With a week to go ahead of the Nov. 8 General Election and Special Election, Gov. Brian Kemp was joined by former Vice President Mike Pence for a rally in Cumming on Tuesday.

Kemp’s re-election bus tour stopped by the Cumming Cigar Company, located at 230 E. Main Street, as one of several stops in the metro Atlanta area on Tuesday, Nov. 1.

During his remarks, Pence said he had been a supporter of Kemp since before Republican voters selected him as the party’s candidate in the 2018 primary. 

“When the governor asked if I would come back and campaign with him, get back on the bus, I said yes in a heartbeat because the fact is I think there is no better governor in America than Brian Kemp,” Pence said.  “I can honestly say I was for Brian Kemp before it was cool. I came in in that primary four years ago and saw his quality, I sensed his commitment, I sensed his backbone. 

“I knew he would lead Georgia to unprecedented prosperity and security, and Brian Kemp has delivered for all of the people in the Peach State.”

Kemp is facing Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams in a rematch of the candidates’ 2018 election.

During his remarks, Kemp touched on his term as governor, including the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and Georgia being the first state to reopen following lockdowns.

“As a small business owner for 35 years, I understood the pain that they were feeling. Georgians are not going to sit in their basement and lose everything they have got because of a virus,” Kemp said. “We gave them the opportunity to make a decision to go back to work, to open their businesses, for you all to patronize those businesses because we’ve been there before. We know how that feels, [Georgia First Lady Marty Kemp] and I.”

Pence also credited Kemp for Georgia being named as Area Development magazine’s No. 1 state for business for the ninth consecutive year and said Kemp’s re-election would be part of a “great American comeback that goes straight through Georgia.”

“Georgia has the best business climate in America, and I think people see they have a governor that shares their values, shares their commitment to opportunity and jobs and growth, a commitment to law and order,” Pence said. “We’re a week away from a great victory here in Georgia for Gov. Brian Kemp, and a victory that’s going to send a message all across the country that strong, principled conservative leadership has a home in Georgia, and I think you are going to see those results across America in the days ahead.”

In a press conference following the campaign stop, Kemp said he felt Republicans were better prepared for Tuesday’s election than the presidential and Senate races in 2020.

“We lost, I think, the 2020 race because we didn’t have a good ground game in the state, and we have one now,” Kemp said. “We’re not finished with that. We’ve got to continue working the rest of the week until polls close on Tuesday.

Pence is the latest big-name Republican to make a stop in Forsyth County in recent weeks, after Senate candidate Herschel Walker was joined by U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, on a campaign stop in north Forsyth on Thursday, Oct. 27.

The Cumming Cigar Company will have another big-name Republican on Monday, Nov. 7, when former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler will be at the Citizens for a Greater Georgia Forsyth Force rally from 5:30-7:30 p.m. to “rally to turn Forsyth County out in force for Election Day.”

For more information, go to citizensforagreaterga.com.