Vance and Georgia Gov. Kemp project Republican unity at evangelical event after Trump tensions

ATLANTA– A prominent conservative Christian group showed Republican unity Monday, confirming the new relaxation between Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Republican candidate Donald Trump, while vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance attempted to smooth over differences over abortion policy within the evangelical community ahead of Election Day.

The faith & Freedom Coalition, led by longtime evangelical political powerhouse Ralph Reed, brought Vance and Kemp onto the same stage with a shared focus: advocating for Trump, criticizing Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and ignoring the years-long tension that grew out of Trump’s attacks on Kemp over his refusal to overturn Trump’s 2020 defeat. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results led to criminal charges against him in the state.

“We must expand our majority in Congress, take back control of the United States Senate and send Donald Trump back to the White House,” Kemp told a packed ballroom of evangelical political activists and donors.

Vance, in turn, praised Kemp as “incredible, patriotic and very effective” and added praise for Kemp’s wife, Marty — a far cry from Trump’s use of social media posts and a meeting in Atlanta in August to accuse the governor of “fighting against Unity and the Republican Party” and to criticize Georgia’s first lady for saying she planned to put her husband’s name on her ballot.

Kemp and Vance also met backstage at the event.

The faith & The Freedom Dinner follows another private meeting between Vance and Kemp recently brokered by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham that was aimed at ending public hostilities. Republicans fear the disagreement will help Harris keep Georgia in the Democratic column, four years after Biden won the state by just 11,779 votes out of 5 million cast.

Reed, who became a national Republican player decades ago from his home base of Georgia, said Monday’s scene shows a GOP front bent on victory.

“We’ve moved on. He’s moved on,” Reed said of Trump and his false claims that the 2020 election was riggedTrump, by the way, still regularly repeats those claims, although the former president has stopped short of including Kemp in his list of figures he holds responsible for his defeat in the past month.

In addition to praising Kemp, Vance sought to remind his audience on Monday of Trump’s role in the 2022 Supreme Court ruling which ended the constitutional right to abortion, a goal of the conservative evangelical movement for nearly half a century.

“We are united in our gratitude and admiration for these dedicated defenders of the unborn child and for the judges, justices and especially President Trump, who is committed to defending the law and the Constitution that made this breakthrough possible after more than 50 years,” said Vance, who celebrated the return of abortion regulation to state governments.

The Ohio senator did not mention any disagreement on abortion among conservatives who still want a nationwide ban on abortion access. Trump does not explicitly support a nationwide ban and made sure that the 2024 Republican platform would not include such a proposal for the first time in decades. Trump has argued that conservatives should focus their energy on state governments and not make a nationwide ban a central part of the presidential election.

A solid majority of Americans are against a federal abortion banaccording to a June 2024 poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Vance promised that a second Trump administration would pursue policies that would help expectant and new mothers, such as investments in job training, education and child care.

“The Republican Party prides itself on being a pro-life, pro-family party,” Vance said. “We believe that human life is precious and that every life deserves protection because we believe that every child, born and unborn, is created in the image of God.”

Reed told The Associated Press in an interview that he sees no evidence that Trump’s stance will cost him support among self-described evangelical voters. And Reed said the Republican platform still contains language that would effectively extend the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause to fetuses, effectively recognizing them in law as persons entitled to due process protections.

That, Reed argued, “gives them the full power of the federal government to protect their lives and liberty, and that’s all we needed.” So, he continued, Trump’s 2024 platform essentially gives conservatives a roadmap to ban abortion through constitutional legislation established by a future U.S. Supreme Court ruling based on the 14th Amendment, rather than through congressional action or a constitutional amendment that Reed said would never pass.