Political strategists warn GOP 'the road to the White House goes through Georgia' after Trump indictment

While Florida went deep red in the 2022 midterms — which found Gov. Ron DeSantis running as a far-right culture warrior and getting reelected by 19 percent — its neighbor to the north, Georgia, has turned out to be quite a swing state. Liberal Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) was reelected in 2022, but so were two conservative non-MAGA Republicans: Gov. Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Politically, Georgia often finds itself being mentioned in the same sentence as Pennsylvania, Virginia or Arizona; it's a state where Democratic and GOP strategists need to work extra hard to reach swing voters. Atlanta Proper is heavily Democratic, and the ultra-MAGA Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) is in a deep red district that gave her a decisive reelection victory in 2022.

But in some parts of the state, swing voters are showing a willingness to split their tickets. Such voters are crucial to President Joe Biden's hopes of winning Georgia in 2024.

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On Monday night, August 14, Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis announced that a grand jury had indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies on state criminal charges in connection with their efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trump's hardcore MAGA supporters have been rallying around him in response to that criminal indictment and three others, but in an article published by NBC News' website on August 16, reporters Garrett Haake, Katherine Doyle, Kristen Welker and Alex Tabet stress that some GOP strategists fear Willis' prosecution could hurt Trump among Georgia's independents and swing voters.

NBC News interviewed four Republican strategists on condition of anonymity, and one of whom said, "It may be more muck on top of the heap elsewhere, but in Georgia, it's different. The road to the White House goes through Georgia."

Another GOP strategist told NBC News, "This reminds the same indies in places like Forsyth County why they didn't vote for him in the first place. In Georgia, it's just a net loser. Period."

According to the NBC News reporters, tensions between Trump and Kemp could hurt the former president in Georgia in 2024. Despite Trump turning his ire toward the Georgia governor, Kemp was reelected by 8 percent in 2022.

READ MORE: 'Voluntarily surrender by noon on Aug 25': Fani Willis demands Trump and his allies to submit for arrest

One of the GOP strategists told NBC News, "Kemp keeps beating Trump. It's pretty amazing. And when Trump constantly looks at things in black and white, winners and losers, Kemp comes up on the winning side against him time and time again."

READ MORE: Why Trump's Georgia indictment is a 'reminder of the genius of American federalism': op-ed

Read NBC News' full report at this link.