During a small spring dinner at the Georgia Governor’s Mansion, the pressure campaign to get Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to run for the Senate was the subject of uneasy punch lines.

Kemp, a popular Republican governor with a prebuilt fundraising machine, was the top recruit of national Republican organizations looking to snag a primary field-clearing candidate to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in a state that will present one of the most challenging and expensive races of the 2026 midterms.

“They are calling the wrong Kemp,” joked Marty Kemp, the governor’s wife and an influential voice in his political decision-making, according to two Georgia Republicans, who, like others, spoke under condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. The comment was made in jest: Kemp himself

See Full Page