Georgia’s 2026 Showdown: Kemp, Trump, and the Fight for the GOP Ticket

Explor­ing Georgia’s polit­i­cal buildup to the 2026 midterms. With a bal­loon­ing state bud­get and its 11-year streak as the top busi­ness state, Geor­gia antic­i­pates major deals post-leg­isla­tive ses­sion. The U.S. Sen­ate race head­lines the GOP’s push to turn Jon Ossoff’s seat red, with spec­u­la­tion cen­ter­ing on Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp’s poten­tial run—bolstered by hints of a Trump endorse­ment. Kemp’s tort reform and media blitz sug­gest he’s posi­tion­ing to lead the tick­et, though his past razor-thin win over Stacey Abrams (0.2%) under­scores the stakes. Alter­na­tives like Mike Collins, who authored the Trump-signed Lak­en Riley Act, or Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene (MTG), eye­ing the Sen­ate or gov­er­nor seat, could shake things up—MTG might even chal­lenge Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. Democ­rats, led by Atlanta’s may­or, loom as a guber­na­to­r­i­al threat. The AJC is poised to exploit any GOP mis­step, and with­out a strong top can­di­date, the pod­cast warns Democ­rats could flip key offices, mak­ing Kemp’s next move piv­otal.

• Every­thing is get­ting ready to come togeth­er in GA for 2026. There have been enor­mous increased in the GA state bud­get and for the past 11 years GA has been the #1 state to do busi­ness. We are get­ting ready to have a lot of deals unfold imme­di­ate­ly. Once the leg­isla­tive ses­sion ends. 
• The top of the tick­et will be the US Sen­ate seat. There will be a bat­tle over that seat. They want that seat to go red. They need some­one that can car­ry the tick­et. There is a lot of talk that Kemp will not run. But if you notice there is a lot of this hap­pen­ing, all eyes on GA as Bri­an Kemp con­sid­ers whether to take on Jon Ossoff in Sen­ate elec­tions. Many of the pic­tures look as if Trump and Kemp have made a deal? Will Kemp run for sen­ate and Trump endorse him? When Mike Collins ran for the 10th dis­trict he did not get the Trump endorse­ment and sup­port­ed Trump and showed the peo­ple how and who a Trump sup­port­er is. To top it off Mike Collins spon­sors the Lak­en Riley Act that Trump signs as his first bill. Will Mike Collins run for Sen­ate? Or will MTG run for Sen­ate? Or will she run for Gov­er­nor and pull the car­pet out from under Burt Jones? There is a lot going on here. But could Kemp box every­one out of the way? What kind of deals have Bri­an Kemp made in GA, as gov­er­nor of the state he holds the con­trol in the next polit­i­cal moves. If you don’t have the right can­di­date at the top of the tick­et, the democ­rats are able to flip a con­sti­tu­tion­al office. 
• Kemp is doing inter­views every­where right now. His tort reform bill is pack­ing a lot of mon­ey in. Is he run­ning for Sen­ate to pull the entire tick­et? Democ­rats have the may­or of Atlanta, ready to go and could be the next gov­er­nor of Geor­gia. The last time there was a true pri­ma­ry, Bri­an Kemp only beat Stacey Abrams by 2 tenths of a per­cent. Could repub­li­cans have the one can­di­date that could hurt the entire tick­et? The AJC is wait­ing to have that one per­son to pull the repub­li­can tick­et to get a demo­c­rat in. The AJC will do all they can to make a real strug­gle for repub­li­cans up and down the bal­lot.