The phone call that helped shape Kemp’s surprise Burt Jones endorsement

Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC

Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC

This story is based on The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s interviews with four people familiar with or involved in Kemp’s conversation with Jackson, as well as subsequent discussions in the chaotic final days of Georgia’s runoff. They aren’t authorized to speak about private discussions.

According to those people, instead of offering his endorsement, Kemp asked Jackson how he had spent the previous day. Jackson told him he had traveled to Trump’s Virginia golf course for a private fundraiser with the president, scrapping a pre-runoff event.

Kemp had spent months trying to keep Trump from endorsing U.S. Rep. Mike Collins in Georgia’s contentious Republican Senate primary, believing Dooley needed a clear runway to win the nomination and take on Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff. Now, Kemp had questions for Jackson about how Trump abruptly decided to back Collins so late in the campaign.

The governor posed a more pointed question about one of Jackson’s advisers — a Trump confidant who has long had a strained relationship with the governor.

Was Nick Ayers with you?

‘Always contentious’

Ayers was there. Jackson told Kemp that Ayers had nothing to do with Trump’s decision to back Collins. But the question was revealing.

Since cutting his teeth in Georgia politics as a young aide to Sonny Perdue, Ayers has played an outsized role in both GOP politics and Trump-aligned business circles.

And after the president’s 2020 defeat, he helped engineer former U.S. Sen. David Perdue’s failed 2022 primary challenge against Kemp. Perdue’s campaign was a Trump-backed attempt to punish the governor for refusing to help overturn Georgia’s election results.

To Kemp’s allies, that history mattered. The conversation wasn’t the deciding factor, they say. Kemp’s decision followed weeks of conversations, long-simmering concerns and other behind-the-scenes developments that have yet to become public.

But it reinforced concerns that had been building among Kemp and his advisers for weeks about Jackson and his team.

Hours later, at 5:23 p.m., Kemp endorsed Jones, stunning Republicans who assumed he would stay on the sidelines through the runoff. Trump had also backed Jones, who went on to lose the runoff.

Kemp adviser Cody Hall said Monday the governor is unequivocally behind Jackson now that he is the Republican nominee.

“Open primaries are always contentious, but the governor’s sole focus has always been to win this fall and ensure our state’s best days are ahead,” Hall said. “That’s why he is strongly supporting Rick Jackson to defeat Keisha Lance Bottoms and become Georgia’s 84th governor.”

Jackson’s campaign didn’t comment for this story. Neither did Ayers.

‘Very smart’

For Kemp, the political gamble became a costly defeat. It left him on the losing side of the two marquee Republican runoffs that will be a part of his political legacy. But his allies say the exchange about Ayers was only one of several factors.

Long before the call, some in Kemp’s orbit had come to view Jones as the Republican best positioned to carry forward the governing agenda Kemp built over eight years despite their sometimes fractious interactions.

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Their relationship frayed after the 2020 election, when Jones echoed Trump’s false claims of election fraud while Kemp defended Georgia’s results. They have clashed over issues ranging from Buckhead cityhood to political strategy.

But they had also spent roughly 15 years working together. As lieutenant governor, Jones helped shepherd many of Kemp’s priorities through the Legislature, including tax cuts, budget initiatives and last year’s litigation overhaul.

Just as important, Jones never stopped making his case to the governor.

People close to both men said Jones maintained regular contact with Kemp and his team throughout the campaign, arguing he was best positioned to unite Republicans and defeat Bottoms in November.

Jackson faced other headwinds. Some Kemp allies bristled at campaign advertisements that implied he supported the governor. Others remained wary of the network of advisers around Jackson.

Those concerns took on new urgency after Trump’s late endorsement of Collins blindsided Kemp’s team in the Senate race.

In the hours after the stunning endorsement, Kemp allies insisted the move was never just about helping Jones survive a runoff. Instead, they describe it as a statement about who Kemp believed should inherit the governing agenda he spent eight years building.

Georgia Republican voters delivered a different verdict last week. Kemp’s late endorsement wasn’t enough to help Jones overcome a surge of early votes benefiting Jackson.

In his victory speech, Jackson singled out Ayers for helping him wage a winning GOP campaign: “I know you tried to talk me out of this, but once I decided to run, you went all in. And I’ll always be grateful.”

Early the next morning, Trump fired off a social media post noting that Jackson had personally pitched him over the weekend. And he congratulated the GOP nominee for his “very smart” campaign.

It included a picture of a smiling Jackson, basking in the afterglow of a hard-fought victory. He was surrounded in the same frame by Ayers, his wife and their triplets.