With trade war looming and time on his side, Kemp spurns Senate race

With so much high-level pressure on him to run, Gov. Brian Kemp’s decision not to challenge U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff next year has to be considered something of a surprise, but really it wasn’t.

A race between the state’s two most talented politicians would have been great fun to watch, but in pondering his options, Kemp would have to have thought carefully about what was in it for him. The latest Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll has Kemp in a very narrow lead over the Democratic incumbent. But win or lose, this would have been a tough, historically expensive race, a major hit even to his fabled war chest.

And for what? The U.S. Senate hardly looks like it’s going to be an attractive job site over the next six years for a two-term governor who has both money and time on his side.

The thought of what a Republican candidate would be obliged to run for next year had to have crossed Kemp’s mind as well in the aftermath of “Liberation Day.”

With chickens, movies and cars, Georgia has successfully found its way into an increasingly interconnected world economy, and Kemp has been an enthusiastic promoter of a global Georgia.

“International trade touches every county in the state, supporting jobs in logistics, manufacturing, agriculture, and more,” Kemp said last year, announcing a new foreign exports record. “You can truly make anything here and reach markets all over the world.”

Kemp has remained on good terms with Trump since they reconciled before the 2024 election, but even so, it would have been hard to square that sentiment on the campaign trail with support for Trump’s trade war, which may or may not have concluded by then. Trump’s hostility toward electric vehicles, the centerpiece of Kemp’s economic program as governor, would also have been a hard load to tote.

Kemp’s announcement leaves open a big hole on the 2026 ballot. But at this stage we know more about who’s running in 2026 than we do about the future shape of the state they’ll be running in.

Every year, at the beginning of the legislative session, the state economist gives a report that sets the fiscal and political tone for the year ahead. Next year’s should be a doozy.

In his report this year, State Economist Robert Buschman warned that tariffs posed the greatest risk to what was an otherwise strong state economy. That was several weeks before President Donald Trump announced a much more restrictive tariff policy on “Independence Day.” What he said back in February now has an exclamation point on it.

When the candidates who’ve thrown their hats in the ring were making their political calculations about 2026, that was the Georgia they — Democrats and Republicans — assumed they’d be running in. Instead Georgia is on the front lines of a trade war.

When he gives his report next year, Buschman will have to discuss not only the widespread impact of tariffs but also the reductions in the federal workforce and the impact of the administration’s withdrawal of support on the state’s growing electric vehicle sector. Georgia’s economy is extremely vulnerable on all these fronts.

The state economist might also have to discuss whether a 100 percent tariff on foreign-made films was good or bad for Georgia’s movie industry, but that’s only been floated as an idea. The Hollywood studios this tariff was supposed to save have reacted with consternation. If there’s one industry more interconnected across borders than auto manufacturing, it’s the movies. “Black Panther” was a huge Georgia movie, for instance, but parts were also shot in South Korea.

Kemp will be spending his last year as governor dealing with these problems instead of hitting the campaign trail. Which tells you how much he didn’t want this race.