All posts tagged "georgia"

It's not hard to see why this MAGA firebrand turned against Trump

Writing in the “Never Trump” outlet The Bulwark, columnist Jonathan V. Last says the transformation of Georgia’s own Marjorie Taylor Greene represents “the best hope for liberalism in America.”

That’s probably not something you ever thought you would read.

By “liberalism,” Last makes clear, “we do not mean Democratic policy preferences. I do not expect MTG to change her views on the Second Amendment, climate change, abortion, the costs/benefits of immigration, the role of America in geopolitics, or any other issue.”

While those issues are all important, they are disagreements that we can and should resolve through the democratic process, just as we have done for more than two centuries. By “liberalism,” Last means something more fundamental. He means a renewed commitment to that democratic process of dispute resolution, and with it a rejection of authoritarian government that defies our Constitution and national legacy.

Last is hardly alone in the national media in his embrace of Greene’s transformation as a deep-winter sign of a coming political spring. Writing in a lengthy profile in the New York Times, reporter Robert Draper tells us that Greene’s disenchantment has grown so deep that she no longer watches Fox News, “because she found it factually unreliable.” Draper proposes that in her newest incarnation, Greene “may yet again prove to be a harbinger of a sea change in the movement she once helped lead.”

Then there’s George Conway, the former high-level GOP attorney, former husband of Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, and a man now running for Congress as a Democrat.

Greene “is no angel, but this isn’t an act,” Conway writes in a social media post. “It isn’t some ploy for power.”

As Conway sees it, “The heavy burden of cognitive dissonance and denial” required to remain a Trump supporter “finally became unbearable for her. And she’s done with it. To the point that she’s just letting it all out, consequences be damned. She’s liberated, and there’s no better feeling.”

Me, I’m still not buying any of it.

Call me cynical — after a decade of watching Trump, I certainly qualify — but if Trump had agreed last spring to support Greene’s Senate candidacy against Jon Ossoff, she would still be Trump’s loyal follower today. She left the cult and resigned her House seat not out of some sudden road-to-Damascus conversion, and not because of some realization about Trump’s character, but because she understood that he would not be the pathway to her ambitions. It was a decision made largely out of self-interest.

On a human level, I can accept that’s not how Greene experiences it or explains it to others. Like all of us, she wants to think the best of herself, and if that means explaining her dramatic breach with Trump in terms of finally seeing the light, or coming back into line with her Christian beliefs, I’m OK with that. Good for her.

However, that’s not how the phenomenon is going to play out in the future. I say that because by this point, most of those who might abandon Trump based on principle or patriotism have already done so, often at considerable professional and personal loss.

Brad Raffensperger, for example, is never going to be governor of Georgia. Liz Cheney is never going to be speaker of the House. Mike Pence is never going to be president. They sacrificed those ambitions to preserve the republic as well as their own integrity, and we should always be grateful that they did so. I disagree with them on almost every political issue, but I also admire them. They are heroes, and what they did should not be confused with what Greene is doing.

If Trump’s support continues to erode, it will be because more and more people begin to understand what Greene understands, that it’s no longer in their own personal interest to stick with him. They will abandon him because they realize that Trump cannot give them what they want or need, because in many cases he never had any intention of doing so.

That won’t be true of some people. Certainly, those who want cruelty to immigrants, white Christian nationalism and a government that squelches dissent will continue to be made happy by Trump. Those who have achieved positions of power through abject loyalty to Trump that they could never have earned by their own merit will continue to support him because they have no alternative. In poker terms, they are pot-committed.

But for others, it may be dawning on them that Trump is not going to lead a revolution against the elite. He is not going to defend the interests of the little guy against the billionaire class any more than he is going to release the Epstein files or defend Ukraine against Vladimir Putin, because he always sees the world through the eyes of the predator not the prey.

And if Marjorie Taylor Greene can eventually see that, maybe others can as well.

Jay Bookman covered Georgia and national politics for nearly 30 years for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, earning numerous national, regional and state journalism awards. He has been awarded the National Headliner Award and the Walker Stone Award for outstanding editorial writing, and is the only two-time winner of the Pulliam Fellowship granted by the Society of Professional Journalists. He is also the author of "Caught in the Current," published by St. Martin's Press.
Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

New audio emerges of Trump directing Republicans on how to overturn election results

Audio clips obtained by the New York Times show President Donald Trump giving explicit instructions to Republicans in Georgia on how to flip the result of the 2020 election, in which Trump lost Georgia to then-President-elect Joe Biden.

On Wednesday, the Times reported it had obtained the clips as part of a collection of documents pertaining to the recently dismissed Fulton County, Georgia criminal case against Trump and more than a dozen of his advisors and associates. In one 12- minute phone call, Trump is heard talking to the late former Georgia House Speaker David Ralston (R) — who died in 2023 — about calling a special legislative session to address supposed "fraud" in the 2020 election.

"Who’s gonna stop you for that?" Trump is heard saying.

"A federal judge, possibly," Ralston replied with a laugh.

Later in the call, Trump is heard giving direction on how Ralston would conduct the special session, and baselessly alleged that he had won Georgia by hundreds of thousands of votes (he in fact lost by roughly 12,000 votes statewide). Trump repeated debunked conspiracy theories about ballot boxes being stuffed at Atlanta's State Farm arena, as former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani frequently argued.

"If we had a special session, we will present, and you will say, ‘Here, it’s been massive fraud. We’re going to turn over the state,'" Trump said.

Ralston never committed to holding the special session, though the call was used as evidence in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) prosecution of Trump and his associates. Willis alleged that Trump illegally solicited Ralston to violate his oath of office by calling a special session "for the purpose of unlawfully appointing presidential electors from the State of Georgia." Judge Scott McAfee ultimately quashed those initial charges, saying Willis was not specific enough in naming what specific statutes had been violated.

"I march to my own drummer, and my own drummer says I want Donald Trump to remain the president," Ralston said on the call.

Click here to read the Times' full report (subscription required).

'Unmotivated donors' plague Republicans in pivotal southern state

Georgia Insurance Commissioner John King is sounding the alarm on party donations heading into the mid-terms.

“The usually low-key King posted a lengthy statement to social media, almost a manifesto, after Democrats managed to flip a Republican state House seat in Oconee and Clarke counties,” wrote Atlanta Journal Constitution Senior Political columnist Patricia Murphy. “That unexpected special election loss followed two 26-point Democratic routs in November for a pair of statewide Public Service Commission seats, which Georgia Republicans have dominated for decades.”

Murphy reports the PSC upsets came after another September special election to fill former state GOP Sen. Brandon Beach’s deep-red seat finished with the Republican contender winning 10 percentage points behind what the Republican incumbent won the year before.

“Georgia Republicans, we have a problem,” King wrote, before describing unmotivated GOP donors, unmotivated Republican base voters and a muddled party message that put other issues ahead of people’s difficult economic realities.

“Unless the party changes course,” he warned, Republicans will be outraised, outspent and defeated next year, too.

“Everyone behind the scenes knows it, even if hardly anyone is willing to say it publicly,” King wrote.

“As his statement ricocheted around GOP circles this week,” fellow Republicans reached out to thank him for speaking up, said Murphy.

“Somebody had to say something,” one said.

Georgia GOP Chairman Josh McKoon denies the party has a problem, chalking the PSC losses as the result of the timing of the races, which overlapped with off-year city elections that typically turn out more Democrats.

“These elections don’t have any predictive value,” McKoon said, but other party team players aren’t buying it.

Murphy reports “a communications vacuum” at the state level as Gov. Brian Kemp enters his last year in office and the state’s next top three Republicans — Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Attorney General Chris Carr and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — face off in a primary race to replace Kemp. Each one is trying to put affordability at the top of their list of issues, but they’re all competing against each other, including on messaging. And President Donald Trump’s own message operation in Washington isn’t helping, with Trump dismissing Americans’ affordability issues as a “Democrat hoax.”

“You’re doing better than you’ve ever done!” Trump said at a recent rally in Pennsylvania, but Georgia Democratic Party Chair Charlie Bailey called Trump’s comments “insulting and idiotic.”

“This isn’t rocket science,” said Bailey. “If you do things that hurt folks and make it harder for people to achieve the American dream, they might have a bad reaction to that. And that’s what we’re seeing in Georgia.”

Murphy said King had sought to run for Senate in 2026 but dropped out when he learned Trump was not giving him an endorsement in the GOP primary. Murphy said that snub has given King the freedom to be the Republicans’ very own Paul Revere, warning the GOP, “The midterms are coming!”

“Only Republicans can decide if they’re willing to listen,” said Murphy.

Read the AJC report at this link.

'Alarm bells': Democrats 'supercharged' after shock upset win in deep red Georgia seat

Democrats were energized Wednesday after a surprising election sweep in deep-red state Georgia.

Democrat Eric Gisler won in a special election in Georgia to represent Georgia State House of Representatives District 121, flipping a seat in a district that President Donald Trump won by double digits last year. The vacancy arose after Republican State Rep. Marcus Wiedower resigned in late October to focus on his role at a real estate company.

Greg Bluestein, chief political reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, wrote this on X:

"The state House seat that Democrats flipped last night isn’t the party’s juiciest midterm target. It isn’t even in the top 10. But Eric Gisler’s stunning special election victory sounded alarm bells for Republicans and supercharged Democrats."

The win comes after a similar result unfolded in Miami, where Democrats pulled off a huge victory on Tuesday by winning the mayoral runoff — the first time they have been elected to that office in nearly 30 years.

Republicans have faced numerous warnings of disaster looming ahead of the 2026 midterms due to Trump's deeply unpopular agenda and high cost of living woes.

‘Biggest mistake of her life’: GOP lawmakers dish on Marjorie Taylor Greene

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s surprise retirement announcement seems to have House Republicans breathing sighs of relief.

Before the far-right Georgia representative shocked the political world and announced her plan to retire on the eve of the next Jan. 6 anniversary, her fellow Republicans wanted nothing to do with her ongoing digital brawl with the president over the Epstein files.

Greene herself didn’t want to talk about the spat she started with Trump.

“Are you getting a divorce from Trump?” Raw Story asked last Friday morning, as Greene and her mini-entourage headed to the House floor for members’ last vote ahead of their weeklong Thanksgiving recess.

The usually talkative congresswoman just shook her head no.

“She’s not taking questions today,” her MAGA-media boyfriend, Brian Glenn of Real America’s Voice, answered for her.

Greene wasn’t the only Republican avoiding the topic of Greene.

‘No comment’

While no one outside Greene’s small circle of confidants saw her retirement coming, the MAGA darling had alienated many fellow Republicans in recent weeks.

“What have you thought of this dustup between MTG and Trump?” Raw Story asked Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), like Greene a hard-line controversy magnet on the right of the party.

“Above my pay grade on that,” said Gosar, who in 2024 was one of only 10 Republicans to join Greene’s attempt to oust Speaker Mike Johnson.

Other Republicans, especially those seeking a new office, were close-lipped too.

"That's between them, not me," Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), who’s running for governor back home, told Raw Story.

"Look, I just do my deal, so I haven't really thought much about it, to be frank with you."

Awkward.

“I don’t have any thoughts,” Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) — who served in the House alongside MTG until moving to the Senate in January — told Raw Story.

“I'm glad to be a senator.”

Even members of Greene’s Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) Subcommittee refused to come to the congresswoman’s aid in her clash with Trump.

"No comment there," Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) told Raw Story Friday morning.

"It's uncomfortable, right?" Raw Story pressed.

"My fire is focused on the Democrats," Gill said. “I'll put it that way."

‘All in with the boss’

If there was any doubt lingering about who controls the GOP, doubt no more: Trump won, again.

Greene’s decision to step down rather than duke it out with a primary opponent next year reveals the power of this presidency — because Greene’s one of the most prolific fundraisers on Capitol Hill.

Since her first win in 2020, the congresswoman’s raised a staggering $26.1 million. But even she withered at the thought of taking on her former MAGA-ally-in-chief.

“Biggest mistake of her life,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) told Raw Story outside the Capitol Friday morning.

“I don't know why you get into altercations with Donald Trump, the greatest president," Nehls added. "I mean, the guy, he's done a hell of a job, why would you do it?”

While Greene has not discussed her decision, on Capitol Hill there’s been lots of chatter about her failing to garner Trump’s blessing for a Senate run.

“You hear the reports, some are saying she wanted to run for Senate and the numbers didn't look good,” Nehls said.

“A lot of people up here think they deserve to get promoted or, you know, all this other stuff. I don't know, but it's not healthy. It's not healthy.”

Just hours before Greene made her retirement announcement, Nehls predicted her downfall.

“I don’t see how Marjorie can win this battle. I just don't,” Nehls said.

“And MAGA’s MAGA. MAGA’s not moving off," he added. "The boss has his supporters and they're not leaving him. The boss is the boss, and I support the boss. I'm all in with the boss.”

’Tis the season?

Politically speaking, Thanksgiving promises to be a lonely day for Greene.

“None of you guys want to talk about her fight with Trump,” Raw Story told Arizona Congressman Gosar. “It feels like an uncomfortable Thanksgiving dinner.”

“Probably, yeah,” Gosar said, smirking. “It might be a Christmas dinner.”

“Do you think they'll heal it eventually?” Raw Story asked. “Because members of your party have already found out what happens when you cross Trump.”

“She’d be wise to” heal the breach with the president, Gosar said Friday morning, ahead of the retirement announcement.

“It's nice to see spirit, but not unless it comes with temperament. I've learned that from my family.”

In 2018, six of Gosar’s siblings disavowed him politically and cut an ad for his opponent. Seven years on, as Congress left town for the recess, it was unclear who Gosar — or MTG — would be spending Thanksgiving with.

MTG's change of tactics is real — but something much more worrying for Georgia is not

The lines that separate truth from falsehood, reality from fantasy, have become so smeared in recent years that democracy itself becomes difficult. Edgar Allen Poe, and later the Temptations, gave us the motto for our times:

“Believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear.”

But which half to believe? We’re now witnessing the introduction of high-quality, AI-driven deep-fake videos into Georgia politics, which makes it even harder to tell.

For example, the other day I saw a clip that depicted U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene saying the following:

“I would like to say, humbly, I’m sorry for taking part in the toxic politics. It’s very bad for our country. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot, especially since Charlie Kirk was assassinated. I’m committed, and I’ve been working on this a lot lately, to put down the knives in politics. I really just want to see people be kind to one another. As Americans, we have far more in common than we have differences, and we have to be able to respect each other in our disagreements.”

Was that real, or was it an AI deep fake? I’m told that it’s real, but I’m also told to believe none of what I hear, so ….

One way to approach that question is to first ask what we mean by “real.” If by real you mean did it actually happen, yes, it’s real. Greene actually said those words. She’s saying similar things quite a bit these days, to such an extent that she and Donald Trump are publicly exchanging charges that the other person has become a traitor.

But is it real in terms of a sudden change of heart, a transformation by Greene from vicious culture warrior to a champion of peace, love and understanding?

No. It is not.

What we’re seeing is Greene’s reaction to being told the obvious by Trump and other top Republicans, that she has no future in politics beyond representing Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. She didn’t like to hear that, and what she now frames as enlightenment is better understood as just a different manifestation of the resentment and frustration that has fueled her entire political career.

It’s important to remember that as far back as 2023, Greene was publicly musing about her future as U.S. senator, governor or even higher.

“I have a lot of things to think about,” she told a reporter back then. “Am I going to be a part of President Trump’s Cabinet if he wins? Is it possible that I’ll be VP?”

Girl, no.

Don’t get me wrong, Greene does have some gifts as a politician, chief among them her instinct for the swings and sways of popular opinion within MAGA. That’s at play here too. It’s no accident that she has dared to divorce herself from Trump at a moment when he has become vulnerable. The economy is shaky, his immigration policy is unpopular, the poll numbers are bad and his bizarre mishandling of the Epstein case has made even close allies nervous. Greene seems to sense that if a door has been slammed in her face, fate may be opening a window.

And of course, we have an actual case of deep-fake video in Georgia, created through artificial intelligence, in the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Jon Ossoff and a handful of Republican challengers. U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, the frontrunner in the race for the GOP nomination, has released a video in which a deep-fake Ossoff can be heard — and seen — telling voters that he just doesn’t care about the impact of the recent government shutdown on farmers, that his only concern is his out-of-state donors..

It looks real. It sounds real. And given the regrettable gullibility of American voters, at least some of them are likely to take it as real. The Ossoff campaign condemned the video, pledging never to produce deep fakes of its own, while Collins dismisses any such concerns.

“It’s just new technology, a new way to campaign, and you’re going to see a lot more of that out there,” he said.

Politics has never been a particularly truthful endeavor, but even then, fake quotes and fake photos have always been considered unacceptable distortions. Like a lot of people these days, the Collins campaign appears to believe that technology voids all those rules. They are living an approach that Trump has driven home, and that MAGA has fully embraced: If the rules and the norms get in the way of victory, screw the rules and the norms, and never ever apologize for doing so. If it works, if there’s no voter backlash to Collins’ actions, then yes, we will see a lot more of it.

Down that road lies chaos, though, and I’m hopeful that the American patience for chaos is running pretty thin these days.

Jay Bookman covered Georgia and national politics for nearly 30 years for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, earning numerous national, regional and state journalism awards. He has been awarded the National Headliner Award and the Walker Stone Award for outstanding editorial writing, and is the only two-time winner of the Pulliam Fellowship granted by the Society of Professional Journalists. He is also the author of "Caught in the Current," published by St. Martin's Press.
Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

This big gamble could seal Trump's fate — but the case hangs by a thread

The stalled Georgia case against President Donald Trump and more than a dozen allies accused of trying to invalidate the results of the 2020 election was given new life last week. Or was it?

Peter Skandalakis, who was tasked with assigning the case to a different prosecutor following Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s dismissal by a top court, has decided to appoint himself to oversee what remains of the sprawling case.

Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, highlighted the unusual nature of the case in his statement announcing his self-appointment:

“The filing of this appointment reflects my inability to secure another conflict prosecutor to assume responsibility for this case. Several prosecutors were contacted and, while all were respectful and professional, each declined the appointment. Out of respect for their privacy and professional discretion, I will not identify those prosecutors or disclose their reasons for declining.”

Willis herself alluded to this “culture of fear” last month, warning that the national ramifications of the case and its outcome could make it difficult to find another prosecutor.

“I think you have prosecutors, citizens and even judges who are afraid right now, and for good reason,” she told WSB-TV Channel 2.

“The reality is it’s going to be hard to find a prosecutor that’s not afraid to prosecute that case when one of the primary defendants is threatening anyone that would dare to prosecute them.”

She went on to argue that other district attorney offices may lack the resources and the staff to take on such a huge case.

Skandalakis, for his part, says there are still some parts of the case he needs to review. But he already has some familiarity with the matter. Willis was previously barred from bringing charges against Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, now a top Republican gubernatorial contender. A state senator at the time, Jones called for a special legislative session in the aftermath of Trump’s 2020 defeat and was one of the Republicans who participated in the alleged “fake elector” scheme. But a separate political conflict of interest resulted in Jones being severed off from any case brought by the Fulton DA.

Skandalakis would name himself to oversee the investigation into Jones after the lieutenant governor was listed as an unnamed co-conspirator. But he ultimately concluded that the case warranted no further action, saying that Jones was acting as an elected representative and not a criminal conspirator.

“Considering the facts, applicable law and the circumstances surrounding the events occurring in November and December of 2020 and January of 2021, I find the conduct and involvement of Sen. Jones as an elected representative to be reasonable and not criminal in nature,” Skandalakis said in 2024.

The appointment leaves Georgia as the only jurisdiction with an active criminal case against the president.

Trump was convicted in Manhattan last year for falsifying business records, and the two federal cases against him were dismissed upon his return to the presidency.

We don’t know how Skandalakis will handle the case going forward. But if his exoneration of Burt Jones is any indication, the case is still skating on thin ice: There is simply no precedent for a state-level prosecution against a sitting president, and he wouldn’t be able to serve any prison time until the end of his term in office.

As for the remaining defendants and conspirators? Trump recently pardoned many of them, including Jones, for trying to overturn the president’s 2020 loss. But given that presidential pardons don’t apply to state prosecutions, the order was largely symbolic.

Now it’s all up to Skandalakis to decide when – or if – the case makes it before a jury. However, finding 12 impartial Georgians with no knowledge of the case to judge a sitting president’s staunchest allies may prove to be the steepest hill to climb.

Niles Francis recently graduated from Georgia Southern University with a degree in political science and journalism. He has spent the last few years observing and writing about the political maneuvering at Georgia’s state Capitol and regularly publishes updates in a Substack newsletter called Peach State Politics. He is currently studying to earn a graduate degree and is eager to cover another exciting political year in the battleground state where he was born and raised.

Dems can win this red-state race if they can find the right face

With Brian Kemp leaving the governor’s office after next year’s election, Georgia Democrats have an opportunity to make history.

All they need now is a candidate.

The alleged frontrunner for the 2026 nomination is Keisha Lance Bottoms. According to a poll of Democratic primary voters commissioned by her own campaign last month, Bottoms “pulls more support than all other named candidates combined,” drawing 38 percent of likely primary voters.

However, I’d argue that’s more a sign of weakness than of strength. Only 9 percent of voters polled in that survey said they haven’t heard of Bottoms, which tells us that she’s a well-known commodity with less than overwhelming support, even in a field of relative unknowns.

And frankly, it’s hard to envision Bottoms winning a statewide general election. She is a former Atlanta mayor, which historically puts her at a disadvantage in much of the rest of the state. More important than that, Bottoms proved mediocre in the mayor’s office, accomplishing little and declining to run for re-election after her first term, without offering voters or supporters much of an explanation for walking away.

At a time when Democrats are looking for fighters, I’m not sure that’s a resume they should find attractive.

If Democrats do make Bottoms their nominee for governor, they also guarantee an endless run of commercials retelling the tragic tale of Secoriea Turner, the eight-year-old Atlanta girl who was shot dead by vigilante gang members in 2020. Secoriea was shot while riding with her mother in the back seat after Bottoms, as mayor, allowed gang members to take and keep control of a site in southwest Atlanta.

That’s a hard, even impossible thing to explain to voters.

In an election season that Republicans are desperately trying to turn into a soft-on-crime referendum, Secoriea’s story would become an anchor around the neck of every other Democrat on the ballot, from the U.S. Senate down to local races.

Bottoms’ best-known challenger is Geoff Duncan, the former lieutenant governor and, more famously, a Republican recently turned Democrat. Duncan deserves credit for recognizing that the party of Donald Trump bears no resemblance to the party of Lincoln, Reagan and Johnny Isakson, and for having the moral clarity and guts to act on that recognition. As far as I can tell, his conversion to the Democratic cause is sincere, but in an era of heightened tribal identities he’s asking a lot from primary voters to place their faith in him.

So far, I’m a little surprised by the open reception he’s getting, but translating voter curiosity into actual ballots will be difficult. If Duncan can pull it off, it would be a major miracle and a national news story, but I’m not seeing much in the way of political miracles these days.

The other two major announced candidates, Jason Esteves and Michael Thurmond, offer an important generational contrast, and my guess is that one of the two will emerge as the nominee.

Esteves, 42, is a former chair of the Atlanta Board of Education and a former one-term state senator. He comes across well in public and has built an impressive slate of endorsements from those who have worked with him in his previous roles. In the investment world Esteves might be touted as a growth stock, and sometimes they work out and sometimes they don’t.

Thurmond, 72, has served ably in a variety of state and local offices, including state legislator, state labor commissioner and DeKalb County executive. He knows the state and state government, he has the resume of a governor and he campaigns and operates as a moderate. But for Democrats, he’s also the last holdover from a political era that a lot of Georgia voters either don’t remember or never experienced in the first place.

In the current environment, that might not be to his advantage.

Jay Bookman covered Georgia and national politics for nearly 30 years for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, earning numerous national, regional and state journalism awards. He has been awarded the National Headliner Award and the Walker Stone Award for outstanding editorial writing, and is the only two-time winner of the Pulliam Fellowship granted by the Society of Professional Journalists. He is also the author of "Caught in the Current," published by St. Martin's Press.
Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

This senator helped Dems take control in 2020. Now a messy GOP fight could see him survive

Georgia is set to host what will likely be the most expensive U.S. Senate race in the country next year. But Republicans are still searching for a clear frontrunner to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, who continues to raise huge sums of cash as he prepares to defend his seat.

U.S. Reps. Mike Collins and Buddy Carter, along with former football coach Derek Dooley, are locked in a three-way race to take on the first-term senator. But latest fundraising figures suggest that the party remains largely undecided on a consensus candidate.

Collins, a Butts County trucking company owner and the son of a former congressman, said he raised about $1.9 million since entering the race, plus an additional $1 million transfer from his congressional campaign account. His team is hailing the fundraising numbers as proof that Collins is the “unmistakable frontrunner” in the Republican primary.

Dooley, who boasts an endorsement from Gov. Brian Kemp, also raised a little less than $2 million since he joined the contest. The former Tennessee Volunteers coach and son of Georgia coaching legend Vince Dooley has to walk a fine line between satisfying both Kemp’s allies and MAGA loyalists. But he also has to alleviate concerns about his scant political history and thin ties to Georgia.

And Carter, a wealthy pharmacist from St. Simons Island and the only candidate who entered the race before the start of the third quarter, raised another $1 million over the three-month stretch and loaned himself an additional $2 million.

“We didn’t inherit anything from daddy,” he said in an apparent dig at his two rivals. “We’re earning it — every dime, every vote.”

With no leading Republican candidate, all eyes will now turn to President Donald Trump — who can single-handedly turn this into a completely different race with a social media post announcing an endorsement.

And the president said Wednesday that he is indeed keeping a close eye on the Senate race (and continued doubling down on false claims surrounding his 2020 defeat).

“The governor has spoken to me about [the Senate race] a lot, he likes [Dooley] a lot, and I understand that. I haven’t made a decision yet. But I’m following that race very carefully. I think it’s important for Georgia to get a real senator because [Ossoff] is a horrible senator.”

Ossoff continues to be among the top Senate fundraisers in the country, raising another $12 million between July and September and ending the period with more than $20 million stashed away. But it’s only a small fraction of what the race is likely to cost: nearly half a billion dollars was spent on Georgia’s 2022 Senate battle between Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and Republican Herschel Walker.

And Ossoff has established a reputation as one of his party’s strongest fundraisers. His 2017 campaign in a congressional special election brought in over $30 million. The Atlanta Democrat has now raised more than $200 million since his 2020 Senate bid, when he and Warnock ousted Republican incumbents to deliver a narrow Democratic Senate majority.

“If we’ve learned anything from recent elections, it’s that raising more money isn’t necessarily an indicator of future electoral success,” said Adam Carlson, a Democratic pollster who has worked behind the scenes on several Georgia campaigns.

“But Jon Ossoff raising more than 250 percent of all three of his potential Republican opponents combined in Q3 is telling.”

Head-to-head polling between Ossoff and his Republican rivals has been sparse. But the incumbent appears to be starting out on solid ground: Morning Consult’s updated tracking poll found his approval rating at 51 percent with a disapproval of 34 percent.

But will these numbers hold by this time next year once negative campaign commercials start flooding the airwaves?

Niles Francis recently graduated from Georgia Southern University with a degree in political science and journalism. He has spent the last few years observing and writing about the political maneuvering at Georgia’s state Capitol and regularly publishes updates in a Substack newsletter called Peach State Politics. He is currently studying to earn a graduate degree and is eager to cover another exciting political year in the battleground state where he was born and raised.

Dems eye shock win in red state election — as GOP frets voters 'completely checked out'

Democrats are hoping to shake up a deep red district in a special election Tuesday that promises to send a clear message on President Donald Trump's second term in office.

Debra Shigley, a Democratic attorney and mother of five, has told voters in Georgia to "send a message" to Trump and vote for her for Georgia State Senate, District 21. She's facing political outsider and Republican candidate Jason Dickerson, the Washington Post reported.

The two candidates are vying for the seat north of Atlanta, which became vacant when Trump appointed Sen. Brandon Beach, the Republican incumbent, as U.S. treasurer.

Shigley has campaigned with the head of the national Democratic Party, which hopes to add a win to the red state and add to its string of recent special election victories.

Although Republicans are expected to hold the seat, according to analysts, Democrats could narrow the margin or pull off a shocking win in a district that is "really Republican at the presidential level,” Kyle Kondik, an elections analyst for the nonpartisan site Sabato’s Crystal Ball, told The Post.

Kondik expects Shigley will “at least do better than what the presidential [margin] was.”

In the 2024 presidential election, Trump had two-thirds of the vote. During his reelection last year, Beach had 70% of the vote.

Shigley finished first in initial balloting for the special election and had 40% of the vote in the race as the only Democratic candidate. While Dickerson, who competed against six other Republicans, took the lead in his party.

While off-year elections might not predict the next major election, it is a temperature check. Democrats have seen success in recent months and some Republicans are worried, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) who mentioned the upcoming election and complained in a recent podcast that Republican voters “have completely checked out.”

Democrats see an opportunity to break through in a traditionally Republican state.

“We’re going to fight for every vote in Senate District 21 because the stakes couldn’t be higher,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement. Martin visited the Peach State to campaign with Shigley over the weekend. His goal is to keep pushing the momentum that Democrats have gained while Trump has come back to the White House.