Gabriel Sterling joins Republican race for Georgia elections chief
Gabriel Sterling, a leading defender of Georgia’s voting system who famously called for President Donald Trump to condemn election threats in 2020, entered the Republican race for secretary of state on Thursday.
Sterling, 54, immediately becomes the most well-known candidate in the race to succeed Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, his former boss.
He’ll face at least two rivals in the 2026 Republican primary, former U.S. Senate candidate Kelvin King and state Rep. Tim Fleming, the chairman of an elections study committee.
“Georgia elections are the safest in the nation and I will fight every day to keep it that way,” Sterling said.
Sterling garnered the national spotlight in December 2020, when he stood at the steps of the Georgia Capitol and told Trump to speak against threats to election workers.
“Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone’s going to get killed. Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language,” Sterling said Dec. 1, 2020. “This has to stop. We need you to step up.”
Five weeks later, on Jan. 6, 2021, a pro-Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol turned deadly.
Sterling, who was chief operating officer for the secretary of state’s office until he resigned this summer, is a lifelong Republican but became the target of conservatives who distrust Georgia’s election equipment.
Sterling oversaw the quick installation of the state’s $104 million voting system in time for the 2020 election. State lawmakers are now considering a switch from the touchscreen-and-printer system to hand-marked paper ballots.
After Trump lost, Sterling debunked allegations of fraud while the president’s supporters blamed equipment manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems.
Sterling will have to convince Republican voters — and especially Trump supporters — that he’s the best person for the job of overseeing Georgia elections.
He’s a close ally of Raffensperger, who also has drawn the ire of the Republican base after he refused Trump’s demand to “find” enough votes to reverse the results of the 2020 election.
Sterling previously served as a Sandy Springs city councilman from 2011 to 2017. He lost a race for Fulton County Commission that year.
No major Democrats have announced their intention to run for secretary of state so far.
About the Author
Mark Niesse is an enterprise reporter and covers elections and Georgia government for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and is considered an expert on elections and voting. Before joining the AJC, he worked for The Associated Press in Atlanta, Honolulu and Montgomery, Alabama. He also reported for The Daily Report and The Santiago Times in Chile.
