Billing himself as a “politically incorrect conservative,” Mr. Kemp’s political personality had been borrowed directly from Mr. Biden plans to travel to the state next week to campaign for the two Democratic candidates, who would give his party control of the Senate if they won runoffs against Republican incumbents on Jan. MeidasTouch, a progressive national political committee, announced plans this week to put up billboards in Georgia emblazoned with a Trump tweet that reads, “Why bother voting for Republicans if what you get is Ducey and Kemp?” Mr. “If you’re not fighting for Trump now when he needs you the most as a Republican leader in Georgia, people are not going to fight for you when you ask them to get re-elected,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, in an appearance on Fox News.ĭemocrats are trying to exploit these divisions. Kemp, warning that what they see as his insufficient loyalty to the president could carry a political price. Never forget, vote them out of office!”Īllies of the president had already begun issuing veiled threats toward Mr. They allowed states that I won easily to be stolen. “These are two RINO Republicans who fought against me and the Republican Party harder than any Democrat. “Who is a worse governor, of Georgia or of Arizona?” he wrote. Trump launched fresh attacks on Twitter Saturday morning. Trump’s properties before becoming involved with politics.

“People will remember what happened here,” added Mr. “The Duceys and the Kemps of the world, they may have some difficulty if they want to seek elective office within the Republican Party,” said Michael Burke, the chairman of the Republican Party in Pinal County in Arizona. Biden Jr., he is also engaged in a furious effort to torpedo Mr. Trump continues to grope for a way to undo his electoral loss to President-elect Joseph R.

Trump, and potentially paying a political price for it.Īs Mr. Kemp and Doug Ducey of Arizona, and lower-level state officials like Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in Georgia, have emerged as a new kind of institutionalist in the face of the Trump attacks on the election system: They are refusing to bend procedures to the will of Mr. Trump’s glow but now find themselves derided for enforcing their state election rules and laws. Kemp is now the most vivid example of the battle-scarred and even shellshocked conservative Republicans who once basked in Mr. “If he doesn’t call a special session, he’s definitely a one-term governor, no doubt about it,” said one of the activists, Erik Christensen, the chief executive of a moving company, who said he voted for Mr. Kemp was stopped by a small group who presented a bag that they said was filled with 2,000 petitions making the same plea. The question crowded the screen of a Facebook live feed of the event. Kemp was confronted by Trump loyalists asking why he had refused to call a special session of the legislature, as the president has requested, so that lawmakers can reallocate the state’s 16 electoral votes to Mr. At a news conference in the State Capitol on Tuesday to discuss the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine, Mr.

Cast of making mr right