In this episode of The Geor­gia Hour, host BKP dives into the high-stakes Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) races set for next Tues­day, empha­siz­ing that Repub­li­cans cur­rent­ly hold all five seats and bear full respon­si­bil­i­ty for outcomes—whether vot­ers praise their stew­ard­ship of pow­er bills or decry ris­ing costs tied to explod­ing data cen­ter demands. BKP warns that the tim­ing of recent Atlanta Jour­nal-Con­sti­tu­tion (AJC) arti­cles feels orches­trat­ed: one on Democ­rats’ grow­ing dis­trust in Geor­gia’s elec­tion sys­tem (with over a third of Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry vot­ers now lack­ing con­fi­dence in the 2026 pri­maries, a sharp rever­sal from past Repub­li­can skep­ti­cism), anoth­er cri­tiquing the “cer­tifi­cate of need” process, and yet anoth­er spot­light­ing the $10 bil­lion data cen­ter boom requir­ing the equiv­a­lent of 10 new nuclear plants with­out promised bill hikes.

Shift­ing to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic PSC chal­lengers, BKP rolls video of a can­di­date vow­ing to “work across the aisle” with at least two sit­ting com­mis­sion­ers by forc­ing data cen­ters to pay fair shares for their “sweet­heart” pow­er deals, revalu­ing solar ener­gy to low­er bills (coun­ter­ing fos­sil fuel favoritism), and curb­ing new expen­sive infra­struc­ture. He notes heavy ad spend­ing in Demo­c­rat-heavy munic­i­pal­i­ties like Atlanta and Sandy Springs, fram­ing this as a turnout strat­e­gy to mobi­lize left-lean­ing vot­ers on envi­ron­men­tal and cost-of-liv­ing issues.

 

BKP dis­sects an AJC poll reveal­ing par­ti­san inver­sions: 80% of like­ly GOP pri­ma­ry vot­ers now express faith in elec­tion integri­ty (down to just 6% “not con­fi­dent at all,” plus 13% “not so con­fi­dent”), while Democ­rats’ doubts have dou­bled since 2024. He spec­u­lates this nar­ra­tive aims to silence Repub­li­can elec­tion con­cerns and shrink Don­ald Trump’s influ­ence, urg­ing vig­i­lance as “ground­work” for future con­tro­ver­sies unfolds.

 

The con­ver­sa­tion veers inter­na­tion­al with light­heart­ed spec­u­la­tion: Did Gov. Bri­an Kemp “bump into” Trump dur­ing unver­i­fied sight­ings in Japan, South Korea, and even a Geor­gia tire shop? BKP ties this to Kem­p’s poten­tial 2028 ambi­tions.

 

A deep­er AJC poll seg­ment high­lights bipar­ti­san frus­tra­tion with Trump’s han­dling of Jef­frey Epstein files, with the host not­ing Trump’s recent backpedal urg­ing advo­cates to “move on,” cre­at­ing a new Geor­gia polit­i­cal fault line.

 

The episode’s fiery core tar­gets Rep. Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene (MTG), whom BKP por­trays as lash­ing out at “weak” GOP lead­er­ship for fail­ing to repeal Oba­macare after a decade, safe­guard Social Secu­ri­ty, or deliv­er results despite con­trol­ling the White House and Sen­ate. Quot­ing her viral statements—“I’m dis­gust­ed with our own par­ty” and “I’m not going to sit back and watch weak lead­er­ship squan­der the opportunity”—BKP high­lights MTG’s broad­sides against Geor­gia Repub­li­cans: call­ing the state par­ty a “good old boys club,” endors­ing Josh McCoon (now aid­ing Lt. Gov. Burt Jones’s guber­na­to­r­i­al bid) only to lat­er under­mine him, and express­ing unhap­pi­ness with Sen­ate hope­fuls like Mike Collins, Bud­dy Carter, and Derek Doo­ley, plus guber­na­to­r­i­al con­tenders like Jones, Chris Carr, and oth­ers. Despite past sup­port for the Geor­gia GOP (includ­ing finan­cial aid to oust BKP), MTG has washed her hands of them, hit­ting pod­casts, CNN, and even earn­ing praise from AJC’s Patri­cia Mur­phy for her can­dor.

 

BKP pre­dicts MTG could upend the 2026 guber­na­to­r­i­al field: If she runs, she’d like­ly clinch the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion by swip­ing Trump’s endorse­ment from Jones (flash­ing her red hat and MAGA cred to heal vot­er rifts), and—controversially—he sees a real shot at win­ning the gov­er­nor­ship out­right. This “not mend­ing fences” stance, he argues, posi­tions her as a dis­rup­tor, poten­tial­ly enrag­ing Kemp (push­ing him toward a Sen­ate run) and alien­at­ing estab­lish­ment fig­ures with­out Trump’s back­ing.

 

Wrap­ping up, BKP spot­lights Geor­gia GOP infight­ing: Upson Coun­ty GOP Chair Lisa Pierce is door­knock­ing for New Jer­sey’s Repub­li­can guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date Jack Ciattarel­li, backed by RNC “all-hands-on-deck” efforts nation­wide (includ­ing Geor­gia’s RNC com­mit­tee­woman Amy Kre­mer), sig­nal­ing nation­al opti­mism for a Gar­den State flip. In con­trast, he blasts state par­ty chair Sal­ly Grubbs as a “nasty” uni­fi­er who sub­tly attacks allies—like shad­ing coun­ty efforts or part­ner­ing with “bad peo­ple” groups—while ignor­ing grass­roots pleas for cohe­sion. A humor­ous aside on a botched graph­ic exchange under­scores the chaos, but BKP calls out the par­ty’s fail­ure to ral­ly for PSC and munic­i­pal races.

 

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