Do we like them?

Do we like Brian Kemp?

Our score: 3 out of 10. A real stand on the 2020 election and a tidy record on tax and teacher pay, set against signed laws that hit trans people, women and migrants.

Kemp is a two-term Republican governor of Georgia and the first lifelong Republican to hold the job in the state's history. He beat Stacey Abrams twice, in 2018 and 2022, and is term-limited out in January. His brand is low-key, tax-cutting and business-friendly, not a firebrand.

The cloud over his rise came in 2018, when he was both secretary of state running Georgia's elections and the Republican candidate for governor. Abrams accused him of purging voters, most of them African-American, and creating fear around voting. Kemp rejected it as a “farce” and said registration and turnout had risen, and he said Abrams was encouraging people to break the law. Both sides dug in, and she never conceded in the usual way.

His best chapter is 2020. Trump demanded he help overturn Georgia's result, and he refused. Trump attacked him for it, endorsed a challenger, and Kemp won that 2022 primary anyway. That took spine, and we give it full credit.

Now the harm check. In 2023 he signed SB 140, which bars most surgical procedures and hormone therapies for trans people under 18. The ACLU of Georgia said it would fight it, saying it would hurt children and families. In 2019 he signed the six-week abortion ban, which exposes doctors and women to criminal prosecution, saying “All life has value, all life matters and all life is worthy of protection.” In 2024 he signed HB 1105 on immigration checks in jails, and Latino advocates warned it would increase racial profiling. He also signed a religious liberty measure that a previous Republican governor had vetoed. Those are his own signatures, and they are why he fails here.

The recent stoush is about the Senate race. Kemp declined to run himself, then backed Derek Dooley without waiting for Trump, and some Republicans called that a strategic mistake. Kemp said he “wasn't going to sit around and wait.” In June he endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones for governor, ahead of a runoff against Rick Jackson.

The good stuff is mostly competence. Supporters credit him with nearly $10 billion in tax cuts, more than 200,000 new jobs and $9,500 teacher pay raises. In May he signed income and property tax cuts, plus an education bill that sets rules for a need-based college scholarship program Democrats had pushed for. Georgia Democrats say his record is one of failed leadership, so where you land depends on what you value.