Kemp defeats Abrams to notch second term as Georgia governor

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp won reelection to the Georgia governorship Tuesday after defeating Democrat Stacey Abrams a second time.

Kemp held a consistent lead over Abrams in polls throughout the summer and into the fall, but Democrats were hopeful about a last-minute surge for Abrams.

“It looks like the reports of my political death have been greatly exaggerated,” Kemp said in his victory speech. “We made sure that Stacey Abrams is not going to be our governor or your next president,” he later added to cheers from the crowd.

Meanwhile, Abrams offered her congratulations to the governor, citing the resilience and endurance of everyday Georgians in the face of several “soul-crushing crises” as the reason she campaigned for office a second time.

Abrams said her campaign was about fighting for quality public education, a cleaner environment, more affordable prescription drugs, and voting rights, “because voting is a fundamental right, not a privilege for the wealthy few.”

Kemp's win is a major disappointment for Democrats, who had hoped, despite Abrams’ narrow 2018 loss, that victories for Joe Biden and two Democratic senators in Georgia two years ago meant that the GOP’s hold on the state had permanently loosened. Abrams’ defeat also comes amid her reported struggles with Black male voters.

Kemp proved to be formidable.

Despite rejecting former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results, Kemp didn’t lose Republican support and easily defeated Trump-backed former Sen. David Perdue in the GOP primary.

During the campaign, Kemp frequently touted that he was the first governor to allow businesses to reopen during the Covid-19 pandemic, painted Abrams as working for “liberal elites” and warned of tax hikes if she secured the governor spot.

Kemp put a strong emphasis on violent crime and his endorsements from law enforcement across the state. During the first gubernatorial debate last month, Kemp accused Abrams of wanting to “defund the police,” a rallying cry among some protesters after the 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.

Abrams responded to those accusations during the debate, and in campaign ads that featured retired law enforcement officers who supported her election efforts.

In the same gubernatorial debate, she also pointed to Kemp’s track record of easing gun laws, saying that Georgians “live in a state of fear” and “have a governor who has weakened gun laws in this state, flooded our streets with guns by letting dangerous people get access to these weapons.”

She also hammered him on abortion rights.

Two weeks after Georgia’s six-week abortion ban took effect — a 2019 law put on pause by the courts until the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade — Abrams tweeted out an ad calling out Kemp’s views on abortion. “The only way to stop this attack on women is to stop Brian Kemp,” she said in the tweet.