Georgia has long stood apart from its southern neighbors — a Bible Belt state where Republican leaders have defied President Donald Trump without immediate political consequence, and where voters have repeatedly rejected his endorsed candidates.
Tuesday’s primary will test the durability of that reputation. In the Republican contest to succeed term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp, a Trump-endorsed lieutenant governor is running against the secretary of state who refused Trump’s 2020 request to “find 11,780 votes.” A crowded Republican primary for the Senate will measure Kemp’s own clout in a race Trump has pointedly declined to enter. And on the Democratic side, candidates are sketching competing road maps for navigating Trump’s second administration amid a midcycle redistricting fight that has now reached the Peach State.
Some of these questions will not be answered by Tuesday: Under Georgia law, races advance to a runoff if no candidate clears 50%. But the results will offer the clearest read yet on the mood of a state that has shifted from ruby-red to purple over the past decade.
Republican gubernatorial primary
The dynamic is sharpest in the Republican primary to succeed Kemp, a popular governor who rejected calls by Trump to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results — the start of a fractured relationship with the president that has never fully healed.
Among those vying to replace him is Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who drew Trump’s ire perhaps more than any other Georgia Republican for his refusal to entertain the president’s fraud claims after his narrow 2020 loss to former President Joe Biden. It was Raffensperger on the other end of the now-infamous leaked call in which Trump pressed him for the exact margin needed to flip the state.
Raffensperger has tried to put that chapter behind him, preferring to frame Democrat Stacey Abrams as the face of Georgia election disputes. But the past has proven hard to outrun. Last June, state Republicans passed a resolution declaring him “repugnant” to the party’s brand. Last week, a bomb threat forced him to abandon a campaign event; he said it was preceded by a manifesto featuring his photograph with the word “boom” pasted over his head.
“No matter what, I’m pushing forward,” Raffensperger said at a press conference on Wednesday. “Sometimes, when you do what’s right, it antagonizes people. I’m doing my job. I’m doing what’s right.”
The limited polling has shown Raffensperger trailing Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who served as an “alternate elector” in 2020 as Trump challenged the state’s results. Trump endorsed Jones in August, making him an early favorite in the race, and he has campaigned with him both in person and through telerallies.
Even so, Georgia has a track record of rebuffing Trump-backed gubernatorial candidates. In 2022, Kemp easily dispatched a Trump-endorsed primary challenge from former Sen. David Perdue.
Jones’ standing has also been pressured in recent months by Rick Jackson, the billionaire chief executive of a healthcare company whose campaign has spent more than $60 million on advertising — helping make this the third-most expensive gubernatorial primary in American history, according to AdImpact. Recent polling shows Jackson and Jones running roughly even, all but ensuring a runoff.
Republican Senate primary
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff continues to post historic fundraising totals, raising more than $80 million as he runs unopposed for his party’s nomination. Meanwhile, Republican voters remain split among the field’s top three contenders — Rep. Mike Collins, Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter and former college football coach Derek Dooley — who have traded attacks over electability, careerism and corruption.
Trump has so far declined to endorse, perhaps because both Collins and Carter have been reliable backers of his “America First” agenda. Carter does not expect that to change.
“I’d welcome his endorsement, and I’ve tried to get his endorsement,” Carter said in an interview with CBS News. “Unfortunately, we’ve got two members of Congress right now, and a slim majority in Congress, so I suspect he’s going to sit this one out.”
In the absence of a Trump endorsement, Carter has hammered Collins over a House Ethics investigation into allegations of misused campaign funds, while Collins has cast Carter, a six-term incumbent, as a career politician.
With Trump sitting out of the race, the election will instead test the strength of Kemp, who endorsed, repeatedly campaigned with and poured nearly a million dollars worth of advertisements through his super PAC to support Dooley.
A majority of voters, 54%, remain undecided, according to polling by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. A runoff appears all but certain.
Democratic gubernatorial primary
The Democratic gubernatorial primary is the rare race political observers believe could avoid a runoff. Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has benefited from high name recognition and a roster of high-profile endorsements, including from Biden. A crowded field has further helped Bottoms, who has consistently polled as the front-runner despite criticism over her 2022 decision to forgo a second mayoral term during the Covid-19 pandemic and a period of heightened public safety concerns. She instead joined the Biden White House as director of the Office of Public Engagement.
Jason Esteves, a former state senator, has tied that decision to the ongoing redistricting fight, sharpening the attack after Kemp called a special session to redraw congressional and state legislative lines before the 2028 election — suggesting that Georgia must have “a Democratic governor that’s committed to serving two terms … to oversee the redistricting process.”
“I’ve made that commitment,” Esteves said in an interview with the Journal-Constitution. “Not every candidate in this race has.”
Also in the field is Geoff Duncan, the former Republican lieutenant governor who became one of the most prominent in-state critics of Trump’s 2020 effort to overturn Georgia’s results. Duncan endorsed former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 and was formally expelled from the state Republican Party. He has wagered that reputation will help him assemble a coalition of disaffected Republicans, independents and Democrats.
“It’s been nearly 30 years since a Democrat won the governor’s race in Georgia,” Duncan said. “To be governor in Georgia, you have to win more than the base. I’m building that coalition of Democrats, independents and yes, even disgusted Republicans.”
But some Democratic voters appear skeptical of Duncan’s party change. A recent University of Georgia poll showed the former Republican, who addressed the Democratic National Convention in 2024, in single digits, trailing Esteves and Michael Thurmond, the former CEO of DeKalb County.
Bottoms, for her part, is already pivoting toward November. She released her first attack ad on Friday targeting Jones and Jackson, depicting them as donkeys subservient to Trump.
“Unless some people I’m not running for governor to be Donald Trump,” Bottoms says in the ad. “I’m running to stand up to him.”
The post The ghosts of 2020 haunt Georgia ballots on Tuesday appeared first on MS NOW.
