Gov.-elect Brian Kemp has promised to lead Georgia.

Not just lead a Republican Georgia over a Democratic Georgia but he pledged last week to be the leader of all Georgia residents.

“I know that we were all not on the same team in the primary, the runoff or even the general election,” Kemp said to lawmakers, state officials and lobbyists gathered last week at the University of Georgia. “But the campaign is over. It is time to put politics behind us. It is time to shed labels and work together as Georgians.”

Hopefully, Kemp will remember these words and keep this promise.

In the ongoing Pulse of the Voter series, some Georgia voters expressed being pleased Kemp won the governor’s race while others said they are disappointed Stacey Abrams, his Democrat opponent, lost.

Kemp faces a split state.

He did not win a mandate. He won by a 1.4 percent margin.

Had Abrams garnered about 55,000 more votes statewide, it would have represented a major political shift but she wouldn’t have scored a mandate either.

And while Republicans won the top state races, the midterm numbers represent a divided Georgia. A Georgia that is both Republican and Democrat, red and blue, rural and urban.

Kemp won rural areas of the state. Abrams won urban portions of Georgia.

He recognizes the boost rural voters gave him.

In his speech, Kemp did not elaborate on policy proposals though he renewed his call to expand a tax credit benefiting the state’s smallest hospitals, address the physician shortage in rural Georgia and boost the struggling local economies in some of the sparsely populated corners of the state.

“The rising tide in Atlanta, Augusta and Savannah has not lifted our rural communities. Some continue to struggle and in some areas it feels like they’re still in the Great Recession,” Kemp said.

But even in a GOP-dominated state government, Kemp should seek bipartisan measures that represent all of Georgia.

With the vote split to 1.4 percent difference, it’s like the one hand of the state voted Republican while the other hand voted Democrat.

Those hands can come together in unity.

Or they can tear each other apart.

Kemp must seek balance to bring those sides together.