These are the 10 questions that will shape Georgia politics in 2026
After a year of political shocks, fractured alliances and unexpected upsets, Georgia heads into 2026 with more uncertainty than clarity.
Here are the 10 questions that will shape the year ahead.
Can Democrats keep up the momentum?
Georgia Democrats ended the year on a high note. They scored their first statewide non-federal victories in nearly two decades by ousting two incumbent Public Service Commissioners, and stunned Republicans again by flipping a GOP-held state House seat in a December special election.
They ended the year relishing the public rupture between two of their biggest adversaries: U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and President Donald Trump.
Now Democrats enter 2026 giddy about U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s reelection chances — and convinced that Trump’s slipping approval ratings could fuel the backlash that powered their 2020 victories.
Republicans counter that off-year elections rarely predict midterm outcomes. And they still control every lever of state power. But the mood inside GOP circles has shifted from confidence to concern.
Will Republicans move closer to Donald Trump — or start creating daylight?
Stop us if you’ve heard this before: Trump remains wildly popular among Georgia Republican voters — and deeply polarizing to just about everyone else.
That tension shaped his rise to power, his first stint in office and his four-year exile. And now it frames his return to the White House.
But this term isn’t like his first. His norm-shattering approach to immigration, government spending, trade and foreign policy leaves Republicans with a choice: Embrace the president even more tightly or try to create a more independent brand like Gov. Brian Kemp.
Some have already chosen. Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and U.S. Reps. Buddy Carter and Mike Collins are hugging Trump even tighter as they seek higher office. Attorney General Chris Carr, who is running for governor, has begun to sound alarms.
“This is not going to end well for any of us,” Carr said of Trump’s use of the criminal justice system against political opponents. “And it isn’t going to end well for the American experiment.”
How much will Donald Trump’s endorsement matter?
The governor knows better than most the power and limits of Trump’s support. It fueled Kemp’s runaway 2018 runoff victory. It meant nothing in 2022, when Kemp crushed Trump’s hand-picked challenger by a margin his friends love to cite whenever MAGA critics surface: “Fifty-two points.”
Today, Republicans still treat Trump’s endorsement as the ultimate prize in Georgia GOP politics. But there are already signs it’s no longer a golden ticket. In the race for governor, Jones holds only a single-digit lead over GOP rivals despite Trump’s early backing. And polls show a restive base.
Is Keisha Lance Bottoms the Democrat to beat for governor?
The Democratic contest for governor has been surprisingly tame. The six main contenders are mostly minding their own business, staying in their own lanes and not striking out against rivals. That won’t last.
Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms holds a hefty early polling advantage and is seen as the candidate to beat.
She’s already faced scrutiny over her tenure at City Hall and decision not to seek a second term. What she hasn’t faced yet is sustained multi-million-dollar fire from Democratic rivals.
Most strategists see her with a spot in a runoff against a fluid field of rivals facing their own questions: Can Jason Esteves break through? Does Michael Thurmond turn his experience into votes? And can Democrats forgive Geoff Duncan his GOP past?
Can anyone defeat Jon Ossoff?
The first-term Democrat will always be tabbed the party’s most vulnerable incumbent on the midterm ballot thanks to a key distinction. He’s the only one running this year in a state that Trump carried in 2024.
But Democrats are growing more bullish and Republicans more uneasy. Some GOP insiders are even openly reassessing how much emphasis to commit to the race over others that may be more winnable.
Ossoff is leaning into his advantages: a massive fundraising base, a strategy that fires up Democrats while appealing to the middle, a voting record that marries liberal priorities with bipartisan pragmatism and a long history of battling Trump.
The race will tighten. It always does. And Ossoff won’t ever declare confidence. It’s in his interest to say it’s down to the wire. But it’s impossible to ignore the GOP anxiety that Trumpism could drag down the ticket.
How will Brian Kemp use his lame-duck year?
The governor heads into 2026 with unfinished business — and no clear answer about what comes next.
He’s now competing for oxygen with lawmakers worried about their own reelections. But even as a lame-duck he still holds enormous influence, and his allies expect him to take a big swing in his final legislative session.
He’s also all-in on one of the biggest political gambles of his career, backing political newcomer Derek Dooley’s Senate bid over two House members by opening donor lists and political machinery to help the former football coach.
The race will help shape Kemp’s legacy and test his clout one last time. Beyond that, Kemp faces stark choices: Will he push unfinished priorities? Play party referee? Or start shaping the post-Kemp GOP?
Then there’s the question of what he’ll be doing at this time next year. Maybe he’s jumpstarting a White House bid or a Senate run. Or maybe he’ll land back in Athens as the next president of the University of Georgia.
What will Marjorie Taylor Greene do next?
The year ended with a political earthquake that no one saw coming.
The lawmaker who once said the Republican Party “belonged” to Trump is stepping down after a bitter feud with the president. And she’s questioning her own role in the “toxicity” of the MAGA movement she helped define.
What’s next for her is a mystery. She ruled out runs for governor and Senate. She brushed aside talk of a White House campaign. She talks fondly about doting over grandchildren one day.
But nobody believes she’s fading quietly into private life. Since announcing her resignation, she’s railed against a chemical plant in her district, slammed the president’s foreign policy and launched new broadsides at her own party.
That doesn’t sound like someone preparing for a quiet rocking-chair retirement.
Who is behind the multimillion-dollar blitz targeting Burt Jones?
What began as a $1 million ad buy hammering Jones has now ballooned more than six times as much, transforming into a barrage of attack ads, texts and mailers.
It’s one of the most sustained and mysterious campaigns in modern Georgia politics.
The secretive group behind it, “Georgians for Integrity,” has masked its donors behind layers of paperwork stretching from Delaware to Utah.
Ethics complaints have yet to crack the shell. Neither have legal threats. And no one involved in the group is talking.
Whoever is funding the barrage has threaded the needle carefully — avoiding explicit references to the 2026 midterms or Jones’ candidacy to skirt disclosure rules.
The shadowy ads are the talk of Georgia’s political circles. But this is more than a political parlor game.
The ads have rattled Jones and unnerved his allies. They also offer a glimpse of the dark-money warfare to define the race — and pressure Jones to tap into his personal fortune earlier than he planned.
Can Georgia escape the shadow of 2020?
Some of Trump’s fiercest Georgia allies ended the year still living in the past, relitigating false claims of widespread election fraud stoked by the president and his loyalists.
The obsession with Trump’s narrow 2020 defeat continues to split Republicans between those who want to move on and those who argue that digging in deeper will energize the base.
That tension shapes everything from county-level GOP meetings to top-tier statewide campaigns, where candidates still debate how loudly to talk about an election that’s long since been certified and adjudicated.
Democrats, meanwhile, argue that every minute Republicans spend rehashing 2020 is a minute they’re not talking about the economy, affordability or public safety.
What will be the “surprise” fight of the legislative session?
Every year, lawmakers arrive in Atlanta with a familiar menu of red-meat priorities. And just about every year, a surprise issue jostles them.
Think former Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle’s fight with Delta Air Lines over gun rights in 2018, or Kemp’s push for sweeping abortion limits a year later, or the pandemic restrictions of 2020.
This year? Watch for data centers to return to the spotlight. Communities are increasingly vocal about the strain on power grids and infrastructure even as lawmakers weigh job growth and tax revenue.
And a late-year audit questioning whether tax breaks for data centers are worth the cost could fuel the fight.
Other big questions we’re watching
Will the founders of First Liberty Building & Loan face criminal charges? The politically-connected company collapsed in June, triggering state and federal investigations. But so far there are no indictments.
Will there be a November runoff? Georgians are used to overtime matchups in top statewide races. But the lackluster performance by Libertarian candidates in the 2024 election deprives them of an automatic spot on the ballot. That could change the nature of the midterms.
Will the Democrat left gain traction? After the party’s progressive wing was rebuked in some off-year elections, the party is poised for more internal friction.
Who will emerge in Georgia’s three open U.S. House races? A trio of deep-red seats are up for grabs, and the biggest free-for-all of them all is in Greene’s northwest Georgia district.
Will Republicans find new ways to punish Fani Willis? The Fulton County district attorney remains a top GOP target since she brought her now-collapsed election interference case against Trump and his allies.
About the Author
Greg Bluestein is the Atlanta Journal Constitution's chief political reporter. He is also an author, TV analyst and co-host of the Politically Georgia podcast.
