Trump’s negotiations with Pope could be politically costly
Trump’s conflict with the pope has divided Catholic supporters and could be politically damaging.
Georgia’s midterm election season is in full swing, with voters heading to the polls in the primaries in a few weeks.
Early voting for the primary election begins April 27th, and Election Day is May 19th statewide.
Dozens of seats, from governor to school board, will be on the ballot this year as the country’s political situation remains tense. Midterm elections are always a referendum on which party is in power, but this year, perhaps more than ever before, Republicans across the country will have to explain their low approval ratings in Washington, D.C.
In the Peach State, retired Brigadier General Sean Harris had the best performance in Democratic history in the recent runoff election in the 14th Congressional District, even if he didn’t deliver a victory in the deep red parts of the state. Trump-supporting Republican District Attorney Clay Fuller won the seat once held by controversial former MAGA star Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Harris’ near-success raises an important question for the rest of the state: Will Georgia lean blue in the midterm elections?
Georgia gubernatorial election poll
An Echelon Insights poll released April 21 showed Democrats leading in both Georgia primary races.
In the gubernatorial race, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat, will likely defeat Brad Raffensperger, Rick Jackson, or Bert Jones, with one of them likely to become the Republican candidate.
According to the poll, Mr. Bottoms won 49% of the vote compared to 43% for Mr. Jones, also beating Mr. Jackson by a tie. Mr. Raffensperger came in first with 46% of the vote to Mr. Bottoms’ 44%.
The poll does not compare other potential Democratic candidates (such as Jeff Duncan, Michael Thurmond, and Jason Esteves) to the Republican candidate.
georgia senate polls
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff is seeking re-election unopposed in the primary for his U.S. Senate seat, but polls also show he has an edge over his Republican challenger in the general midterm election.
Against Buddy Carter, Ossoff won 52% to 43%. In the race against Mike Collins, Ossoff narrowly won with 51% of the vote to Collins’ 44%. The poll did not compare Mr. Ossoff to Mr. Kemp’s favored candidate, Derek Dooley.
But Andra Gillespie, an associate professor of political science at Emory University, cautions against reading too much into the polls. In Georgia, only 407 people were surveyed, with a margin of error of 6.5 percentage points.
“The biggest problem with these polls is that the sample size is low, so with a 6.5 percentage point margin of error, someone would have to lead by more than 13 points to be able to statistically say that someone is in the lead,” Gillespie said in an interview with USA TODAY. “If you’re looking for granularity, I think you need a larger sample size.”
That said, given the number of candidates and their name recognition on both sides of the ticket, the primaries in these two races are likely headed for runoffs, Gillespie said. If necessary, a runoff election will be held in June.
“When you have this many candidates, especially when so many candidates have that profile, there’s a very good chance that one of them won’t get 50% of the vote,” Gillespie said. “That means there are two options on the MAGA side and two options on the establishment side for the Republican vote.”
Gillespie said the Democratic Party has “very qualified candidates” who will divide Georgia’s liberal wing.
The special election was a ‘harbinger of Democratic enthusiasm’
While the vote count may not go well, Sean Harris’ turnout in Georgia’s 14th District earlier this month bodes well for Democrats across the state.
“I think the results are indicative of the mood and consistent with some of what people are seeing in some of the national polling that Democrats are more engaged in this election,” Gillespie said. “If there’s more excitement on the Democratic side, you’d expect turnout to go up and voter support for Democratic candidates to increase. After all, in midterm years, it’s not uncommon for the president’s party to lose seats in Congress, so I would expect Democrats to do better than in previous years…I think that bodes well for Democratic enthusiasm.”
The leading candidates in the gubernatorial race appear to be largely united on issues, supporting repealing the six-week heart rate bill, expanding Medicaid, and pausing the development of new AI data centers. But while each candidate has name recognition, each has issues that need to be addressed if they are to win over centrist Republicans.
Keisha Lance Bottoms was the mayor of Atlanta and had a lot of support in the metropolitan area, but she chose to serve only one term before serving in the Biden administration. Jeff Duncan also has a lot of support, but just four years ago, as a Republican, he served as lieutenant governor under Brian Kemp and supported an anti-abortion law that he now plans to repeal. Michael Thurmond has been in politics for decades, working in a variety of fields, but some worry that he doesn’t fit in with the new brand of the Democratic Party, which is ushering in a new generation of leaders. Jason Estevez has been gaining momentum late in the race, but it’s unclear if he has enough name recognition in the state to challenge the top three.
Ossoff is the incumbent in the Senate race and will run unopposed in the primary election with the United Democratic Party on his side. He is campaigning across the state, which Gillespie said is essential to winning. But he’s not just at odds with Republicans. He’s also trying to outperform past Democrats.
“In Sen. Ossoff’s case, the fact that he’s an incumbent may actually be an advantage for him, but he’s going to have to organize in the states and as part of that mobilization effort, part of his winning strategy, he’s going to do better than expected or outperform Kamala Harris and Joe Biden in some of the states that they were expected to lose,” Gillespie said. “So we’re not just winning in blue parts of the state; we’re actually outperforming in red parts of the state. What Sean Harris has done is conceptually prove that this is possible. Now we just need to scale it up and do it in every other Republican congressional district in the state.”
USA TODAY has reached out to the Democratic National Committee for comment on the race and is awaiting a response.
Republicans go back to basics
Republicans within the party and in the state are warning red candidates not to get too comfortable in Georgia.
Governor Kemp said in a recent interview that Republicans have a “tough cycle” ahead of them.
“I’ve told many Republicans that no matter who the president is, the midterm elections with a Republican president are already tough enough and we’d better stay focused on 2026,” Kemp said. “If we don’t stay as focused as we were back (in 2018), we’re very close to winning again in the Georgia governor’s race and making a comeback in the Senate race, so that’s what we need to focus on.”
After leaving the Trump bubble, Marjorie Taylor Greene has also expressed her dissatisfaction with the party by speaking out about Epstein and the Iran war.
“We can’t afford to spend any amount of money to lie to voters and get them to vote Republican right now,” she wrote in an April 22 post on X in response to Democrats’ victory in Virginia’s redistricting. “If Trump and the Republican Party had made good on their promises, things would have been different.”
Bert Jones and Rick Jackson are both vying for MAGA votes in the gubernatorial race, but only one has the president’s support. Both candidates, who have been leading the Republican Party in polls so far, are spending much of their political capital competing against each other to avoid a runoff.
Governor Kemp’s endorsement has done little to help Derek Dooley, who is trailing Buddy Carter and Mike Collins in the Senate race. While their campaign is primarily focused on the upcoming Democratic race this summer, they are also targeting Ossoff’s voting record and the recent TSA disruption at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
But Republicans are clinging to many of the same talking points they used in the 2020, 2022 and 2024 elections.
“Jon Ossoff was an ally of lawbreakers, fought for men in women’s sports, and tried to block the largest middle-class tax cut in history,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Emma Hall told USA TODAY in an email. “Keisha Lance Bottoms defunded the police, closed small businesses, and pushed Joe Biden’s radical agenda. The Democratic Party brand is a toxic, failed disaster, and Republicans are looking forward to forcing these crazy businesses to respond to their extremism.”
Gillespie said that among the Republican base, that’s not what’s actually at stake in the primary or general election. Let’s talk about the president.
“I think Bert Jones is not just a staunch ally of Trump, but a loyal ally of Trump. So it’s strange that he would try to soften himself. It doesn’t fit his brand, and I don’t think it’s part of his DNA,” Gillespie said. “I think the really interesting strategy is Rick Jackson’s, because he’s new to politics. I’m curious to know whether aligning so squarely with the MAGA platform was a strategic or advantageous choice for him.”
Eileen Wright is an Atlanta Connect reporter for USA Today’s Deep South Connect team, covering the Georgia midterm race. X Find her at @IreneEWright or email her at ismith@usatodayco.com.
