Michael Thurmond enters Ga. governor’s race pledging to be ‘bridge builder’

Thurmond is vowing to use state resources to offset the federal cuts in the Trump-backed tax and spending law, which could strip hundreds of thousands of Georgians from Medicaid rolls and reduce food stamp benefits to help pay for extended tax cuts and new defense and immigration enforcement initiatives.

He joins a crowded field of Democrats that includes former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, state Sen. Jason Esteves and state Rep. Derrick Jackson. Former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican-turned-Democrat, is also weighing a bid.

The 72-year-old argues there’s a lane for an old-guard Democrat who blends long-standing party priorities, such as expanding Medicaid and preserving rural health care, with a bipartisan governing style.

“It’s not so much fighting against Trump,” said Thurmond. “It’s fighting for working families in Georgia against Trump or anyone who seeks to deny them from getting the support they need.”

Credit: AJC file photos

Credit: AJC file photos

Whether that style will resonate with Democrats seeking a more confrontational approach during Trump’s second administration is unclear. Bottoms and Esteves, in particular, have built seven-figure war chests while making sharp-elbowed pledges to oppose Trump-driven “chaos.” Both have also promised to bring generational change to a state Capitol long dominated by conservatives.

But Thurmond has a record of winning votes well beyond metro Atlanta and was the top elected official for most of the last decade in DeKalb County, the state’s most important Democratic stronghold.

Whoever emerges will likely face a Republican contender who embraces Trump and his GOP agenda. Attorney General Chris Carr and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones are in a two-way battle for the GOP nod.

‘Honest conversations’

The son of Athens sharecroppers who grew up in a house with no indoor plumbing, Thurmond twice lost bids for a state legislative district before winning on his third try in 1986. His key to that victory, he said, was a hard-fought lesson to reach beyond the Black base of voters. His election made him the only Black lawmaker in Georgia to be elected from a majority white district at the time.

From there, his political career has run the gamut. After a failed congressional bid in 1992, then-Gov. Zell Miller tapped Thurmond to steer the Department of Family and Child Services in the 1990s.

Credit: Seeger Gray/AJC

Credit: Seeger Gray/AJC

He was elected state labor commissioner in 1998, becoming the first Black official in Georgia to win a statewide race without first being appointed. He served three terms, creating a program credited with helping tens of thousands of welfare recipients land jobs.

Thurmond was recruited as DeKalb’s superintendent in February 2013 to stabilize the school system when its accreditation was at risk. In 2016, he was elected to the first of two terms as CEO of DeKalb.

A veteran historian, Thurmond has spent much of the last year speaking to civic organizations about his book on James Oglethorpe, the Georgia founder who transformed from a slave trader to an abolitionist.

He’s drawn large crowds and applause even in deep-red areas. At a recent event in Cartersville, he won over an audience of hundreds with his call to bring more quality jobs to struggling communities. Stops like that one, he said in an interview, helped cement his decision.

‘Base-plus strategy’

This isn’t Thurmond’s first race for a marquee Georgia seat. He lost a 2010 challenge to Republican U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson and has periodically weighed bids for governor or Senate over the past two decades.

Now, Democrats are trying to reclaim the Governor’s Mansion for the first time in more than three decades — seeking a nominee who can succeed where Stacey Abrams fell short in back-to-back defeats to Gov. Brian Kemp.

Credit: KENT D. JOHNSON / AJC

Credit: KENT D. JOHNSON / AJC

While Democrats flipped both U.S. Senate seats in 2020 and helped deliver Georgia for Joe Biden, the state’s top job has remained out of the party’s reach since then-Gov. Roy Barnes lost reelection in 2002.

Thurmond has long argued that Democrats must appeal to a broad coalition of progressives, moderates and disaffected Republicans to win statewide — a sharp contrast to candidates pushing a more unapologetically liberal agenda.

“Obviously, you have to energize and invest in the base,” he said. “But the base isn’t enough. It’s a base-plus strategy. We have to engage independents, moderate Democrats, conservative Democrats and, frankly, Republicans who are distressed and embarrassed by what’s going on in Washington.”

Beyond building that coalition, he must also prove he can raise the enormous sums needed to compete in Georgia. If history is a guide, this race could easily top $100 million.

Now Thurmond faces the challenge of trying to match that pace and translating his long résumé into a winning message.

“What I bring to this campaign is a history and record of taking on tough jobs, standing in the gap and finding innovative solutions to what some would consider to be intractable problems,” he said.