The Georgia Hour, episode 87: Trump Demands Paper Ballots But Will McKoon Sabotage the Grassroots?

Dis­cov­er the heat­ed bat­tle at the 2025 GA GOP State Con­ven­tion as grass­roots Repub­li­cans push for hand-marked paper bal­lots backed by Trump. Despite 65% of GOP vot­ers sup­port­ing paper bal­lots, Chair­man Josh McK­oon, close­ly tied to Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp, insists on a stand­ing vote. Ten­sions rise from past con­flicts, includ­ing Kemp’s 2021 con­ven­tion back­lash and his cre­ation of a pow­er­ful fundrais­ing com­mit­tee to bypass the state par­ty. Will Kemp attend this year’s con­ven­tion, and can Patrick Far­rell, with high-pro­file con­sul­tant Mark Roundtree, out­ma­neu­ver Kan­diss Tay­lor in the First Dis­trict race? Uncov­er the behind-the-scenes dra­ma shap­ing Georgia’s GOP future.

We have a team that has called for paper bal­lots at the GA GOP State con­ven­tion. Chair­man McK­oon knows that the grass­roots have asked for paper bal­lots for quite some time. McK­oon boasts that he is endorsed by Pres­i­dent Trump. Trump wants paper bal­lots. Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp is sit­ting in the room when Trump says this and Trump wants every repub­li­can to go with paper bal­lots, one day vot­ing, vot­er id and cit­i­zen­ship ver­i­fi­ca­tion.
But McK­oon has said over and over that he wants a stand­ing vote at the con­ven­tion.
Repub­li­cans can be an exam­ple at the GA GOP State con­ven­tion, we can do same day vot­ing, we can do vot­er ID, we can have cit­i­zen­ship ver­i­fi­ca­tion and we can have paper bal­lots. 65% of repub­li­can vot­ers want hand marked paper bal­lots. Hand Marked paper bal­lots were suc­cess­ful­ly used in the 2nd, 11th, and 14th dis­trict con­ven­tions this year.
In 2021, Bri­an Kemp showed up at the GA GOP con­ven­tion where David Shafer was re-elect­ed. He showed up with Mar­ty and the girls and was booed off the stage. Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp became very angry with David Shafer. Trump and Kemp have a big prob­lem. Trump and Raf­fensperg­er have a big prob­lem. Trump put a slate of can­di­dates togeth­er and David Shafer got re-elect­ed. David Shafer seemed to show sup­port for the pri­ma­ry can­di­dates.
Kemp wins against Don­ald Trump in GA. Kemp only had to win to rule with an iron fist. Kemp felt that David Shafer sup­port­ed Trump’s endorse­ments dur­ing the pri­ma­ry. In the GA GOP there is a rule that you don’t endorse dur­ing the pri­ma­ry. Kemp makes a move to take com­mand of the GOP, leav­ing the state par­ty behind. Kemp bol­stered his own grow­ing polit­i­cal net­work to take on the task that the state GOP has done in the past. The tra­di­tion­al par­ty infra­struc­ture he is talk­ing about is that the peo­ple would give mon­ey to the par­ty and the par­ty would give mon­ey to the can­di­dates. The incum­bents would lose 4 months in the year for fundrais­ing and the par­ty would do the fundrais­ing. But what Kemp does after he gets a sec­ond term, was cre­ate a new pow­er­ful com­mit­tee that is empow­ered by a new law to tap unlim­it­ed con­tri­bu­tions. Kemp’s lead­er­ship com­mit­tee remains a pow­er­ful polit­i­cal tool. He didn’t do it by him­self. He had to have the help of a Lt Gov­er­nor and a Speak­er of the House. The Geor­gia law gives Kemp and Jones a big mon­ey edge. They can raise an unlim­it­ed amount of mon­ey dur­ing the ses­sion. You are not sup­posed to raise mon­ey dur­ing the ses­sion because the lob­by­ist can alter the leg­is­la­tion.
Kemp can’t run for anoth­er term as gov­er­nor of Geor­gia but he is using a spe­cial fundrais­ing com­mit­tee that helped finance his reelec­tion bid to raise cash to pro­mote his agen­da and set the stage for his next polit­i­cal move.
The par­ty has become noth­ing more than bal­lot access.
Will Gov­er­nor Kemp attend the GA GOP con­ven­tion this year? Josh McK­oon has such a close rela­tion­ship with Kemp. Don’t for­get Josh McK­oon makes a quar­ter of a mil­lion dol­lars a year in a state job.
Patrick Far­rell is a Chatham coun­ty com­mis­sion­er for 2 decades. He is run­ning for first dis­trict as a repub­lic and his com­pe­ti­tion is Kan­diss Tay­lor. Far­rell has Mark Roundtree, high pro­file help. That is Land­mark Com­mu­ni­ca­tions. If he is get­ting help from Roundtree. Mark is a polit­i­cal con­sul­tant. It is safe to say that Josh McK­oon is well aware of this. They do not want Kan­diss Tay­lor to be the nom­i­nee because if she is on the gen­er­al bal­lot in the first dis­trict. If Kan­diss Tay­lor is the nom­i­nee the democ­rats will pour mon­ey against Kan­diss and they will win Ossoff in the first dis­trict. Ossoff will go back to DC.
Behind the scenes at the GA GOP in 2023.