Georgia’s campaign season heats up as politicians tease runs for higher office

Lt. Gov. Burt Jones finally took the plunge and entered the race for governor, confirming the worst kept secret in Georgia politics. Are U.S. Reps. Mike Collins and Marjorie Taylor Greene the next to announce bids for higher office? They sure are sending those signals.

Greene, the firebrand Rome Republican, is again teasing a potential bid for Georgia’s top job, posting that voters are “really mad” that state leaders have yet to eliminate the state’s income tax.

“Consistently throughout our history and still this day, raising taxes and refusing to lower taxes will not be tolerated well by the people of Georgia,” she said.

Collins, meanwhile, seems to be doing everything to telegraph a Senate bid but filing paperwork. In a video posted on X, he said he’s nearing a decision on whether to take on Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff.

“We deserve to have two U.S. senators out there fighting for us and protecting us — not some woke overlords or some far-leftwing California donor base,” he said.

He added that he never planned on running for Senate as a second-term lawmaker.

“But I also understand that sometimes you don’t do what you want to do, but what you need to do,” he said.

Then there are the quieter contenders waiting in the wings.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is weighing a GOP run for either governor or U.S. Senate. And former DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond is considering joining the Democratic race for governor.

Things to know

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

Good morning! Here are three things to know for today.

Cha-ching

Credit: Greg Bluestein/AJC

Credit: Greg Bluestein/AJC

The numbers are in. Here’s a closer look at how the most prominent candidates for Georgia governor fared during the latest financial reporting period, covering February through June.

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, who pulled back her Democratic bid for governor because of her husband’s health struggles, has refunded most of the $80,000 she collected. That includes a donation from former Gov. Roy Barnes, the last Democrat to hold Georgia’s top job.

And the GOP money race for lieutenant governor — a battle between three powerful state senators — is as heated as you’d expect.

On the Democratic side, state Sen. Josh McLaurin of Sandy Springs, took in about $120,000 and has $110,000 in his coffers.

Here comes the money

Credit: Jenni Girtman for the AJC

Credit: Jenni Girtman for the AJC

Republican super PACs devoted to U.S. Senate races across the country raised an eye-popping $85 million during the first six months of 2025, more than doubling the previous record of $38 million raised during the same period in 2023.

But how much of that money will make its way to Georgia?

The Senate Leadership Fund says it was responsible for more than half of Republican spending in competitive Senate races last year. Up until last week, it was a good bet a big portion of that money would come to Georgia as Republicans try to defeat Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff.

But as AJC columnist Patricia Murphy noted, North Carolina U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis’ sudden retirement announcement could complicate things. It means Republicans will have to spend big to win an open seat that they hadn’t counted on, potentially diverting money that could have come to Georgia.

Regardless, it appears Republicans will have plenty of money to go around. The Senate Leadership Fund and its issue advocacy affiliate, One Nation, say they have $83 million in cash on hand during new Majority Leader John Thune’s first election cycle at the helm of Senate Republicans.

Senate Democrats aren’t sitting still. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee launched a new digital ad campaign slamming Republicans over cuts to Medicaid in President Donald Trump’s sweeping policy package that he signed into law last week.

The 30-second spot features clips of news anchors highlighting the potential impacts of the bill’s Medicaid provisions in Georgia and other battleground states.

End of an era?

Georgia’s budget reserves are forecasted to fall slightly for the first time since 2020, according to an analysis by Danny Kanso, senior fiscal analyst at the nonpartisan Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.

That’s because Georgia lawmakers agreed to pull about $3.7 billion from the state’s reserves to pay for one-time spending projects and to return about $1 billion to taxpayers in the form of rebate checks of up to $500 per household.

Georgia’s budget surplus this year — estimated at about $1.3 billion — isn’t enough to cover that spending. Thus, the slightly smaller reserves.

Kanso said he predicts Georgia will have about $15 billion in reserves instead of the $16.5 billion it started the year with. But that’s still large enough to put it among the states with the highest reserves.

Mayor for Senate

The dominoes are starting to fall in Georgia politics as sitting elected officials announce their plans to run for higher office and open up their current jobs to new candidates in the process.

On Tuesday, Forsyth Mayor Eric Wilson announced that he’s running for the seat in Senate District 18 currently held by state Sen. John F. Kennedy, R-Macon, who has announced his own run for lieutenant governor.

Before being mayor of the Middle Georgia city for nearly 10 years, Wilson was on the city council for six years. He also owns and runs an ambulance service. He said he plans to run as a “common sense conservative.”

Listen up

Credit: Evan Vucci/AP

Credit: Evan Vucci/AP

Today on the “Politically Georgia” podcast The Washington Post’s Marianna Sotomayor joins the show to explain how Congress managed to pass President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill before his self-imposed July 4 deadline.

You can listen and subscribe to the show for free at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Have a question or comment for the show? Email us at politicallygeorgia@ajc.com or give us a call at 770-810-5297 and you could be featured on a future episode.

Trump’s layoffs

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to move forward with plans to lay off scores of federal workers and drastically downsize agencies.

With only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting, the court said it was not commenting on the legality of the order but won’t stand in the way of Trump’s orders while litigation continues.

The ruling is likely to have an effect at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where hundreds of workers have been laid off and then reinstated.

Other agencies affected, according to the Associated Press, include the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Labor, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Small Business Association, Social Security Administration and Environmental Protection Agency.

Today in Washington

Pulpit politics

Credit: Dustin Chambers/The New York Times

Credit: Dustin Chambers/The New York Times

Pastors can endorse candidates during religious services without risking their churches’ tax-exempt status, the IRS recently announced.

The decision deals with an existing but rarely used IRS rule called the Johnson Amendment that prohibits churches and other tax-exempt organizations from endorsing or speaking against political candidates. The New York Times reported that the new IRS standard would exempt religious organizations from the Johnson rule, established in 1954.

The National Religious Broadcasters, an association of evangelical media, is among the plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit in an attempt to stop the government from enforcing the Johnson Amendment.

During his first term in office, President Donald Trump called for a repeal of this IRS rule. Pastors who talk politics during worship have rarely been cited for violating the Johnson Amendment, but the IRS’s latest decision now makes it clear that such actions are legal.

Shoutouts

Credit: Hyosub Shin

Credit: Hyosub Shin

Today’s birthdays:

Transition:

Want a birthday shoutout in the Politically Georgia newsletter? There’s a form for that. Click here to submit the shoutouts. It’s not just birthdays. We’re also interested in new jobs, engagements, birth announcements, etc.

Before you go

Credit: AJC file photo

Credit: AJC file photo

The Trump administration’s decision to withhold $7 billion in education grants will essentially freeze about $200 million earmarked for Georgia schools.

That’ll do it for us today. As always, you can send your best scoops, gossip and insider info to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com and adam.beam@ajc.com.