Want to understand how Kemp won the Republican governor’s nod? Look at Muscogee County.

As Georgia went in the Republican gubernatorial runoff, so went Muscogee County — in a big way.

Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who finished second in the May primary to Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, won the runoff Tuesday night in a landslide, collecting nearly 70 percent of the vote statewide and sweeping all but two of the state’s counties.

In May, Kemp barely scratched the surface in Columbus, getting only about 12 percent of the Republican vote, far behind Cagle with 47 percent and former state Rep. Hunter Hill with 26 percent.

With a Tweet of support from President Donald Trump, Tuesday night was a far different story as Kemp won the nomination and will face Democrat Stacey Abrams in November.

Kemp won Muscogee County with 60 percent to Cagle’s 40 percent. In raw votes, the turnaround was stark.

In May, Cagle received 4,325 votes in Muscogee County, but om Tuesday he picked up just 2,448. That is 1,877 fewer votes.

Now, look at Kemp’s numbers in Muscogee County. In May, he got 1,112 votes, but on Tuesday night he got 3,611. He got 2,499 more votes the second time around than he did in the first election.

To put that number in perspective, the number of additional votes Kemp received from the first election to the runoff was more than what Cagle got in the runoff.

How did this happen?

Alton Russell, chairman of the Muscogee County Republican Party, thinks he knows the answer.

“The first thing is I think President Trump and Vice President Pence made a big difference in this race,” Russell said.

Trump tweeted his full support for Kemp on July 18, less than a week before what many thought was going to be a tight election.

“Brian Kemp is running for Governor of the great state of Georgia,” the president tweeted. “The Primary is on Tuesday. Brian is tough on crime, strong on the border and illegal immigration. He loves our Military and our Vets and protects our Second Amendment. I give him my full and total endorsement.”

Pence followed that up with a campaign appearance for Kemp in Macon on Saturday.

“That Tweet was a bombshell and it made all the difference,” Russell said.

Still, Cagle made a number of campaign stops in Columbus before the May primary and before the runoff.

“Casey was here three or four times and stopped here on Monday during his fly-around the state,” Russell said. “Kemp was not here as much and did not even come into Columbus on the day before the election.”

State Sen. Josh McKoon, a Columbus Republican who ran unsuccessfully for Secretary of State, said that the Trump endorsement was responsible for a “chunk” of the Kemp support in Columbus.

“If you would have asked last week, I would have told you it was highly unlikely that Kemp would have won by that proportion,” McKoon said. “The turnout statewide was almost as much as the May primary. It would have been unthinkable to have that kind of turnout.”

This story was originally published July 25, 2018 at 11:18 AM.