Who's In the Race

Republican Rick Jackson and Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms face each other in Georgia's open-seat governor's race set for Nov. 3. The seat is open because Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who won it in 2022, is not running for reelection. ​

Bottoms won the May 19 Democratic primary with 607,221 votes out of 1,080,150 cast, about 56 percent of the total. Jackson advanced to a Republican primary runoff after finishing second in the May 19 primary, then won the June 16 runoff over Burt Jones by 37,532 votes, a margin of about 5 percentage points.

Endorsements

Jackson has drawn endorsements from Donald Trump, Sonny Perdue, Brian Kemp and Nathan Deal. Former U.S. House member Tom Price and Nick Ayers have also endorsed Jackson. That combination of a sitting president, two former governors, and two former cabinet officials gives Jackson a deep bench of Georgia Republican establishment support heading into November.

Bottoms, the Democrat, has been endorsed by Barack Obama and Eric Holder. Maryland Governor Wes Moore and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer have also endorsed Bottoms. Bottoms has assembled a national Democratic coalition behind her, with two former presidents, a former attorney general, and three sitting governors all lending their names to her bid.

Race Outlook: Ratings and Polling

Three major race-rating outlets all call Georgia a toss-up. Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball each rate the race a Toss-up, updated Oct. 28. Inside Elections also rates it a Toss-up, updated Oct. 23.

Polling aggregated by Legis1 through Oct. 27 across 65 polls shows Jackson leading Bottoms by just 0.5 points. A gap that narrow, across that many polls, underscores why every major rater calls this a coin flip heading into Election Day.

Previous Elections

Donald Trump carried Georgia in the 2024 presidential election with 51 percent of the vote to Kamala Harris's 49 percent, a margin of about 115,100 votes. Georgia had been a reliably Republican state in presidential elections for decades before flipping to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, making it one of the most closely watched battlegrounds in the country.

In the 2022 governor's race, Kemp defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams by 297,899 votes, more than two and a half times Trump's 2024 margin of 115,100 votes in the state.

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