GOP can’t be distracted by investigations of Trump

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Tension between Trump and Kemp has been simmering for years. When Kemp refused to overturn Biden’s 2020 win in Georgia, Trump made the governor his No. 1 enemy, publicly railing against him throughout 2021 and recruiting former US Sen. David Perdue to challenge Kemp in a GOP primary. In the race for Georgia governor, Trump failed to draw Kemp into a fight and the governor won the Republican primary and the election by a wide margin.

Trump, currently seen as the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 10 years, has insisted since leaving office that Republicans can’t win elections if they don’t look at the past. In important swing states, which Trump needs to win the White House, candidates who supported his false election claims did poorly.

Also in the midterm elections, candidates who backed Trump’s false election claims did poorly in key swing states the former president will need to win back the White House in 2024.

Trump is in a bad spot in the legal field. In New York, a hush money payment to an adult-film star shortly before the 2016 election has resulted in his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury over his alleged role in the scheme. A select grand jury in Atlanta is looking into the campaign to overturn the election results in Georgia.

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Kemp made direct mention of these investigations Saturday, according to his prepared remarks, calling the probes distractions that could take the Republican Party off course and away from issues voters care about.

“I can’t control what the judicial branch is doing or what a local prosecutor is doing in many ways, but what we can control … is what we’re focused on,” Kemp said Sunday.

“But here’s the truth: Fani Willis and Alvin Bragg’s investigations into allegations of the past don’t help hardworking Americans battling high grocery prices, growing pain at the gas pump or violent crime plaguing their neighborhoods,” he continued, referring to the district attorneys of Fulton County, Georgia, and Manhattan respectively.

If we distract ourselves from the investigations that the Democrats want to talk about, that will help Joe Biden as long as he keeps his focus on politics. “It does not give us a path for Republicans to win.”

Kemp said Sunday that Republicans will need to draw a distinction with what he referred to as “the disaster of the Biden administration” to win next year, pointing to border security, high inflation and energy policy.

“I think we’re going to have a lot of good candidates that, if they focus on those things, we have got a great chance of winning the White House in 2024,” the governor said.