Democratic state Rep. Ruwa Romman is running for governor, aiming to carve out a progressive lane in a race for Georgia’s top job that’s already crowded with high-profile contenders.
Her campaign is focused on working-class families, built around a platform to expand social services, reopen shuttered hospitals, raise the minimum wage and, as she put it, “fight for the people and not the corporations and billionaires.”
“Republicans have controlled our state for over 20 years and in that time we’ve ranked lower in education, hospitals have shut down and the minimum wage remains at an abysmal $5.15 an hour,” she said Monday, calling for a movement to bring about a “Georgia we can afford.”
She’s competing with a populist argument in a field dominated by more traditional and centrist Democrats, including former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, party-switching ex-Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, former state Sen. Jason Esteves and former DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond.
Romman, 32, immediately tests whether Georgia Democrats are ready to embrace a two-term legislator calling for generational change in a race filled with better-known and more experienced rivals.
“Of course, the political realities will make pursuing these goals hard, but isn’t Georgia worth trying for?” the Gwinnett lawmaker said. “Isn’t it time to imagine what could be instead of insisting that what currently exists is the only possibility?”
Romman, first elected in 2022 to a deep-blue Gwinnett district, is the first Muslim woman in the Georgia General Assembly and the first Palestinian American elected to public office in the state.
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Born in Jordan and the granddaughter of Palestinians, her outspoken views on the Israeli-Hamas war has made her a prominent voice for younger progressives at a time of deep Democratic divisions over the conflict.
With limited name recognition but a devoted liberal base, Romman symbolizes the rising left in Georgia politics. She campaigned vigorously for Zohran Mamdani in New York, even penning an AJC editorial arguing that Democrats in Georgia could harness the same frustrations that helped propel him to the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor.
“Georgians deserve leaders who they can believe will fight for them, not sell them out,” she said. “The days of giving corporations everything while the rest of us get crumbs must come to an end.”
She supported the “Leave it Blank” protest vote against then-President Joe Biden during Georgia’s presidential primary over his pro-Israel stance but also campaigned to prevent a second Donald Trump presidency.
Romman drew national attention at last year’s Democratic National Convention, where she hoped to share the story of her Palestinian family from the stage but was denied a speaking slot. Instead, she addressed protesters outside Chicago’s United Center.
Credit: Special
Credit: Special
Her advocacy has since made her a symbol of the uneasy balance many left-leaning voters face as they try to reconcile their deep ties to the Democratic Party with frustration over the pro-Israel positions of its establishment leaders.
It has also led to fierce backlash from Republicans and more mainstream Democrats. Among her sharpest critics is Democratic state Rep. Esther Panitch, the lone Jewish member of the General Assembly who said Monday that Romman has no path to victory and accused her of “sabotaging the Democratic Party with her Mamdani-like, socialist platform.”
“With the future of our country at stake,” Panitch said, “we can’t afford to indulge an unserious candidate’s ego for the highest office in Georgia.”
While her foreign-policy stances have drawn headlines, Romman has also been outspoken about progressive policies under the Gold Dome. She has pressed Democrats to take a more confrontational approach on a range of issues, from GOP resistance to Medicaid expansion to demands for more affordable housing.
“We are not obligated to take punches quietly, and we are not obligated to stand by and let them bully people without them feeling the consequences of that bullying,” Romman recently told the AJC. “I have no interest in being worried about their reactions to us doing the right thing.”
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