There’s more than a year to go until the 2026 midterm election. But in battleground Georgia, the races for U.S. Senate, governor and a host of other contests are already heating up. Georgia has played a critical role in recent elections, and it’s expected to again prove a bellwether.
At the state Capitol, there’s a wide-open race to replace Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is prevented by term limits from running for reelection.
In Washington, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, is seeking a second term and trying to prove that Georgia is still a swing state, despite backing Donald Trump for president in November.
Then there are a host of down-ballot races — from statewide constitutional officers to members of Congress to state legislators.
Senior Superior Court Judge David Emerson set an emergency hearing for Wednesday to hear why Democratic members of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners refused to seat two Republicans nominated to the county election board.
A week ago, Emerson ordered commissioners to seat Julie Adams and Jason Frazier on the election board, despite their misgivings. The judge threatened to hold commissioners in contempt if they did not comply.
Adams and Frazier were nominated to the board by the Fulton County Republican Party. Adams, an incumbent election board member, voted against certifying last year's primary and Frazier has lodged thousands of voter registration challenges in the county.
In last week's order, Emerson wrote that the commissioners' delays were "in bad faith" and threatened to hold them in contempt if they refused to seat the GOP nominees. Nevertheless, a short-handed board on Wednesday voted 2-2 on approving them and the measure was defeated.
Emerson ordered the commissioners to produce agendas and minutes of the meeting when they appear in court next week.
Republicans elected Florida state Sen. Joe Gruters as the new chair of the Republican National Committee during their summer meeting in Atlanta.
Gruters replaces Michael Whatley, who formally resigned on Friday. Whatley is running for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina, hoping to succeed Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis — who opted not to run for reelection.
Gruters was the only candidate in the race. President Donald Trump endorsed him for the job last month, and no one filed to challenge him.
"Today is not about one person, it is about our mission," Gruters said. "The midterms are ahead, where we must expand our majority in the House and Senate and continue electing Republicans nationwide."
Vice President JD Vance just wrapped a roughly 25-minute speech where he ripped Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff and defended the Republican-backed tax and spending law.
He characterized the sweeping measure — which President Donald Trump dubbed his "big, beautiful bill" — as a way to “make America great again — for Americans.”
Vance said Ossoff and his other Democratic allies “don’t care” about everyday Georgians.
He said Trump “finally put the government to work for the people who actually make this country function and run in the first place.”
While Vice President JD Vance spoke to Republican leaders in Atlanta on Thursday, Democrats attacked the Georgia visit as "a last-ditch effort to flip the script" on President Donald Trump's tax-and-spending bill, signed into law last month.
“Donald Trump is sending his most loyal puppet down to Georgia in a desperate attempt to salvage the wreckage from Republicans’ disastrous, deeply unpopular budget scam," Democratic National Committee chairman Ken Martin said in a statement released Thursday.
"Republicans did not hesitate to gut Medicaid, defund hospitals, and rip away food assistance from over a million Georgians to enrich their billionaire donors," Martin said. "Look what it got them: plummeting approval ratings and intense backlash from betrayed Georgians ready to channel their wrath at the ballot box."
Fresh off President Donald Trump’s endorsement, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones is tying his bid for governor directly to the White House.
"I couldn't be happier to have a partner in the Trump-Vance administration," said Jones, who secured Trump's backing last week.
Jones is running as a MAGA loyalist to succeed Gov. Brian Kemp, who cannot seek a third term. But he will first have to face Attorney General Chris Carr in the GOP primary. Carr is positioning himself as the more mainstream alternative.
Gov. Brian Kemp didn’t attend Vice President JD Vance’s rally, but he issued a statement welcoming the Republican to the state to “highlight the great successes of the first eight months of the Trump administration.”
Not long ago, Kemp’s absence at these sorts of events were a given. Trump blamed him for his 2020 defeat and vowed to defeat him. But the two struck a truce during the 2024 campaign, and it’s held over the last year.
Kemp, whose office said he had a prior commitment on Thursday, has good reason to keep the relations warm: He wants Trump to back former football coach Derek Dooley, the governor’s pick for U.S. Senate.
Vice President JD Vance's first stop in metro Atlanta was a closed-door Republican National Committee members meeting where he touted the GOP agenda and ripped into Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff.
Vance serves as the finance chair for the RNC, which is holding its summer meeting in the city. It's a rare move for a sitting vice president, but it gives him influence over the GOP's campaign wing ahead of the midterms.
He's the first sitting vice president to serve in that role, and it could give him an edge as he weighs a potential 2028 presidential race.
One by one, the three GOP Senate rivals competing to take on U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff tested their message before Vice President JD Vance took the stage.
U.S. Reps. Buddy Carter and Mike Collins hit tried-and-true themes touting President Donald Trump's agenda and attacking Ossoff as too liberal for Georgia.
But much of the attention was on former football coach Derek Dooley, who delivered his first public campaign speech.
Dooley leaned into his gridiron roots, telling voters they get to decide whether Ossoff will be the state’s “starting quarterback for the next six years” after aligning with President Joe Biden’s agenda.
"And I don't know about you guys, but where I come from, when you deliver those kind of results, your ass is on the bench."
While Vice President JD Vance was speaking to Republican leaders in Atlanta on Thursday, his wife, second lady Usha Vance, visited a Cherokee County charter school to promote her literacy initiative.
Usha Vance visited with students and teachers at Cherokee Classical Academy, a public charter school, and spoke about her Summer Reading Challenge initiative.
"We want every child to know that reading opens doors — not only to education, but to imagination, opportunity and achievement," she said.
The Vances are in Georgia for a meeting of the Republican National Committee and to promote President Donald Trump's agenda to Republican voters.
The last time a sitting vice president traveled to Peachtree City, Dan Quayle stopped by Fayette County High School amid a 1992 campaign swing.
On Thursday, dozens of county officials and business leaders packed into the Alta Refrigeration plant to greet Vice President JD Vance.
The visit was arranged by U.S. Rep. Brian Jack, a first-term Republican and former Trump aide who is from Peachtree City — about 25 miles south of Atlanta. He singled out about two dozen local elected leaders who packed the room.