Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks to reporters at the Georgia State Capitol in November 2020. (AP Photo)
The field of candidates vying for Georgia governor in 2026 is getting more crowded. Two lieutenant governors. A Secretary of State. An attorney general. A former mayor.
But something five of the contenders have in common: Their political lives were profoundly shaped by a turbulent 2020.
In 2020, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms was in her third year as Atlanta mayor when COVID-19 began spreading across the country.
Bottoms tangled with Republican Gov. Brian Kemp over safety measures like mask mandates. That summer, she wrestled with how to respond to racial justice protests over the murder of Georgia Floyd.
“This is chaos,” Bottoms said at a press conference. “A protest has a purpose. If you care about this city, then go home.”
After the tumult of that year, Bottoms declined to seek a second term.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, left, consoles Tomika Miller, the wife of Rayshard Brooks, at the conclusion of his funeral in Ebenezer Baptist Church on Tuesday, June 23, 2020 in Atlanta. Brooks, 27, died June 12 after being shot by an officer in a Wendy’s parking lot. (AP Pool Photo)
How the 2020 election still lingers over Georgia politics
That November, President Donald Trump tried to reverse his election loss in Georgia, including with a now infamous call to Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger a few months later.
“I just wanna find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said.
“We don’t agree that you have won,” Raffensperger said. “And I can go through that point by point.”
Republican Attorney General Chris Carr, another candidate for governor, also declined to help Trump undermine the result.
But Republican Burt Jones, then a state senator, responded differently to Trump’s claims. He signed onto an alternative slate of electors for Trump, though he has said this was just a contingency plan depending on how litigation over the election played out.
A special grand jury investigated the activities of Jones and dozens of Trump allies, ultimately recommending the indictment of Trump and others. A judge disqualified the Fulton County district attorney’s office from investigating Jones, now the lieutenant governor, and a special prosecutor declined to charge him with any crimes.
The lieutenant governor in 2020 was Republican Geoff Duncan. But his party’s continued embrace of Trump spurred his political evolution.
The next year, Duncan said he would not run for reelection. By 2024, he was campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris in her bid for the White House.
Georgia Republican Burt Jones, then a state senator and now lieutenant governor, hands in an electoral certificate claiming to be a duly chosen elector for Donald Trump on Dec. 14, 2020, at the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta. (AP Photo)
