When Brian Kemp's top donors met with the Georgia governor and his lieutenants at Atlanta's Capital City Club earlier this year, they had reason to worry that his political career was about to end. The Republican governor of Georgia was savaging the President for refusing to overturn the results of the 2020 election and he was trying to oust him from office. Few Republicans in recent years were spared by Trump. The Kemp team told the well-heeled contributors they had a plan. A person with direct knowledge of the remarks said that Jay Walker told the group that they were going to go scorched-earth. Walker projected confidence: "When you get your foot on someone's neck, you don't take it off until the race is over, or they have run out of oxygen." Kemp's strategy paid off with a resounding win over Perdue, who spent millions of his own money on the race. The loss underscored the limits of the former president's grievance campaign and the power governors have to resist Trump.
Trump has endorsed the losing candidate in a primary before. The governor outmaneuvered them by suffocating Perdue's campaign before it could get to them, because Kemp's refusal to intervene in the 2020 vote count would sink him with Republican voters still angry about Trump's election loss.
By the time Perdue launched his campaign in December, he found that Kemp had used the levers of his office to rally the support of state power players and pass legislation that soothed pro-Trump voters. It was difficult for Perdue to build a political operation because Kemp had won the backing of many of Perdue's former advisers. The governor spent months courting the former senator's biggest donors, leaving Perdue financially devastated and demolishing his plans to establish a big-spending super PAC.
Trump tried to get Herschel Walker to support Perdue in the Senate race, but the former football star refused to do so.
Tony Fabrizio, a Trump pollster who also worked for Perdue, said it was a one-sided fight.
Perdue's political network began to break nine months before he got into the race.
Reports emerged that Kemp was considering appointing Sonny Perdue, the former Georgia governor and Trump Agriculture Secretary, to be the chancellor of the Georgia state university system. The appointment was made official this March.
Perdue was one of several David Perdue allies who put in positions of power that broke down the former senator's political infrastructure. Alec Poitevint was appointed to the Georgia Ports Authority by Kemp after the election. Poitevint would support Kemp's reelection effort. Perdue's former chief of staff was tapped to oversee a pro-Kemp outside group.
Perdue was ready to take himself out of contention by the spring of last year. Perdue has a home on St. Simons Island, where Kemp's chief of staff ran into the former senator in April. Perdue told Kilpatrick he would back Kemp for reelection and not run against him.
A person with direct knowledge of the talks said that Kilpatrick set up a meeting between Kemp and Perdue and their spouses to hear the same message.
Perdue's plans became less clear. Perdue introduced Kemp at the state GOP convention, but he didn't make an explicit statement of support, even though Kilpatrick tried to arrange for him to. Perdue canceled his appearance at the high-dollar Kemp event just hours before it was to take place, despite the fact that the chief of staff had nailed down his appearance.
Perdue was talking to friends about a potential run and getting warnings that it wouldn't be easy.
Perdue told a friend that he believed Trump would propel him to victory and that he had reviewed favorable private polling. Perdue was warned that taking on an incumbent governor would be hard, and that it wouldn't be enough to center his campaign around Trump and the 2020 vote count.
I have not talked to anyone in this state who encouraged him to run. Everyone tried to stop him when the rumors started. Jackson, a past Perdue Senate campaign donor, said that he did not think it was a good idea for Kemp to run against the governor.
Perdue went ahead. According to one attendee, Perdue remarked that Trump had been courting him aggressively to run and that he was about to take the plunge.
Perdue launched his campaign.
Kemp phoned Steve Hufstetler, a Georgia real estate developer and major GOP contributor, and asked if they could meet at his office.
At first glance, Hufstetler was the type of donor who could fund a Perdue primary effort: He had given six figures to Trump's reelection effort, had served on Perdue's Senate campaign finance committee and had been concerned about Kemp. After the election, he conducted an informal survey of the Kemp supporters he knew and found they no longer supported the governor.
Kemp gave a lengthy and data-driven explanation about why he did not intervene in the vote count during the 90-minute meeting. Hufstetler donated more than $100,000 to support the governor.
Kemp moved aggressively to deprive Perdue of money, effectively shutting down his campaign. The former senator was outraised by more than 6 to 1. Perdue, who had raised more than 100 million dollars for his Senate campaign, only raised $3.5 million for the governor's race.
Perdue's campaign spent nothing on TV advertising during the final week of the primary, according to AdImpact.
Many of the former senator's past donors are already committed to Kemp or unwilling to be seen as crossing the sitting governor, making it nearly impossible for the Perdue campaign to raise money. Several of Perdue's finance chairs jumped to the Kemp team.
A person with direct knowledge of the talks said that the Perdue campaign tried to hire the Lukens Company to help with outreach, but it declined because it didn't want to go against Kemp. The firm does not work on primary campaigns against sitting Republican incumbents, according to the president and managing partner.
Perdue told aides that Kemp was pressuring donors not to support him. Kemp aides insist they never used heavy-handed tactics, instead pointing out the governor's close relationships with donors.
Some of Perdue's former donors turned against him at the end of the year. Jackson told Perdue he was backing the governor and encouraged him to drop out of the race.
Jackson said that he did not like to hear that he was not supporting him.
The political operation for Republican governors, which is close to the White House, made clear it had no tolerance for anyone working for a candidate challenging an incumbent.
The Republican Governors Association terminated the contracts of two prominent Republican consulting firms after Perdue launched his campaign, according to two people. Perdue's finance director lost her work with the RGA.
Republican officials described the posture as standard, given that the organization's policy is to bolster incumbents. Austin Chambers was one of the prominent national GOP strategists. The role of Chambers in the campaign was seen as a betrayal by Kemp allies because the governor had successfully lobbied for the strategist to become executive director of the GOP's state legislative campaign committee during the 2020 election.
Perdue had failed to put together the political apparatus required to oust an incumbent. According to a person familiar with the discussions, aides to the former senator decided they would need a well-funded super PAC and hoped that a pro-Perdue outside group would raise between $8 million and $10 million. Through May 10, the organization had raised $2 million.
The campaign finance reports show that no individual person was willing to give money to cross Kemp. The money raised by the super PAC first passed through nonprofits like the American Exceptionalism Institute and American Principles Project, obscuring the original source of the cash.
It was becoming a pattern. When Perdue aides sent out fundraising invitations, they often had to write the address on the back because the hosts didn't want their names to be made public.
Perdue couldn't match the bombardment he was facing from Kemp and the RGA on the TV airwaves as winter turned to spring. Perdue advisers began to wonder why they weren't getting more backup from allied super PACs, and by March his team began privately expressing doubts it was possible to win because of the lack of resources.
Kemp and his groups have spent more than $12 million this year, nearly twice as much as Perdue's group.
Trump remained invested in the race despite Perdue's struggles.
Save America, the former president's political action committee, spent the most money so far to help a candidate. The pro-Trump super PAC spent over $500,000 on TV ads.
Trump appeared in TV ads for Perdue, held a fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago estate, recordedrobo calls, traveled to Georgia for a rally, sent out appeals to small-dollar donors and hosted tele-lies. He helped to clear the primary field for Perdue, nudging out another Republican who was taking on Kemp.
Trump spoke with Perdue several times a week about the race. The former president was often encouraging during a recent conversation with the other.
Perdue and Trump faced resistance. Perdue and the former president agreed that getting an endorsement from Walker would be a good thing. A person familiar with the talks says that Walker didn't get involved in his own primary. A Walker spokesman wouldn't comment.
Perdue's strategists realized they would need to align the campaign closely to Trump's focus on the 2020 election to keep him engaged. Perdue was warned that he would need to articulate a broader argument for why Kemp should be replaced.
Frustrations within Trump's circle were growing. Perdue, a multimillionaire former Dollar General and Reebok executive, put $500,000 of his own money into the campaign. Perdue was reluctant to give funding to his Senate campaign, according to former aides.
Perdue told Trump that taking down a sitting governor was hard, and that his financial network had been shut down. The former president said this spring that it was hard to beat a sitting governor and that they had a lot of money.
The race was lost by some of Trump's advisers, but he remained upbeat in his conversations with Perdue.
According to a person briefed on the talks, Trump told the former senator that he could beat him.
Kemp was celebrating on Tuesday.
At a campaign rally Monday, former Vice President Mike Pence criticized Donald Trump for his support of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.
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