Some Georgia Republicans try to distance themselves from national politics as Election Day nears

They say all politics is local, and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp seems to hope that holds true next week.

Kemp has been traveling the state singing the praises of the man he hopes will take over his job after this year, Republican businessman Rick Jackson. Kemp is set to complete his second and final term in January, and Jackson is locked in a tight race with Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms to succeed him.

At a campaign stop in DeKalb County Tuesday, Kemp urged supporters to focus their closing message on Republican results in Georgia rather than what is coming out of Washington.

“We can’t let the Democrats nationalize this election,” Kemp said at the DeKalb-Peachtree Airport. “This is about you. This is about us. This is about your community, this county and this state, and the things that we have achieved under great leadership now for almost 24 years.”

Kemp’s comment came just before former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris were scheduled to campaign in Georgia, though Republican national figures have also visited the state to stump for GOP candidates. President Donald Trump visited the state twice this month, and high-profile politicians like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz have also hit the campaign trail in the final stretch of the campaign.

The shift also comes as Republicans have openly expressed alarm over Democratic turnout during early voting.

Republicans have occupied the governor’s mansion in Georgia since 2003 when Sonny Perdue became the first Republican governor in Georgia since Reconstruction.

Kemp, the state’s third consecutive two-term Republican leader, is set to leave office on a high note. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll released this month found nearly 70% of Georgians approve of his performance and 52% say Georgia is moving in the right direction.

The same poll suggests Georgians lack those warm feelings for Republicans at the federal level. Only 42% of respondents said they approved of Trump’s performance, and only 33% feel the nation is headed in the right direction.

Much of that displeasure with Trump, who won Georgia in two of the last three presidential elections, comes down to inflation. Voters attribute rising prices for gasoline and other goods to Trump’s war in Iran and tariff policy.

And those low numbers could make the typical midterm election slump even more pronounced, said Emory University political science professor Andra Gillespie.

“The national mood is anti-Republican in this cycle, which is customary given which party that is in power, but it’s exacerbated by the fact that Donald Trump has a particularly low approval rating in this particular cycle,” she said.

In that kind of environment, campaigning alongside Kemp makes sense, Gillespie said. But in addition to overcoming the drag of running as a member of the party in power during a midterm, Jackson has to overcome a lack of name recognition.

“He’s trying to attach himself to a record of success, but the challenge in terms of believability is whether or not he can actually lay claim to somebody else’s track record and be taken seriously,” she said.

“He’s basically trying to buy some of Brian Kemp’s incumbency advantage, but he’s not the incumbent, and there is the rub,” she added.

Jackson and Trump are both wealthy men, and Jackson welcomed comparisons between himself and the president during the primary. Even though Trump endorsed Jackson’s Republican opponent initially, Jackson told primary voters he would be Trump’s favorite governor and pledged to govern like Trump but with a Southern tone. The president has since endorsed Jackson.

But speaking with the press after the DeKalb event, Jackson was quick to correct a reporter who asked about him campaigning with Trump over the weekend.

“I didn’t campaign, I visited the rally,” Jackson said.

Jackson visited Trump on stage at a rally in Perry Saturday after initially saying he would skip the event. Jackson also shared the stage with Trump in Dalton the week before.

Jackson told reporters in DeKalb that he thinks Georgians will make the distinction between Georgia Republicans and the national party.

“I think everybody understands that’s a federal issue,” Jackson told reporters in DeKalb, speaking about his association with the president. “In the Senate race, they push a yes or no button. But what a governor does every (day), just like Gov. Kemp has done, it doesn’t matter what happens in DC and who’s president. You have to get along with everybody, and that’s what I’ll do from that standpoint. You have to solve the problems for Georgians, because every decision a governor makes every day affects everybody in Georgia, and that’s why we need to keep it going the same way it’s been doing.”

Bottoms and U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who is running for reelection against Republican Congressman Mike Collins, have both eagerly sought to associate their opponents with Trump in Georgia voters’ minds.

That’s pretty much par for the course in a midterm election with an unpopular president in power, said Jason Shepherd, Kennesaw State University political science professor and former chair of the Cobb County Republican Party, and while the president may get the headlines, state and local leaders often have a greater impact on the life of the average citizen.

“If I was a Democrat running with an unpopular Democrat president like Joe Biden four years ago, then I’d be reminding voters the same thing,” he said. “It’s how we govern and manage our affairs in this state that matters more than what’s happening in Washington D.C.”

“It’s not the White House or Congress that’s going to fix potholes in your neighborhood,” he added. “It’s not the White House or Congress that’s going to make a determination on how successful your schools are. That’s all going to be governed at the state and local level, and not liking what’s going on in Washington doesn’t translate to how best to govern the state.”

But speaking to reporters Tuesday in Atlanta, Bottoms said nationalizing the race is fair play.

“The nation’s paying attention,” she said. “This race is about Georgia, but Georgia is an important part of what happens across this country. I’ve said repeatedly, so goes Georgia goes the South, so goes the South goes America. We know that when we sent two senators in Senators Ossoff and Warnock to D.C., that it changed the landscape of America. So it’s about who shows up to vote in Georgia, but we’re going to take all the energy and support we can get.”

Early voting ends this Friday, with more than 2 million ballots already cast. Election Day is Tuesday.

Georgia Recorder reporter Alander Rocha contributed to this report.