Republican gubernatorial candidate Gov. Brian Kemp speaks during his primary night election party on May 24, 2022 in Atlanta, Georgia. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images
07/03/2022 07:00 AM EDT
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp should have no problem fundraising — and in some ways, he doesn’t. He locked up in-state donors in the GOP primary even after former president Donald Trump recruited a challenger. And so far, he has brought in more than $22 million in his bid for reelection — already more than what he raised in the whole 2018 cycle.
But compared to the fundraising skills of his Democratic challenger, Stacey Abrams, Kemp’s just collecting pocket change.
This year’s gubernatorial race is a rematch between Kemp and Abrams. Abrams won the fundraising race in 2018, but Kemp took Georgia’s governor’s mansion by just 55,000 votes. The fiery contest and close margin of victory transformed Abrams from an also-ran to a rising star in the Democratic Party.
That means that when new fundraising numbers are released in a few days, the disclosures are likely to show Abrams taking a sizable lead over Kemp. So the incumbent has been accelerating his fundraising efforts to keep pace as much as possible.
Abrams officially joined the race last December — about nine months later than the incumbent governor — but was only $1.6 million behind him in fundraising, according to financial disclosure forms for each campaign committee filed in March. By now, Abrams may have already overtaken...
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