Georgia
Seeking to woo voters, Trump puts aside his beef with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. For now
Former president Trump put aside his differences Friday with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, meeting Kemp in the hurricane-ravaged community of Evans, Ga, for their first joint appearance since Kemp refused to help Trump overturn his 2020 election loss.
After shaking hands at a press briefing, Trump praised Kemp. “Your governor’s doing a fantastic job,” Trump said.
It was a significant public turnaround, one calibrated to bring Georgia Republicans together ahead of a tight Nov. 5. election.
Over the last four years, Trump has repeatedly tried to undermine Kemp, blaming the Georgia GOP leader for not doing enough to overturn his 2020 loss and endorsing a rival gubernatorial candidate in 2022. Just months ago, he insulted Kemp as a “bad guy.”
But getting conservatives to the polls and wooing undecided voters is key for Republicans in this Southern battleground state.
Biden won Georgia in 2020 by fewer than 12,000 votes and polling averages compiled by FiveThirtyEight.com show Trump ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris in Georgia by just 1.3 percentage points, within the margin of error.
With Trump and Harris neck and neck, the two men presented a united front.
“It is my honor, and I want to thank President Trump for coming back to our state again for the second time to … keep a national focus on our state as we recover,” Kemp said after the two GOP leaders attended a briefing on hurricane damage in Evans, a conservative suburb of Augusta that suffered severe storm damage.
Asked about his relationship with the governor, Trump said: “We’ve always worked together very well.”
Georgia political observers stress that it would be unwise for Trump to make an enemy of Kemp, Georgia’s most popular and powerful elected official.
“The joint appearance might calm some Republicans upset about the attacks on Kemp,” said GOP strategist Brian Robinson, a former communications director for former Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal. “It doesn’t add votes really, but it’s important for Trump to keep Kemp on the team rowing in the same direction. Kemp would never be publicly opposed, but it would be harmful if he was.”
Earlier this week, Kemp did not join Trump when the former president traveled to Valdosta, Ga., to survey the damage from Hurricane Helene.
At a rally this week, Trump criticized Biden for “sleeping” after the hurricane brought torrential rain to the region and falsely claimed that Kemp could not reach Biden for federal assistance — a claim that Kemp later disputed.
Speaking at an August Atlanta rally, Trump shocked many Georgia conservatives when he rebuked Kemp as “little Brian.” He said that under Kemp’s leadership and the state had “gone to hell” and Atlanta was “a killing field.” He also accused of Kemp’s wife, Marty, who months earlier told a reporter she planned to write in Kemp’s name for president, of disloyalty.
“Leave my family out of it,” Kemp retorted on X. “My focus is on winning this November and saving our country from Kamala Harris and the Democrats – not engaging in petty personal insults, attacking fellow Republicans, or dwelling on the past.”
Many Georgia Republicans united against Trump in support of Kemp — a popular GOP player across the state who crushed a Trump-endorsed challenger in the 2022 GOP primary before winning against Democrat Stacey Abrams.
Still, Kemp refused to get sucked into the drama, insisting he would use his robust political machine this fall to boost Trump’s 2024 bid for the White House.
“This is still a state we can win if we have all the mechanics and the things you need to do to win an election,” Kemp said in August. “We’ve raised enough money and we have good candidates.
Just before Harris accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention, Trump made overtures to Kemp via the social platform X, thanking him for his “help and support in Georgia, where a win is so important.”
“I look forward to working with you, your team, and all of my friends in Georgia to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
And last week he extended that overture, calling Kemp “fantastic” at a visit in Savannah before the hurricane hit.
Still, Trump’s praise for Kemp may not last long. Trump has been indicted in Georgia — an 98-page indictment by Fulton County Dist. Atty. Fani Willis
claims the former president “unlawfully conspired” to change the election outcome — and Kemp could serve as a possible trial witness against Trump.
THE FLATS – Georgia Tech men’s basketball opened the 2024-25 campaign with a 85-62 rout over visiting West Georgia on Wednesday evening at McCamish Pavilion.
Playing his first game in the White and Gold, Oklahoma transfer Javian McCollum led Georgia Tech (1-0) with a game-high 18 points. Kowacie Reeves Jr. added 15 points and Baye Ndongo chipped in 10 to round out three scorers in double-figures for the Yellow Jackets. Ten different players scored for the Jackets, who never trailed in the opener.
Thanks to five points from McCollum and four from Reeves, Tech raced out to an early 11-2 lead and never looked back. The Jackets closed the first half with a 26-13 run and led by 21 at the break, 50-29. The advantage never shrank to less than 20 in the second period, despite making just one field goal in the final nine minutes of the game.
Georgia Tech’s 23-point win was aided by seven assists from Naithan George and 10 rebounds from Colorado transfer Luke O’Brien, both game highs. McCollum had four steals to go along with his 18 points.
The margin of victory was the Jackets’ largest under head coach Damon Stoudamire, surpassing its 22-point win over Georgia Southern in last season’s opener.
Shelton Williams-Dryden led West Georgia (0-2) with 13 points.
Tech returns to action on Sunday when it hosts North Florida. Tipoff is set for 1 p.m. at McCamish Pavilion and the game will be televised on ACC Network Extra.
Georgia Tech’s bench celebrates after Javian McCollum scores three of his game-high 18 points in Wednesday’s season opener vs. West Georgia. (photo by Eldon Lindsay)
POST-GAME NOTES
TEAM NOTES
- Tech is 39-7 in season openers since joining the ACC for the 1979-80 season, 37-5 when those openers are at home.
- Tech is playing its first seven games of the season at McCamish Pavilion, the longest homestand to start a season for the Yellow Jackets since 1980-81 The Jackets do not play away from home until Dec. 3 (ACC opener at North Carolina).
- Tech posted its largest margin of victory under Damon Stoudamire – 23 points. Tech’s largest margin of victory last year was 22 points in the Yellow Jackets’ season-opener vs. Georgia Southern (84-62).
- Tech shot 63.4 percent inside the arc (26-of-41).
- Tech scored 50 points in the first half and connected on 56.8 percent from the floor.
- Tech assisted on 20 of its 33 made field goals (60.6 percent).
PLAYER NOTES
- Javian McCollum’s 18 points against West Georgia got him over 1,000 points for his career. He began the season with 990 (590 in two seasons at Siena, 400 in his one season at Oklahoma).
- McCollum has scored in double figures 45 times in his career.
- McCollum’s four steals against West Georgia were one more than any player had for Tech last season.
- McCollum stuffed the stat sheet with 18 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals against West Georgia.
- Naithan George had seven assists vs. West Georgia, the ninth time in his career he has dished seven or more. His career high in assists is 11 vs. Notre Dame, Jan. 9, 2024.
- Luke O’Brien posted his sixth career double-figure rebound game with 10 vs. West Georgia (the previous five all in the 2022-23 season). Career high 14 vs. Seton Hall on March 14, 2023.
- Kowacie Reeves, Jr., scored 15 points against West Georgia, his 14th double-figure game as a Yellow Jacket and 33rd of his career.
- Baye Ndongo scored 10 points with seven rebounds, four assists and three blocks against UWG. It was his 20th career double-figure scoring game.
- Damon Stoudamire is one of 19 head coaches at the NCAA Division I level who played in the NBA.
Naithan George dished out a game-high seven assists in the first game of his sophomore campaign. (photo by Eldon Lindsay)
MULTIMEDIA
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Bomb threats at metro Atlanta polling places
The FBI is investigating a series of bomb threats targeting polling places across Georgia and other battleground states.
FULTON COUNTY, Ga. – The FBI and Georgia election officials are looking into a series of bomb threats that forced some polling locations to temporarily close on Election Day.
The threats were reported throughout the day at polling locations in three metro Atlanta counties, all with large numbers of Democratic voters, and into the evening at Pennsylvania polling places and election offices where ballots were being counted.
Bomb threats were also reported in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin, according to state election officials.
Was Georgia election impacted by bomb threats?
Bomb threats topped headlines across Georgia from multiple polling locations. They closed down momentarily, and ended up staying open later. Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger said Georgia’s fast reaction time thwarted any impact the bad actors responsible were hoping to create.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that Georgia would “not be intimidated” by any threats towards the voting process.
“That just shows you the resilience of our system and our people. We’re battle-tested,” Raffensperger said.
In Fulton County, 32 of 177 polling places received bomb threats and five were briefly evacuated. The polling locations were able to reopen after the threats.
Fulton County officials say an officer was stationed at each polling location for voter safety.
“We planned heavily for bomb threat and good thing we did,” one Fulton County law enforcement official said at an election update on Tuesday.
A voter enters the polling station at Lucky Shoals Park Recreation Center on Nov. 5, 2024, in Norcross, Georgia. (Photo by Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)
In DeKalb County, six polling locations received bomb threats, including the Reid Coffer Library off LaVista Road in Tucker.
“I went around the Kroger to the main entrance, and I tried to turn left, and there were a bunch of cops and people saying ‘Don’t turn in. You have to come back later,’” voter Lelia Cryor said.
Thankfully, none of the threats were deemed credible. The FBI said many hoax bomb threats in several states appeared to originate from Russian email domains, though federal cybersecurity officials cautioned that the culprits were not necessarily Russian.
Raffensperger will give another update on the election at the Georgia Capitol at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
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