Kemp vs. Perdue: Both confident of victory in Tuesday’s primary

ATLANTA — Gov. Brian Kemp is keeping the foot on the gas as Georgia’s primary is soon coming to a close.

When former Sen. David Perdue entered the race against Kemp, he was considered the front-runner.

But now, more polls show Kemp with a big lead over Perdue.

Team Kemp is hoping that they’ll be celebrating a big win. Kemp had no public appearances Tuesday but was expected to be at his watch party early for the results.

Channel 2 Action News was with Kemp in Cobb County as he welcomed former Vice President Mike Pence to Georgia on Monday.

Pence came to Cobb to campaign for Kemp -- a very public break from his former boss, President Donald Trump.

In fact, Trump issued a statement Tuesday reiterating his support for David Perdue -- and again, attacking Kemp by repeating unproven allegations about the 2020 election, saying, “Brian Kemp has failed Georgia. He caved to Stacey Abrams before the 2020 election and allowed massive election fraud to take place.”

Pence told Channel 2′s Richard Elliot that he’s supporting Kemp because he thinks Kemp is right and can win.

“I understand the side bar issues in this race. I understand others have a different opinion about who would be best to lead our party and lead us to victory in November,” Pence said.

Kemp insisted this election isn’t about Trump and isn’t about the 2020 election.

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“This is about Georgia. This is about 2022. It’s about me being the nominee again, because, like I said, I’ve beaten Stacey Abrams, and I have a record to do that again,” Kemp said.

When Perdue announced his candidacy, a lot of members of Kemp’s campaign team took that very personally -- almost as a betrayal.

Perdue told Channel 2′s Dave Huddleston that he feels confident going into the primary as he takes on his main challenger.

“I feel really good,” Perdue said.

The secretary of state’s office says voter turnout for this election has been higher than previous races and Perdue said those new voters are in his camp.

“I’m very encouraged today that people are rising up about the things that we have been talking about in the last five months,” Perdue said.

Perdue said Kemp’s big mistake was not investigating the 2020 presidential election for voter fraud when the president asked him to.

“He divided the party by the way he’s acted in the last year and a half,” Perdue said.

That’s why Perdue said he is the only candidate that can unify the party.

But the national spokesperson for the Republican National Committee told Huddleston that GOP voters will throw aside their differences and rally behind Tuesday night’s winner.

“I think Georgia Republicans know what’s at stake, they know that we are going to have to unify whoever wins this primary for governor,” RNC spokesperson Paris Dennard said.

The polls close for most voting locations across the state at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

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