Kemp has sailed between Scylla and Charybdis. He has been unafraid to draw strong contrasts with Trump. While not being personally nasty to him, he has also forthrightly said that the 2020 election “was not stolen”. Trying to have it halfway on the legitimacy of the 2020 election would not have strengthened Kemp in his 2022 primary but fatally undermined his position. The Governor has also rebuked an effort by Trump allies to organise an emergency session of the Georgia legislature to investigate the Fulton County district attorney who has indicted Trump.

However, even if Kemp has broken with Trump on key normative issues, he has also governed like a…Republican governor. He has cut taxes and expanded school choice. He has been willing to take fierce incoming fire from Democrats on issues ranging from election reforms to abortion. That record gave him the credibility among Republicans to rout his primary opponent.

[In fairness, that’s the strategy that DeSantis has tried to follow, although perhaps with not enough assertiveness in the first few weeks. DeSantis has been especially vocal on the differences on COVID actions between himself and Trump, while pointing out the better outcomes he’s had in swamp-clearing in Florida. As Fred points out, Nikki Haley has muscled up on this strategy lately as well. — Ed]