GA-Gov: The Republican Governors Association for the first time ever is airing TV ads to support an incumbent in a primary by launching a $500,000 campaign to aid Gov. Brian Kemp. The intervention comes days after a federal judge issued an order barring Kemp’s allied PAC from getting involved in his May primary battle with former Sen. David Perdue; there is no word yet if the governor will appeal.
We’ll start with the RGA ad, which doesn't mention the Trump-endorsed Perdue but instead portrays Kemp as a “proven conservative leader” who is standing up to the Biden administration. “Kemp cut taxes, creating one of America’s fastest growing economies and good-paying jobs," the narrator says, adding, “And Gov. Kemp sent the National Guard to the border to help stop the illegal drugs flooding our communities.” Kemp ended January with a massive $12.7 million to $1 million cash-on-hand lead over Perdue, and while the RGA’s ad campaign gives him another boost, his side had an even bigger financial advantage before Monday’s court order.
That’s because Kemp signed a state law last year that allows the governor and certain other statewide candidates to create so-called "leadership committees" that can receive unlimited contributions. Regular statewide campaign committees, by contrast, can only receive $7,600 each for the primary and general elections from individual donors, plus $4,500 for any runoffs.
Importantly, these new committees can accept donations during the legislative session, when the governor and state lawmakers are otherwise forbidden from fundraising, and they're also allowed to coordinate directly with the campaigns they're supporting. Kemp’s allies at Georgians First Leadership Committee made full use of these new rules to raise $2.3 million through Jan. 31 and air anti-Perdue ads. By contrast, Perdue and the all-but-certain Democratic nominee, Stacey Abrams, won’t be able to create their own leadership committee unless and until they win their primaries.
Perdue’s team argued in court that the legislation gives Kemp an unfair edge, and the judge agreed in part. The court's decision prohibits Georgians First from spending in the primary, but the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s James Salzer notes that the group isn’t required to “give back the money it previously spent or has committed to spend on things such as advertising to win the Republican race.” The leadership committee is also still allowed to keep raising money though the legislative session, which isn’t set to end until early April.
Perdue, for his part, is airing a spot of his own that spends a full 15 seconds zooming in on a recent picture of an unmasked Abrams seated smiling in front of a classroom full of masked children, an action she later apologized for. Perdue’s narrator, though, spends more time attacking Kemp for having “folded” and letting “radical Democrats set their own rules, all over Georgia.” The second half pledges that Perdue will “stop the mandate madness on day one” and obligatorily reminds the audience that he’s Trump’s man.