ATLANTA (AP) – With the Georgia governor’s race now set, the contest between Republican Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams becomes a question of which candidate can move beyond their partisan bases to capture the electoral middle in this emerging battleground state.
Kemp, a two-term secretary of state backed by President Donald Trump, hardly moderated his approach as he celebrated an overwhelming runoff victory Tuesday. After a campaign featuring guns, chain saws and his smiling pledge to “round up criminal illegals” in his pickup truck, the newly minted Republican nominee painted Abrams as a radical leftist threat to Georgia values.
Abrams, a former state legislative leader, isn’t a radical by any conventional definition of U.S. politics, but she’s run an aggressive campaign to energize the Democratic base by pledging to expand Medicaid insurance and spend more on education, infrastructure, and job training. She also backs tighter gun restrictions, abortion rights and removing Confederate monuments from state property. Her effort to become the nation’s first black woman elected governor has made her a national political celebrity.
“The contrast … could not be sharper,” said Emory University political science professor Alan Abramowitz. “Kemp is running as an all-out Trump supporter and a ‘politically incorrect conservative.’ Abrams is not only the first African-American candidate for governor in Georgia, but probably the most liberal Democratic candidate for governor in history.”
Both national parties are running ads labeling the opposition as dangerous.