Donald Trump Suffers Blow Before Presidential Debate
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he arrives at the Atlanta Airport on April 10, 2024 in Atlanta. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has revealed he did nit vote for Trump in the 2024 GOP primary.
Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, has revealed he didn't vote for Donald Trump in the state's 2024 GOP presidential primary.
Speaking to CNN's Kaitlan Collins, Kemp said he didn't vote for anyone in the race in March as he felt it "didn't really matter" as Trump was well on his way to be the 2024 Republican presidential candidate regardless. His remarks came as Trump and President Joe Biden are set to take part in the first live televised debate of the 2024 campaign in Atlanta in the key swing state.
The relationship between Kemp and Trump has long been strained after the governor refused to support the former president's attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, which Biden won by just over 11,700 votes.
"I didn't vote for anybody. I voted, but I didn't vote for anybody," Kemp told CNN's The Source. "I mean, the race was already over when the primary got here. I always try to go vote and play a part in it, but look at that point, it didn't really matter."
Kemp hasn't officially endorsed Trump in the 2024 race, but he has previously vowed to support whoever is on the Republican ticket in order to help defeat Biden in November.
Trump won the Georgia GOP primary with more than 84 percent of the vote on March 12. He became the presumptive 2024 Republican candidate after also winning in Washington and Mississippi the same night.
Trump's office has been contacted for comment via email.
Trump was so irate as Kemp refused to call a special legislative session to try and overturn Georgia's 2020 election results that he vowed to end his political career. The former president endorsed Kemp's Republican challenger, former senator David Perdue, in Georgia GOP gubernatorial primary in 2022.
Kemp went on comprehensively to beat Perdue by more than 50 percentage points.
Trump and several others have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges for their alleged criminal attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' investigation was launched in response Trump's January 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he asked him to "find" the 11,870 votes needed to beat Biden in the state at the last election.
Kemp said he hasn't spoken to Trump directly recently, and that there haven't been any attempts at communication from his campaign team.
Despite this, Kemp said he is willing to overlook the pair's differences in order to help the Republican cause in November.
"We'll see how the race plays out and what they might ask for or need. But right now I'm focused on turning the ticket out so we win," Kemp said. "Regardless of our history together, I have a vested interest in Georgia remaining in Republican hands."
With regards to the CNN debate on Thursday night, Kemp suggested that Trump shouldn't focus on past grievances in order to appeal to key swing voters.
"Trump has a great opportunity to really be forward thinking. Not look in the rearview mirror, not focused on the past, but stay focused on the future contrast," Kemp said.
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