Amid debate fireworks, Georgia U.S. Senate candidates reveal key positions

Today’s newsletter highlights:

• Raphael Warnock votes early, joins Keisha Lance Bottoms on campaign trail.
• One of Brian Kemp’s longtime advisers is making his next move.
• Record-breaking turnout marks Georgia’s first day of early voting.

Senate showdown

The second and final debate between Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Collins and Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff was an explosion of fury, accusations and personal attacks.

But amid the fireworks, there was real news in both what the candidates said and what they refused to say.

If last week’s Atlanta News First debate discouraged direct confrontations, Tuesday’s Atlanta Press Club showdown gave the two rivals room to unload on each other. And boy, did they.

Ossoff turned just about every question into an attack on Collins, hammering him over an ongoing ethics investigation, his support for the war against Iran and his loyalty to President Donald Trump.

At least three times, he pressed Collins to say whether he still believed Trump “won” the 2020 election, which the Republican took as an opening to attack former President Joe Biden’s policies.

Collins seemed to have borrowed from Ossoff’s strategy in the first debate, lacing his answers with challenges to his opponent even when they had little to do with the question at hand.

He invoked tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, an Ossoff donor with past ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, almost a dozen times. Ossoff hit back by saying Trump’s name appears “a thousand times” in the Epstein files.

Neither candidate seemed willing to give the other an inch.

Ossoff stayed on offense from start to finish, channeling the anger of Democratic voters who want Trump and his allies held accountable.

Collins was equally determined to portray the Democrat as an out-of-touch liberal beholden to national Democratic interests rather than Georgia voters.

But amid the barrage of insults, we learned a few things:

• Ossoff made a 2028 pledge. Facing questions about his presidential ambitions before a national audience, Ossoff said he had “zero interest in running for president” and committed to serving his full six-year Senate term if reelected.
• Collins rejected accusations of white nationalism. Asked directly whether he was a white nationalist, Collins denied it. When Ossoff called him “weak” for failing to stop his son-in-law from posting neo-Nazi conspiracies, Collins fired back by blaming Ossoff’s rhetoric for death threats.
• Ossoff left the door open to expanding the Supreme Court. Asked whether he would support adding justices to the nine-member bench, Ossoff said he wouldn’t rule out “judicial reforms,” though he emphasized the need for a binding ethics code for Supreme Court justices.
• Collins still wouldn’t say Trump lost in 2020. Despite repeated questions, Collins refused to acknowledge directly that Trump lost Georgia and the presidency to Biden. He instead argued that his position was already known and that there were doubts about the election. “Yes, Joe Biden was the president. And yes, we saw the results of the Biden presidency.”
• Collins clarified his abortion stance. Collins said he backed Georgia’s current law, which restricts most abortions as early as six weeks but includes limited exceptions. Collins said during a 2022 debate for his U.S. House seat that he has “always been and always will be 100% pro-life, period — no exceptions.”

Things to know

Good morning! The midterms are in 20 days. There are 16 days of early voting remaining. Here are three things to know for today:

• Even before Rick Jackson disrupted Georgia’s political landscape in February by announcing his candidacy for governor, he was best known by the shorthand “healthcare executive.” But that description barely scratches the surface, Chris Joyner reports.
• Metro Atlanta nonprofits registered significantly fewer newly naturalized U.S. citizens relative to the 2024 election cycle — the result of a Trump administration directive that barred their access to most citizenship ceremonies, Lautaro Grinspan reports.
• Georgia legislators are considering improvements to post-conviction litigation as the state’s top judges warn of poor representation provided to some indigent defendants, Rosie Manins reports.

Reinforcements

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock cast his vote in DeKalb County Tuesday and joined former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms for a news conference to make the case for her to be the next governor of Georgia.

It’s not the first time Warnock has been on the campaign trail for Democrats. But that hasn’t kept some activists from asking why he’s headed on a multistate tour to campaign for Senate hopefuls around the country instead of stumping in Georgia. Did we mention some of those states also host early 2028 presidential contests?

Warnock told the AJC that he sees flipping control of the U.S. Senate is one the most important things he can do for the state.

“So, even as I’m showing up in places that are important for making sure that happens, I’m fighting for Georgia, and at the same time, I have continued to fight for all of the folks who are running right here in Georgia,” he said.

Bottoms stepped up to the mic to say she’s on board with the strategy, adding that it hasn’t shortchanged what Warnock is doing for her.

“There’s not been a single moment that I’ve not called Senator Warnock, and that he hadn’t called me,” she said. “Quite frankly, he called me a day or two ago asking, ‘Tell me what else I can do to help.’ And that has been consistent throughout the course of this campaign.”

Turned out

Georgia voters turned out in droves Tuesday, shattering the state’s first-day early voting record for a midterm election.

More than 188,600 Georgians cast ballots in person, nearly 40% more than the 134,962 who voted on the opening day of early voting in 2022 in the previous midterm election cycle.

The turnout also dwarfed the 2018 midterm election, when 70,849 Georgians voted in person on the first day.

“This record-breaking turnout proves that voters have confidence in the integrity of our elections,” said Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. “It’s a testament to our strong election system overseen by 159 of the best county election officials in the country.”

Hall’s move

We’re still waiting to see what Gov. Brian Kemp does next. One of his longtime advisers is making his move.

Cody Hall is joining Think Big, a Washington-based public affairs firm, as a senior vice president tasked with expanding its reach in Georgia and across the Southeast.

Hall has been in Kemp’s orbit since the bruising 2018 race against Stacey Abrams, serving as his chief spokesperson and a key campaign aide.

He helped Kemp recruit and cultivate political allies, and worked to shape the governor’s successful push last year to overhaul Georgia’s civil litigation rules.

“I’ve relied on and trusted Cody’s counsel in countless decisions over the last eight years,” Kemp said. “From dealing with the media, navigating an ever-changing political environment, or shaping public opinion and perception, there’s no one with better experience or instincts.”

The new gig comes with a political component, too. Think Big’s sister company, the political consultancy Go Big Media, is also expanding its Georgia footprint.

“Georgia will continue to be the center of the political universe in 2028 and beyond,” said Dean Petrone, Go Big Media’s managing partner.

That’s a calendar Kemp watchers are keeping handy, too.

Fulton fight

The Georgia Supreme Court today will hear arguments in a long-running dispute over the composition of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections.

Last year the county Republican Party nominated Jason Frazier and renominated Julie Adams to serve on the board, which oversees county elections. Frazier has challenged thousands of voter registrations, though a county review found the vast majority of the voters were legitimate and found no illegal voting. Adams refused to certify the county results of the 2024 presidential primary.

The Fulton County Commission rejected both nominees as unsuitable. The GOP sued and initially won in superior court, where a judge ruled the county must accept the party’s nominees. But the Georgia Court of Appeals later reversed that ruling, saying county commissioners had discretion to reject nominees.

Today the state Supreme Court will hear arguments from both sides. A final ruling could be months away.

Chyron cringe

Ossoff’s name was misspelled in the chyron at the start of Tuesday night’s U.S. Senate debate.

The typo was fixed around 15 minutes into the hourlong debate. But screenshots are forever and the Republican Party’s campaign arm for Senate races poked fun.

“John Ossoff: misspelled name, misaligned policies,” was posted alongside a photo on the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s account on X.

Listen up

Today on the “Politically Georgia” podcast Greg Bluestein, Patricia Murphy and Sara Gregory discuss what Georgia’s next governor can do about traffic and transit. Tia Mitchell shares MARTA CEO Jonathan Hunt’s case for state funding.

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