In a Nov. 13 tweet, Trump accused the governor, a former secretary of state himself, of being absent from his efforts to overturn the election. The next day, Trump suggested that Kemp had colluded with his 2018 gubernatorial opponent, Democrat Stacey Abrams, to make it “impossible” to check ballot signatures.
On Friday, Kemp told The Wall Street Journal that he supports Trump’s ability to use the legal process to challenge the election, and noted his own support for ballot signature audits. He also defended himself from charges that he’s been unfaithful to the outgoing president.
“Nobody’s fought harder for this president than me up to Nov. 3, and no one has supported him as much as I have after the election with the legal rights that he has to contest the election,” Kemp said.
But those actions from the president -- coupled with the heightened legal efforts from his campaign and attacks on Raffensperger -- track closely with the beginning of Kemp’s decline among the Republican base, providing another illustration of Trump’s enduring clout with the party faithful.
Some independent voters in Georgia have also soured on the governor: Nearly half (48 percent) disapprove of his job performance, up 8 points since Nov. 3, while the share who approve fell 10 points, to 38 percent.
Overall, Kemp saw a 6-point drop in his approval rating among voters in his state compared to the Oct. 25-Nov. 3 surveys, while his disapproval rating increased by 5 points. According to the latest poll, they are now split evenly -- with 46 percent approving and 46 percent disapproving -- on the job performance of the governor, who is up for re-election in 2022.
The GOP disarray that’s preceded a souring on Kemp has not had a similar effect on Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler as they face consequential Jan. 5 runoff elections that will decide control of the Senate. Both senators aligned with Trump in a Nov. 9 call for Raffensperger to resign, and neither has explicitly acknowledged Biden’s victory.
Neither senator’s overall job approval moved outside the margin of error among registered voters in Georgia. Perdue, who narrowly missed the 50 percent threshold to avoid a runoff against Democrat Jon Ossoff when the ballots were counted last month, is more popular than Loeffler, who was appointed by Kemp a year ago to replace Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson, who retired.
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