2022 Georgia gubernatorial election
The 2022 Georgia gubernatorial election took place on November 8, 2022 to elect the governor of Georgia. Incumbent Republican governor Brian Kemp won re-election to a second term, defeating Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams in a rematch. Abrams conceded on election night. The primary occurred on May 24, 2022. Kemp was sworn in for a second term on January 9, 2023.
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| Turnout | 57.02% 0.22pp | ||||||||||||||||
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Kemp: 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% 80–90% >90% Abrams: 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% 80–90% >90% No data | |||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in Georgia |
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Kemp was endorsed by former Vice President Mike Pence and former president George W. Bush. He faced a primary challenge from former U.S. Senator David Perdue, who was endorsed by former president Donald Trump after Kemp refused to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Trump ultimately gave Kemp a last-minute endorsement in the general election.
Stacey Abrams, the former Minority Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives and founder of Fair Fight Action who was narrowly defeated by Kemp in the 2018 gubernatorial election, was once again the Democratic nominee for the governorship. This was Georgia's first gubernatorial rematch since 1950.
Libertarian Shane T. Hazel, the Libertarian nominee for U.S. Senate in 2020, also declared he would run. This race was one of six Republican-held governorships up for election in 2022 in a state carried by Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Kemp won his first term by a narrow 55,000-vote margin (1.4%) in 2018, which was Georgia's closest gubernatorial election since 1966. In 2022, however, pre-election forecasting showed a solid lead for Kemp throughout and he ultimately won re-election by nearly 300,000 votes (7.5%) - the largest raw vote victory for a Georgia governor since 2006. The race was seen as a potential benefit to Herschel Walker, who ran in the concurrent Senate race, as it was speculated Kemp's strong performance could help Walker avoid a runoff. He underperformed compared to Kemp, however, and lost to incumbent Democratic senator Raphael Warnock in the December 6 runoff election.