Democratic governor debate reveals the race beneath the race
For the first and likely last time, all seven Democratic contenders for governor shared the same debate stage Monday. And they made clear they weren’t playing nice.
Candidates who have mostly avoided direct confrontation spent the Atlanta Press Club debate testing each other’s vulnerabilities, sharpening policy contrasts and previewing the attacks they’ll unload in the final stretch before the May 19 primary.
Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, long able to float above much of the fray, faced head-on criticism from a top rival over one of the darkest moments of her mayoral tenure.
Former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, meanwhile, faced repeated questions over his long record as a GOP leader, including his past support for Georgia’s abortion restrictions. He responded with his usual contrition, promising to repeal the limits he once championed.
And former DeKalb County chief executive Michael Thurmond made news of his own, proposing to cut Georgia’s state sales tax in half and eliminate the tax on feminine hygiene products as part of an affordability pitch.
Here’s a closer look at a race that is entering a more aggressive phase, as candidates jockey for a spot in a runoff against Bottoms — and try to stop her from scoring an outright victory.
Bottoms faces heat
Former state Sen. Jason Esteves was the first Democrat to go directly after Bottoms, targeting one of the most painful episodes of her tenure as Atlanta mayor: the 2020 killing of 8-year-old Secoriea Turner amid unrest in the city.
He said Bottoms “let gang members take over blocks of Atlanta and told police not to intervene,” allowing lawlessness to spiral into violence that resulted in Turner’s shooting death. He cast the killing, along with a pending wrongful death lawsuit against city officials, as a liability that would haunt Bottoms in the November campaign.
Bottoms accused Esteves of lying about her record, but then offered a measured reflection on the tragedy, saying any leader would wonder if something could have been done differently after the death of a child.
“I made every decision that I thought was the best decision at that time,” she said. “But you cannot have the death of a child, of any child, and not wonder, what if anything you could have done differently?”
Thurmond’s tax talk
Thurmond is already the rare Democrat who talks aggressively about cutting taxes, usually a favorite GOP talking point.
But on Monday, he went further by using the debate stage to announce he would seek to cut Georgia’s 4% state sales tax in half.
He framed the proposal as an affordability measure aimed squarely at working-class Georgians, calling the sales tax the state’s most punitive levy.
“It is regressive, it is painful, and it is a burden that we should lift,” he said.
It’s a pocketbook message designed to help Democrats compete on tax relief terrain that Republicans usually dominate. But Thurmond will face ongoing questions about how he’d pay for it.
Thurmond did not detail the financing on the debate stage. But afterward, he said in an interview the plan could be funded by eliminating tax credits and cutting other state expenses — mimicking a similar Republican proposal aimed at paying for big cuts in income and property taxes.
Abortion rift
Like he has at most campaign events, Duncan acknowledged he changed his position about the state’s 2019 anti-abortion law. He pledged both executive and legislative action to roll back the law he helped pass back when he was the Republican lieutenant governor.
He’s trying to use his Republican pedigree to appeal to moderates, independents and “disgusted Republicans” while making his newfound support for abortion rights a centerpiece of his decision to switch parties.
“I was wrong to think a room full of state senators knew better than millions of women,” he said, saying that voters helped him acknowledge a mistake. “It became abundantly clear that women absolutely deserve the right to choose between themselves, their faith, their family and their physicians.”
Education split
Education prompted one of the clearest policy divides of the debate, with candidates broadly agreeing that Georgia’s decades-old school funding formula needs an overhaul but splitting over how far the state should go on supporting choice-based programs.
Several candidates called for rewriting or fully funding the state’s Quality Basic Education formula, which has guided school funding since the 1980s and has withstood calls for an overhaul for decades.
But the sharpest exchange came when state Rep. Derrick Jackson criticized Esteves for backing a 2025 measure that incentivizes local school districts to approve more charter schools, arguing it weakens traditional public schools.
Esteves, a former chair of the Atlanta Public School board, was unapologetic.
“It’s an option. It’s a school choice option for public school kids,” Esteves said. “Just like a career technology school would be an option for public school kids, I want to make sure that Georgia students across the state have more options.”
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.
