Conservative policies are labeled as unpopular by Democrats and scapegoated by failing Republicans for their losses, and yet Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) is proving that both groups are wrong.
Kemp’s approval among Georgia voters in the latest CBS News-YouGov poll is 68%. Kemp’s approval is high even among all the groups of voters with whom Democrats typically excel: voters under the age of 45 (72% approval), liberal voters (43%), and black voters (a whopping 62% for a Republican). Kemp’s approval is positive among Democrats, with 55% approving to 45% disapproving.
This defies the conventional wisdom of Democrats and of liberal and MAGA Republicans (of which there is some overlap) who gloat or warn that Republicans can’t win elections by pursuing conservative policies.
Take abortion, supposedly the big Democratic savior and the issue former President Donald Trump and his allies have decided to scapegoat for losses stemming from his stain on the party. Kemp is enjoying those sky-high approval ratings in the same poll that found that 56% of voters want abortion legal in all or most cases after he signed into law a heartbeat bill that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
That is just one issue, though, and Kemp’s conservative track record rivals that of any Republican governor in the country. Under Kemp, Georgia passed a constitutional carry law, banned critical race theory in schools, restricted sex change surgeries for children (and is now targeting puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones), and passed a voting security law that national Democrats screamed bloody murder over, labeling it a return to Jim Crow and pressuring MLB into punishing the state over it.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
After all this, Kemp is at 68% approval, with 55% approval among Democrats and 62% among black voters. Georgia isn’t some GOP bastion either; in 2020, the state backed Joe Biden for president, and both senators representing the state in Congress are Democrats. Kemp is competent and a rock-ribbed conservative, and he is resoundingly popular in what is otherwise considered a swing state.
This is the same model that has proven successful for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in Florida, another supposed swing state that Republicans have pushed rapidly to the right. The idea that being a conservative is some sort of electoral liability in swing districts or states or that Republicans must abandon things like the pro-life position to win elections is disproven by both Kemp and DeSantis. This is what winning looks like, and nothing should be stopping conservatives from embracing it.