Abbott Faces Tricky Call on Georgia
on Siding with Trump or Governor
Capitol Inside
August 16, 2023
The top two Texas leaders remained unusually silent on Wednesday on Donald Trump's latest criminal indictment that he portrayed on social media as the product of a witch hunt in Georgia by a corrupt and racist prosecutor who fixed the grand jury system in a way that's designed to hurt his comeback campaign for president in 2024.
Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick have appeared to keep their public power dry for the past two days on the developments in Atlanta where Trump and 18 associates were indicted on racketeering charges for roles in a highly-publicized attempt to overturn the 2020 election there. But that may be no coincidence in light of a tricky dilemma that Trump's fourth criminal cases poses for both as they contemplate a possible response for their constituents.
Abbott and Patrick - for starters - have to realize that the events that have taken place in Georgia since Trump's ouster at the polls could unfold in similar fashion in Texas in 2024 if the former president is the GOP nominee again and happened to lose the Lone Star State. Abbott would find himself in same shoes that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp was forced to wear when he refused to take action to elevate the ex-president into the winner's circle despite high-pressure tactics and threats on imprisonment in a future Trump regime.
Kemp threw water on Trump's conspiracy claims on a Georgia election heist in a Twitter post on Tuesday.
"The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen," Kemp said. "For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward - under oath - and prove anything in a court of law. Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair and will continue to be as long as I am governor. The future of our country is at stake in 2024 and that must be our focus."
But Abbott will have to make a choice between Trump and Kemp before he weighs in on the Fulton County criminal case or pursues the safer path of silence without taking sides like he's done for two days and counting. Kemp has been an Abbott ally in their parts as executive committee members for the Republican Governors Association. Kemp and Abbott serve together on the American Governors Border Strike Force as well. Kemp was one of the first GOP governors to deploy National Guard troops at the Texas border to honor a request from Abbott.
Abbott may feel a debt of gratitude for Trump nonetheless - having made a hard turn to the right to curry his favor for a re-election race in 2022. Abbott appeared to underestimate his own strength with the voters with the dramatic remake for a Trump endorsement that he thought he might lose without.
Kemp - in sharp contrast - showed that he didn't need Trump's support to win a new term in his own state. Kemp crushed Trump's handpicked challenger in the GOP primary election last year by nearly 60 percentage points with 74 percent of the vote. Abbott sailed by a pair of relatively well-known rivals on the right with less than 67 percent in the primary election vote here in 2022.
With Trump in his camp, Abbott fared slightly better in the general election in November than Kemp did without the former president as an enemy. Abbott waxed Democrat Beto O'Rourke with less than 55 percent of the vote last fall while Kemp defeated Stacy Abrams with more than 53 percent in a rematch. There's no way to know if Abbott's percentage would have changed if Trump had been attacking him like ala Kemp.
But it appears that Trump's angry opposition had a negligible effect on the Georgia governor's campaign if it didn't give the Republican incumbent a boost overall. Kemp emerged stronger than ever when Trump tried and failed to take him down. Abbott doesn't want to alienate the Georgia counterpart as a consequence.
While some major Texas Republicans have held their tongues, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton rallied to Trump's defense without delay with statements that endorsed his claims on a coordinated conspiracy against him by the Biden administration and other forces on the radical left.
more to come ... |
