Republican Brian Kemp isn't about to put much daylight between him and President Donald Trump. He ran on a Trump-like platform and won the GOP nomination for governor with the help of the president's surprise endorsement.
But he also sees the stark gender gap emerging in polls. Trump's approval ratings are underwater in Georgia and his opponent, Democrat Stacey Abrams, is aiming for women who feel alienated by the president.
While she's careful not to make this contest a referendum on Trump, she had scathing words for the president after he criticized the woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her.
Which is why he gave a lengthy answer in a Facebook Live interview Monday when Chuck Williams of the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer asked him what he'd say to moderate voters "struggling with Trump."
Below is an annotation of how he answered that question, with his remarks in italics:
"I would just tell them to look at two things: Look at me and my family. I'm just like they are. I'm a husband of 24 years. I'm a father to three teenage daughters. For the last 10 years I've been sitting in the gym on Saturdays watching those girls playing basketball from rec league through high school. I've been at the football games on Friday nights, I've been at the dance recitals, I've been at the school plays."
The secretary of state has made his wife and three daughters a central part of his campaign since he entered the race – remember the "Jake" ad? – but he's shifted the spotlight further to his family in the general election phase.
His daughters volunteer for his campaign and show up at events around the state, while his wife Marty was featured in a warm-and-fuzzy TV ad. He hopes highlighting family values could help connect him to a broader base of voters – particularly women who are still on the fence.
"I've been a small business owner fighting to make ends' meet during a very tough time during the Recession. Look at all that. I've been real involved in my church, my local community."
He's already morphed himself from a "politically incorrect conservative" during the primary to a "tell-it-like-it-is business guy" for the November race.
That's brought more mentions of the ups and downs of his real estate development business – a part of his life that's come under new scrutiny thanks to litigation over a $500,000 loan he guaranteed.
"But also look at our policies. Forget the ads, forget the rhetoric. Just look at the policies. When you think about making Georgia number one for small business by cutting government regulations, strengthening rural Georgia. Look at our policy – almost 10 pages of documents on how we strengthen rural Georgia."
The small towns and farms that dot rural Georgia are Kemp's bread-and-butter and the focus of much of his upcoming bus tour. His strategy hinges on running up Trump-like margins in these communities, and doing so will give him some breathing room if Abrams flips suburban counties that were once Republican strongholds.
"Education reform, tax reform. Transportation. Infrastructure. Stop and dismantle gangs. Going after these illegal drug cartels. That is what matters to people. We just rolled out last week a great plan for school safety. If our teachers and our kids aren't safe in their school buildings, they're going to have a hard time getting educated ..."
Kemp's increasingly focused law-and-order issues – and assailed Abrams' opposition to a sex offender crackdown – to try to appeal to more women. The Georgia GOP has anted up the pressure with a TV spot featuring "Jessica" dropping her son off at daycare – and lacing into Abrams for opposing the measure.
"We're going to continue putting more issues out there. I'd tell people to wade through the rhetoric and really look."
Left unmentioned was Kemp's position on healthcare, which he has yet to outline in great detail – a fact Democrats have pounced on with glee.
"Plus my record as secretary of state. We've revamped our corporations website. We've set records four years in a row on the speed of doing annual registrations. I've been running a large executive branch agency of 250 people for eight and a half years now ... I'm the only person in the race, the only one that's running for governor, that's ever done that."
These two long-running rivals have sparred over Kemp's role as the state's top elections official for almost a decade, but here Kemp tries to shift the focus to the decidedly less glamorous part of his job: Overseeing business licenses and corporate registrations.
Insider’s note: Earlier, we annotated an answer Abrams gave when asked if she would “take away” guns. Read that story here.
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