Before I tell you what I am about to tell you, I need to tell you this: Back in 2001, as incumbent Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes was gearing up for a second term, a know-it-all columnist wrote, “I hear people say Roy Barnes will have a tough reelection. Forget it. Roy Barnes will easily win a second term.”
Oops. Despite leading all the pre-election polls and outspending his opponent 6-1, Barnes lost to a relatively unknown state senator from Bonaire named Sonny Perdue, making Perdue the state’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction. So much for that know-it-all columnist knowing it all.
It is with that proviso I note that former Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan has announced he is running for governor in 2026 — as a Democrat. And entering the Republican gubernatorial primary is Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who couldn’t and wouldn’t find Donald Trump's 11,780 votes to overturn his loss in Georgia in 2020, earning him the righteous wrath of Peach State RITNOs (Republicans in Trump’s Name Only).
Do these two guys really think they’ve got a snowball-in-Hades chance of winning? They must, or they would not have committed to the effort. At this point, I would rate their chances somewhere between slim and none — and then I remember the 2002 governor’s race and say, 'Let's wait and see.'
Start with Raffensperger. He is one of three Republicans vying to replace term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp, alongside State Attorney General Chris Carr and current Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who has already received the endorsement of President Trump.
But let’s not forget that, with the exception of Jones, not one single statewide candidate endorsed by Trump won in 2022. None. Zero. Nada.
Raffensperger beat Trump’s choice handily without a runoff in the Republican primary, and then waxed his Democratic opponent in the general election.
Of course, the state Republican Party, which is to politics what the Keystone Kops are to law enforcement, passed a resolution barring Raffensperger from running as a Republican. Like most everything about that bunch, the resolution has no relevance.
Raffensperger is reciting all the proper Trumpisms, as though he and the president are close and that the 2020 election outcome, with 11,780 votes not found, has long since been forgotten. He says he wants to purge from the school curriculum all things “woke,” keep girl athletes separated from transgender athletes, ban transition surgeries and puberty blockers, and work with Trump on economic, immigration, and law enforcement policies. I assume he assumes RITNOs have a short memory.
And now to Duncan. He says he wants to make Georgia “the front line of democracy and a backstop against extremism.”
Extremism, as in President Donald Trump. While serving as Georgia’s Republican lieutenant governor, Duncan strongly opposed efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and has since called Trump “the worst candidate in the history of the party.”
Choosing not to run for a second term, he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and called on Republicans to “dump Trump.”
This guy is starting between a rock and a hard place. Republicans consider him a turncoat, and many Democrats consider him an interloper at best or an opportunist at worst. As lieutenant governor, Duncan opposed almost all of the Democratic Party’s agenda, including abortion, gun control, Medicaid expansion, and immigration.
On a recent Atlanta newspaper podcast, Duncan said, “I think the highest quality an effective leader can have is having the ability to say that they got something wrong. And I got it wrong.”
Question: Is that high-quality leadership or crass political expediency?
Either way, he appears to have made a sudden about-face on several fundamental issues. Give Geoff Duncan credit for one thing, though; he has managed to unite both Democratic and Republican partisans, as neither likes him.
So here we are, roughly eight months from the primaries, when you and I will select the Republican and Democratic nominees for governor. Among our choices are a man who stood up to Trump and created a national firestorm, now saying he is firmly on the team, versus a high-profile former Republican lieutenant governor turned Democrat who abhors all things Trump.
In politics, a lot of things can — and probably will — change in the run-up to the primaries eight months hence. But one thing is certain: you won’t be reading some know-it-all columnist telling you how it’s all going to turn out.
He will leave that decision to you. Lesson learned.
Reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough.com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139.