Georgia will hold a competitive governor’s election in 2026, one that will draw attention, though one of the most headline-grabbing members of Congress decided against jumping in.
Several prominent Democrats and Republicans have announced bids to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and Attorney General Chris Carr are the leading candidates vying for the Republican nomination. Firebrand GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene passed on running for U.S. Senate and for governor, opting to run for reelection to the U.S. House.
The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.
State Sen. Jason Esteves, state Rep. Derrick Jackson and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who served in the White House under former President Joe Biden’s administration, are running for the Democratic nomination.
Georgia, once a Republican stronghold, has emerged as a key battleground state in the Trump era. In 2020, Biden won by just under 12,000 votes, placing Georgia at the epicenter of President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his election loss. In 2024, Trump won the state by two points. Georgia is represented in the U.S. Senate by two Democrats: Sen. Raphael Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is up for reelection in 2026 in what is expected to be one of the year’s most competitive races for the upper chamber of Congress.
Governors and state legislatures have become increasingly important and visible as the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress have delegated policymaking on abortion, child care, LGBTQ+ rights and more to the states.
Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, signed into law in 2022, has made national headlines. In 2024, ProPublica reported on women who died while seeking to end their pregnancies in the state. This year, Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old nurse from the metro Atlanta area, was kept on life support for 16 weeks after being declared brain dead because she was pregnant, her family said, pointing to Georgia’s abortion law as the reason they had to keep her on life support. In June, Smith was taken off life support after her baby was delivered.
In all, 36 governorships are up in 2026. Five Democratic-led states won by Trump in 2024 (Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) are holding elections for governor in 2026, while two Republican governors in states won by former Vice President Kamala Harris (New Hampshire and Vermont) are up for reelection.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled state Rep. Derrick Jackson's name.
