“While the GOP candidates bicker and hear for the approval of Trump, they will be forced to respond to his failures and abuses,” said Ossoff.
But the terrain is fundamentally different from what it would be if Kemp has entered the race as a unifying figure that would have cleared the ground, aligning the support of all the corners of the conservative ecosystem.
Now there is an increasing possibility of a new confrontation between Kemp and Trump, whose longtime quarrel is just starting to fade in memory.
Each potential candidate is court the presidentwhich remains a dominant force in the policy of Georgia Gop and has a proven talent to appreciate loyalty to electability.
But the governor also wants to influence the race, and his allies hope to come together behind a competitor with the same call to voters who have helped Kemp twice win the best job of Georgia.
There is Provisional plans For a Kemp-Trump meeting in Washington in the hope of finding a consensual candidate, even if Kemp seemed skeptical about this possibility.
“It is difficult to do sometimes in the primaries,” the governor told AJC. “But it is really too early to say how it will get rid of.”
Credit: Jenni Girtman for AJC
Credit: Jenni Girtman for AJC
The Kemp Snat snob has also reinforced the hand of Ossoff. Instead of meeting a popular governor with two mandates with a cross -call, the Democrat can focus on supporting construction while the Republicans are tearing into a brutal primary.
“I am ready to go out and defeat any challenger,” Ossoff told AJC. “I don’t spend much time thinking about who could emerge from the republican domain. I focus on the continuation of the delivery of the state of Georgia and my legislative affairs to the Senate. ”
And Kemp’s decision underlines how turbulent national electoral cycle has become for the Republicans. KEMP is only the last figure in high -level GOP to reject an intense lobbying campaign, attenuating the early optimism of the party after Trump’s victory.
Trump loyalty
Other candidates do not wait for a joint blessing from Kemp-Trump. Carter was the first well -known Republican to participate in the race, Launch of a campaign Thursday with a television spot highlighting his loyalty to Trump.
He nicknamed it “Magi Warrior” and struck Ossoff for blocked a measure to limit transgender girls in female sports – which the Democrat called a gop -person “Corner problem of cultural war. “”
“The Georgians voted massively for this president, and they deserve someone in the Senate who will support this president and his policies in America,” said Carter. “And that’s what I’m going to do.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Carter will not be the last race candidate. Almost a dozen other Republicans have taken measures towards the race, including several representatives of the State and many members of the GOP of the Delegation of the Congress of Georgia.
The best known – and the most divisor – was the American representative Marjorie Taylor Greene until she Plans announced on Friday To sit on the race.
Although the Republican of Rome commands a fiercely faithful magazine, many party leaders fear his burnt style style could cost the party a winning race and weighs down other candidates for the GOP.
“”Jon OssoffYou can stop with fundraising emails and campaign announcements saying that I am your opponent, “Greene posted on social networks on Friday.” I don’t run. “”
There had been intense discussions in Atlanta and Washington on the means of dissuading it from running or merging an alternative.
Before Friday, Greene clearly indicated that she sees a path to victory, comparing the skepticism she had to face with the doubts that Trump overcome in 2016 and 2024.
Credit: Mike Stewart / AP
Credit: Mike Stewart / AP
“I have options,” she said. “There are many people who say that I can introduce myself to the Senate, I can go to the post of governor and I can also continue to represent the magnificent 14th District of Georgia.”
She added: “Unlike everyone here, I am not interested in a job title. I make my decisions according to where I can be the most effective.”
Bipartisan work
For a long time as the most vulnerable Senate of the Senate in 2026, Ossoff devoted to the preparation of its political operation for the upcoming campaign.
He helped oust the American representative Nikema Williams as president of the State Democratic Party and urged the activists to replace it by Charlie BaileyAn ally that has promised to transform The organization in a more aggressive and better funded political machine.
Ossoff has highlighted Bipartisan work on prison surveillance, infrastructure improvements and Green energy incentives. He speaks of helping to obtain major economic development agreements and to use his office to “exhibit corruption and human rights violations”.
He also sharpened the attacks on the president and his allies, accusing the Republicans of having allowed Trump of emptying the public health system and imposing reckless prices. He said he would do it support another dismissal Targeting Trump’s abuse of power if his party takes over the American house.
Although the Republicans predict that his criticism of Trump will turn against a state that the president has just won, the Ossoff allies believe that the Trump republican alliance will haunt the GOP candidate in November.
Indeed, each eminent GOP candidate considering joining the race has courted Trump. American representative Mike Collins said this week that he had already consulted the president. The American representative Rich McCormick said he “considered him strongly” if Trump pressed him to run. The insurance commissioner John King praised the Trump policy of the policy.
Although this strategy can be essential to win a primary, it could be risky during a general election. An AJC survey this month has shown that Trump The approval rating had plunged At 43%, most of the voters also opposing immigration and economic policies of its administration.
This is why the battle for Kemp’s approval could also be crucial. The governor said he was too early to take sides, but he clearly said on Thursday what he said to a donor group in private After making his decision to get around a race.
“Just because my name will not be on the ballot of voting, that does not mean that I will not be on the political playground,” he said, adding that his priority is to help the Republicans to reconquer “one of our seats in the Senate that we should never have lost.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Kemp’s decision is also a warning to national republicans that the majority of the Senate in 2026 could be more chaotic than expected. The former governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, also rejected the pressure to present himself to the Senate, while the longtime American senator John Cornyn should face a main challenge to high issues of the Attorney General Ken Paxton, who positions himself as a Trump type disruptor.
These internal divisions could play directly in democratic mailbox launching Republicans as more focused on the Trump peak than to solve the problems of voters.
“This clown shows that we are about to testify,” said the representative of the Democratic State. David Wilkerson“Is the result of the extreme gerrymandering partisan who has caused the election of extreme politicians who only care about sound bites and not to help families.”
Washington office chief Tia Mitchell contributed to this report.