CNN
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Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, said Wednesday that he did not vote for former President Donald Trump in the state’s Republican primary in March.
“I didn’t vote for anybody. I voted, but I didn’t vote for anybody,” Kemp told CNN’s Caitlin Collins on “The Source” the day before the historic presidential debate in his hometown. “So by the time the primaries started, the race was already over,” he continued, later adding: “I always try to go vote and do my part, but at that point, it just didn’t matter that much.”
Kemp did not vote for Trump in the primary but has maintained he will “support his candidate” when Trump faces off against presumptive Democratic nominee President-elect Joe Biden in November.
“He was the presumptive nominee before the primary even started, which means I wasn’t endorsing anybody in the race,” Kemp told Collins about Trump. “It was something I had thought about, but circumstances and the way things unfolded meant that it didn’t end up that way. But I’ve said all along that I would support a candidate, and that’s what I’ve always done, and I’m still doing that this November.”
Kemp told reporters in March that he would not say whether he voted for Trump in the Republican primary, but said he would support the Republican candidate in the general election.
The governor’s comments came on the eve of the first presidential debate between Trump and Biden, hosted by CNN, where he urged the former president, his past rival, to focus on the future and not risk swing vote support when he speaks in Atlanta.
“Trump has a real opportunity to really be proactive, not look in the rearview mirror, not dwell on the past, but stay focused on the contrast of the future,” Kemp said.
In the 2020 election, Trump lost Georgia by more than 11,000 votes to Biden, who became the first Democrat to win the state since former President Bill Clinton in 1992.
Kemp clashed with Trump after the latter refused to call a special legislative session to support Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Trump was so furious at Kemp that he vowed to end his political career and endorsed his candidate in the 2022 Republican gubernatorial primary. The move failed spectacularly, with Kemp beating David Perdue by more than 50 points.
Kemp said he had never spoken directly to Trump and had not been approached by the campaign, but suggested the pair might be able to ignore their history of conflict in order to advance Republican causes.
“We’ll see how the race goes, what they want, what they need, but right now I’m focused on putting forward a candidate and winning. That said, I have a vested interest in Georgia remaining in Republican hands, despite our history thus far,” Kemp said.
Asked whether he was concerned that Trump would try to overturn the election results again, Kemp said he was “very confident” that democracy would be preserved.
“I’m not too worried about the institution of democracy. Democracy has withstood a lot of pressure,” he said. “Democracy has been bent and challenged in the past in this republic and will be in the future. But I’m very confident that democracy will hold up.”
