Brian Porter Kemp (born November 2, 1963) is an American politician and businessman serving as the 83rd governor of Georgia since 2019. A member of the Republican Party, Kemp served as the state's 27th secretary of state from 2010 to 2018, and as a member of the Georgia State Senate from 2003 to 2007. He is the first Republican since Reconstruction to be elected governor of Georgia who was not a former Democrat.
Kemp is a graduate of the University of Georgia. Before entering politics, he operated several businesses in agriculture, financial services, and real estate. In 2002, he was elected to the Georgia State Senate. Kemp ran for commissioner of the Georgia Department of Agriculture in 2006 but lost the Republican primary. In 2010, Governor Sonny Perdue appointed Kemp secretary of state. He was elected to a full term as secretary in 2010 and reelected in 2014. In 2015, Kemp was criticized after a data breach of over six million voters' personal information to 12 organizations. During the 2016 election, he was the only state official to reject help from the Department of Homeland Security to guard against Russian interference.
Kemp ran for governor in 2018 and faced Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams. He refused to resign as secretary of state while campaigning for governor, which stirred controversy and accusations of abuse of power from Democrats. Kemp narrowly won the general election and resigned as secretary of state shortly thereafter. Abrams refused to concede and accused Kemp of voter suppression and of stealing the election from her, which he denied.Multiple sources state that Abrams did not concede:
News outlets and political science experts have found no evidence that voter suppression affected the result of the election. In his first term as governor, Kemp opposed face mask mandates and stay-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, and prohibited localities from implementing stricter public health measures than the state as a whole. After the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, he faced criticism from President Donald Trump for certifying the results as required under state law, rejecting Trump's false claims of fraud in the election. In 2021, Kemp signed into law the Election Integrity Act of 2021, which expanded early in-person voting and increased the state government's control over local election officials.
In his 2022 reelection campaign, Kemp was challenged by former U.S. Senator David Perdue in the Republican primary. Although Trump endorsed Perdue, Kemp defeated him in a landslide. In the general election, Kemp defeated Abrams in a rematch by a wider margin than in 2018; she conceded defeat on election night.
Early life and education Kemp was born in Athens, Georgia, the son of William L. Kemp II, into a prominent family with a history of political power. Kemp's maternal grandfather, Julian H. Cox, was a member of the Georgia Legislature.
Kemp attended the private Athens Academy until ninth grade, and then transferred to Clarke Central High School to play football for Billy Henderson; he graduated in 1982. In 1987, he graduated from the University of Georgia, where he majored in agriculture.
Career Kemp was a home builder and developer before entering politics. He founded Kemp Properties, a property management and real estate investment business, was a founding director of First Madison Bank, and served on the St. Mary's Hospital Board.
Kemp served as a Georgia state senator from 2003 to 2007 after defeating the Democratic incumbent, Doug Haines in District 46. In 2006, Kemp ran for Agriculture Commissioner of Georgia. He finished second in the primary, but lost the runoff to Gary Black. Kemp declared his candidacy for State Senate District 47 when incumbent Ralph Hudgens planned to run for Congress in Georgia's 10th congressional district, but Hudgens instead ran for reelection, changing Kemp's plans.
Georgia Secretary of State (2010-2018)
In early 2010, Kemp was appointed Georgia Secretary of State by then-governor Sonny Perdue. Kemp won the 2010 election for a full term as secretary of state with 56.4% of the vote, to 39.4% for Democratic nominee Georganna Sinkfield. Four years later, Kemp was reelected.
Kemp rejected the conclusion by the United States Intelligence Community that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Amid Russian interference in the 2016 election, Kemp denounced the Obama administration's efforts to strengthen election system security, including improving access to federal cybersecurity assistance, calling the efforts an assault on states' rights.
After narrowly winning the 2018 gubernatorial election, Kemp resigned as secretary of state in anticipation of becoming governor.
Federal efforts to secure state voting systems As evidence mounted that Russian hackers were attempting to disrupt the 2016 elections, President Obama directed Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to work with states to secure their voting systems as "critical infrastructure." Kemp was the only state election official to decline the help from Jeh Johnson. In a 2017 interview, he denounced the effort as an assault on states' rights, saying, "I think it was a politically calculated move by the previous administration" and "I don't necessarily believe" Russia had attempted to disrupt the elections. In August 2016, amid Russian attempts to disrupt the 2016 elections, Kemp said that an intrusion by Russian hackers into voting systems was "not probable at all, the way our systems are set up" and accused federal officials of exaggerating the threat of Russian interference.
Georgia was one of 14 states that used electronic voting machines that produced no paper record, which election integrity experts say left elections vulnerable to tampering and technical problems. The 2018 indictment against Russian hackers (as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into 2016 interference) said that the Russian hackers targeted county websites in Georgia.
In December 2016, Kemp accused the Department of Homeland Security of attempting to hack his office's computer network, including the voter registration database, implying that it was retribution for his previous refusal to work with DHS. A DHS inspector general investigation found there was no hacking, but rather it was "the result of normal and automatic computer message exchanges generated by the Microsoft applications involved."
Exposure of personal voter data In October 2015, the Georgia Secretary of State's office, under Kemp's leadership, illegally disclosed the personal information (including Social Security numbers and dates of birth) of 6.2 million registered Georgia voters. This data breach occurred when the office sent out a CD with this information to 12 organizations that purchase monthly voter lists from the office. The office was not aware of the breach until the next month, and did not publicly acknowledge it until The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported the class action lawsuit against the office that resulted. Within a month of the breach becoming publicly known, it had cost taxpayers $1.2 million in credit monitoring services for those whose data had been compromised, and $395,000 for an audit into Kemp's handling of the unauthorized data disclosure.
Kemp drew criticism again in 2017 when it was revealed that a flaw in the state voting system exposed the personal information of over six million Georgia voters, as well as passwords used by county election officials to access voter files, to researchers at Kennesaw State University. The security flaw was fixed six months after it was reported to election authorities. After a lawsuit was filed, a server at the center of the controversy was wiped, preventing officials from determining the scope of the breach. Kemp denied responsibility, instead saying researchers at Kennesaw State University, who managed the system, had acted "in accordance with standard IT procedures" in deleting the data.
Massage Envy controversy On September 5, 2018, an attack ad was released claiming that Kemp chose not to pursue accusations of sexual assault against therapists employed by Massage Envy during his time overseeing the Georgia Board of Massage Therapy because of donations made by franchisee owners to Kemp's campaign. The offenders were able to renew their Board licenses after the accusations. Republican State Senator Renee Unterman said that there "appears to be a direct connection between campaign support from Massage Envy franchisees in exchange for non-action and suppression" and asked U.S. Attorney B.J. Pak to investigate "what seems to be a quid pro quo scheme being perpetrated through the secretary of state's office and the Kemp for governor campaign." Kemp said that he had done nothing illegal.
In response to the accusations, a spokesperson for Kemp's campaign asserted that Unterman was "mentally unstable" and suggested she "seek immediate medical attention before she hurts herself or someone else". The Kemp campaign was criticized for its apparent reference to Unterman's history of depression, about which she had spoken publicly. In response, Unterman said she would not be "intimidated, blackmailed, belittled, or sexually harassed" into silence. Kemp's campaign did not apologize for the remarks.
Accusations of voter suppression Kemp was accused by Democrats of voter suppression during the 2018 gubernatorial election. Political scientists Michael Bernhard and Daniel O'Neill described Kemp's actions as the worst case of voter suppression in that election year. The allegations arose from Kemp's actions as secretary of state: a few weeks before the election, he put 53,000 voter registration applications on hold, with 70% of the applicants being African American, and he purged 1.4 million inactive voters from voter rolls during his tenure, including 668,000 in 2017. Kemp denied engaging in voter suppression, stating that he was following federal and state law to update voter rolls with accurate information.
As a result of the controversies surrounding the 2018 Georgia midterms, critics have called Kemp's gubernatorial victory illegitimate. Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post noted such claims are "an article of faith among Democrats". Political scientists and news outlets have rejected these claims; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote, "no evidence emerged of systematic malfeasance—or of enough tainted votes to force a runoff election between Republican Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams". Political scientist Charles S. Bullock III told The Washington Post that claims of a stolen election were "not based on fact but will continue to be articulated by Abrams since it helps mobilize her supporters", while Richard Hasen took issue with Kemp's job performance but said that he had seen "no good social science evidence that efforts to make it harder to register and vote were responsible for Kemp's victory over Abrams in the Georgia gubernatorial race". A USA Today fact check noted that the actions Kemp's office took during the election "can be explained as routine under state and federal law". Hasen told PolitiFact, "I have seen no good evidence that the suppressive effects of strict voting and registration laws affected the outcome of the governor's races in Georgia and Florida" and suggested Democrats "cool it" with claims the election was stolen.