Republicans are terrified of losing the governor’s race in this state
Republicans are terrified of losing the governor’s race in this state
Outgoing Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp on Wednesday called a special session of the Peach State Legislature, ordering the GOP-controlled body to redraw the state’s congressional maps for the 2028 cycle to extract more seats for his party.
Why would Kemp ask the Legislature to redraw the maps now, even though they wouldn’t go into effect until the next election cycle, you ask?
It’s because Republicans are terrified they will lose the governor’s race this fall. If Democrats win the open gubernatorial contest, it would prevent Georgia Republicans from passing a rigged Republican map next year as the governor has veto power over the redraw.
And Georgia electing a Democratic governor is a real possibility this year, as President Donald Trump’s abysmal approval rating threatens to sink members of his own party up and down the ballot.
A recent poll from a Republican polling firm found the likely Democratic nominee leading all of the possible Republican candidates in a hypothetical general election matchup. It’s easy to see why.
Already, Georgia is showing signs of Democratic strength. Democrats notched massive over-performances in a handful of special elections, including a 25-point over-performance in former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s congressional district.
What’s more, in December Democrats flipped a seat in the Georgia state House that Trump had carried in 2024, according to data from the Downballot. And early voting in the state’s upcoming primaries on Tuesday has been heavily Democratic, even though both Democrats and Republicans have competitive statewide primaries.
As of Wednesday, Democrats have a nearly 11% turnout advantage on Republicans. That’s a massive shift from the 2022 election, when Republicans outvoted Democrats at this stage of early voting by 15%.
Worse yet for Republicans is that their early voting turnout is actually down from this same point in the 2022 cycle, which itself was a mixed year for the GOP with Kemp winning reelection but Republicans losing the Senate contest to Sen. Raphael Warnock.
Ironically, Kemp’s decision to redraw the state’s congressional maps to rig future elections for Republicans could increase Democrats’ chances of winning the governor’s race—as well as narrowing GOP control of the Legislature—this year.
That’s because Kemp’s naked effort to disenfranchise Democratic voters could juice Democratic turnout this fall, further eroding Republicans’ odds at victory.
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But Kemp came to the conclusion that the risk that Republicans wouldn’t be able to axe Black Democratic lawmakers from Congress through racist gerrymandering efforts blessed by the right-wing United States Supreme Court outweighed the risk of boosting the Democratic wave this fall.
Ultimately, Georgia is clearly slipping away from the GOP. And their effort to gerrymander their way to victory reeks of desperation.
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