacey Abrams last year stoked presidential speculation, but Kemp has said he’s not going to seek the White House in 2024. He has, however, been angling for national influence through the Republican Governors Association and could be setting up a 2026 Senate run against Ossoff.
Kemp: Road to White House runs through Georgia
We’re still more than a year away from the 2024 general election and it’s a crowded field on the Republican side with more than a dozen people running. Several of those with their hat in the ring stopped in Atlanta Friday for a moderated conversation with radio host Erick Erickson. Despite the legal trouble the former president faces just miles from the venue. He was not a topic of discussion.
"If you look in the rearview mirror too long while you’re driving, you’re going to look up, and you’re going to be running into somebody, and that’s not going to be good," Kemp told CNN in mid-April, shortly after delivering the same message at the Republican National Committee donors’ retreat in Nashville.
Even with the conflicts, Kemp said that next year's presidential election is too important to not be unified.
"It has everything to do with winning and reversing the ridiculous, obscene positions of Joe Biden and this administration that literally, in a lot of ways, are destroying our country," Kemp said.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump enters Erie Insurance Arena for a political rally while campaigning for the GOP nomination in the 2024 election on July 29, 2023 in Erie, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
Kemp said he believes that Trump could win the Peach State, but said the former president has a good chance of losing if he hangs on to his 2020 election loss in the state to President Joe Biden.
The governor has also received heat from Trump and other Republicans for not criticizing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office's indictment of the former president and 18 of his allies.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.