Georgia Governor Brian Kemp revealed in an interview with CNN that he did not vote for former President Donald Trump in the state’s GOP primary in March. “I didn’t vote for anybody. I voted, but I didn’t vote for anybody,” Kemp told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. Despite not casting his vote for Trump in the primary, Kemp stated that he will still “support the ticket” in the upcoming November election.
These comments from Kemp came just before the first presidential debate between Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Kemp, who has had a contentious relationship with Trump in the past, urged the former president to focus on the future and not risk losing support from swing voters. In the 2020 election, Trump lost Georgia to Biden by over 11,000 votes, making Biden the first Democrat to win the state since Bill Clinton in 1992.
Kemp’s relationship with Trump further deteriorated when he refused to call a special legislative session to help Trump overturn the election results in Georgia. Trump retaliated by backing a primary challenger in the 2022 Republican gubernatorial primary, but Kemp emerged victorious by a wide margin.
Despite their history, Kemp hinted that he could work with Trump and his campaign to further Republican causes. When asked about concerns of another attempt to overturn the election, Kemp expressed confidence in the strength of democracy. “I don’t worry about the institutions of democracy too much – they held up under a lot of pressure,” he said. “Democracy has been bent and challenged in this republic in the past and it will be in the future. But I’m very confident that it will hold.”
