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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger rejects presidential push Donald Trump To overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, it triggered a 2026 Republican governor bid among key countries on the Southeast battlefield.
Raffensperger’s announcement on Wednesday will add more dramatic Republican governor junior Between Governor Lieutenant Burt Jones and State Attorney General Chris Carr.
Despite Raffensperger’s long record as a conservative Republican, he may face Trump’s ridicule, who last month recognized Jones as governor.
“I am a conservative Republican and I am ready to make tough decisions. I am following the law and the constitution and I will do the right thing for Georgia anyway,” Raffensperger said in a campaign release video. “As governor, I will provide a bold conservative agenda and build a stronger Georgia.”
Republican-turned Democrats launch Georgia governor bid
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced his 2026 Republican bid for governor. (AP Photo/Ben Gray File)
Raffensperger’s agenda includes eliminating state income taxes, limiting property taxes on seniors, abolishing taxes and fees to reduce real estate expenses, expanding tax credits chosen by parents’ schools, and banning drugs, thus preventing gender care and clearing of “wake schools” during adolescence.
A statement from his campaign also highlighted that Raffensperger promised to “work with President Donald Trump and congressional leaders to bring work back to Georgia, expel criminals, and restore law and order in communities across the state.”
The 70-year-old engineering entrepreneur, along with Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, refused to help Trump as the president tried to reverse the 2020 2020 election victory for current President Joe Biden’s Joe Biden’s Joe Biden’s 2020 2020 election In Georgia.
The most vulnerable Republican governor in 2026 launches re-election
Trump put pressure on Raffensperger on a conference call in early January 2020, when the president urged Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s victory. Raffensperger told Trump at the time that his data was wrong, “we think our number is right.”
This won the contempt of the then-Chengish president, who expressed support for Kemp and Raffenspegel’s top Republican challenge when Trump ran for reelection in 2022.
Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp digitally with Fox News during his 2022 reelection campaign. He is term-limited and cannot be operated again in 2026. (Paul Steinhauser-Fox News)
But Kemp and Raffenspeg ended up easily defeating Trump-backed main challengers on the way to the election victory.
Kevin Donohoe of the Democratic Governors Association noted that Raffensperger’s 2026 campaign argued that it “injected a certain amount of chaos into an already messy primary, which is bad news for Burt Jones and Chris Carr.”
Raffensperger’s announcement comes the day after former Republican Governor Lieutenant Geoff Duncan launched a Democratic campaign for the governor of Georgia.
Duncan, who served as governor and a vocal critic of Trump’s repeated efforts to overturn his loss in Georgia in 2020, decided not to seek reelection in 2022.
Former Georgia Governor Lieutenant Jeff Duncan announced his Democratic bid Tuesday. (Getty Image)
Duncan recognized Biden in the 2024 presidential campaign, later after then-Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden at the top of the Democratic 2024 votes. Duncan in his highly anticipated speech Democratic National Congress Last summer in Chicago. Earlier this summer, he announced he had a party and became a Democrat.
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Duncan joins a Democratic elementary school field that already includes former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, former DeKalb County CEO Mike Thurmond and former state Senator Jason Esteves.
Although Georgia was once right, it has become the main election battlefield. But since 2002, Republicans have won all the state’s gubernatorial contests.
