Ex-Republican Geoff Duncan Runs as Democrat for Georgia Governor

In the Georgia governor’s race, Geoff Duncan’s candidacy tests American politics as much as it tests his political appeal.

The former Republican lieutenant governor is now a Democratic candidate for governor, with former Biden official and ex-Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms leading in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. A Republican remains favored to win, with billionaire Rick Jason facing Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones.

Though his candidacy may not succeed on May 19, Duncan asks Democratic voters to consider what an off-ramp for Republican leaders should look like in the waning days of the Trump era, questioning whether switching parties and rearranging political values is sufficient.

“I think the audience of receptive Republicans is a lot bigger than what most folks would think in the Republican party,” Duncan said. “It’s not fun to have to defend Donald Trump.”

He said that task has become increasingly difficult, even in rural Georgia. “These farmers in these legislative districts have absolutely got a knife in the back from Trump,” he said. “A lot of them voted for Trump in 24, yet now they might lose their farms because of these stupid tariffs that nobody can explain.”

Brushback for opposing Trump is something the former professional baseball player knows acutely.

Both Duncan and Republican Governor Brian Kemp, who is retiring, refused Trump’s demands to set aside the 2020 election results in Georgia and call a special legislative session to declare Trump the winner. Duncan went on CNN after the election to urge Trump to accept the results and focus on Georgia’s two U.S. Senate contests, rather than continue the contest and “damage the brand.”

Instead, Trump added Duncan to his enemies list.

“Our family received death threats virtually every time Donald Trump went to Twitter and lied about me,” Duncan said in congressional testimony afterward. “We were harassed by Maga disciples almost everywhere we went out in public. Our kids got picked on in school. The list goes on and on and on, all because I was telling the truth.”

Thus began Duncan’s partisan apostasy. He outlined a path for conservatives in a post-Trump era in his 2021 book “GOP 2.0.” He testified in the Georgia racketeering case against Trump and his allies, defying Trump’s demand to stay home. He began attending Democratic events, campaigned for Kamala Harris, and spoke at the Democratic National Convention.

Georgia has seen this before. The state had Democratic governors uninterrupted from Reconstruction to 2002, when Sonny Perdue – who switched from Democrat to Republican as a state senator in 1998 – defeated Democratic Governor Roy Barnes in a racially polarized campaign after Barnes removed the Confederate battle flag from the state standard. The last conservative Democrats soon switched parties, taking the legislature with them.

Duncan says he has abandoned hope for a renewed Republican party as articulated in his book.

“First and foremost, the Republican party has sailed their ship over the horizon, it’s gone. There will be nothing left when Donald Trump’s done with it,” Duncan said. “Some of his minions may try to hold the pieces together. I think that’s a foregone conclusion.”

The feeling is mutual. Georgia’s GOP establishment has excommunicated Duncan, barring him from Republican events and even party-owned property. Officials expunged records of his past nominations to elected offices, symbolically recasting him as a never-Republican.

After two sharp losses to Kemp, some Democrats offer a cynical electoral argument for Duncan: that a straight, white, committed Christian family man and reformed Republican can draw cross-party voters better than a field of candidates resembling Stacey Abrams rather than the last Democrat governor, Roy Barnes.

Critics counter with Senator Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s first Black U.S. senator. But Duncan does not market his party relationship or racial appeal; he offers a profile in political courage and experience with lawmakers and policymaking.

“I can’t just campaign with a bunch of rhetoric and make a bunch of shallow promises and then show up as damaged goods like so many folks winning elections these days,” Duncan said. “I’ve got to actually show up and be willing to do what I said I’m going to do, and that’s build consensus, solve problems, not pick fights, and stay away from just pandering just to get votes. I think that’s part of the coalition that’s coming together to elect us.”

Duncan wants to tap Georgia’s $17 billion rainy-day fund to address childcare costs and reduce poverty. He supports expanding Medicaid, which Georgia has not done, and would prioritize diverse hiring in state government, rejecting anti-DEI demands from the Trump administration.

He would reverse the 2019 “heartbeat law,” which he helped pass, outlawing most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected around six weeks.

“I was wrong to think a room full of legislators knew better than millions of women on the issue,” Duncan said. “They don’t. I’ve certainly come to realize in a very real way that women have complicated medical scenarios and deep personal situations that a legislator would never totally ever be able to understand.”

Duncan’s evolution on abortion raises doubts, which he concedes. The crowded Democratic race has seen little direct confrontation, but Duncan draws fire. State Representative Ruwa Romman, a former candidate, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution when Duncan switched parties in August: “He helped pass the same laws he now opposes. He could have expressed these thoughts for years now.”

Duncan’s former Republican colleagues, especially Lieutenant Governor and gubernatorial candidate Burt Jones, call his changes opportunistic.

The two have history. While Duncan fought election challenges, Jones mounted them. Duncan stripped Jones of a committee chairmanship in 2021; Jones later won the lieutenant governor race.

Duncan argues for empathy and policy focus. Georgia must prepare for life without federal partnership. “I think that’s what I hear so often in crowds across the state, day after day after day: ‘Can you just go do what you’re promising everybody you’re going to do?’” he said. “Look, there’s no stability at the federal government, there’s no friends of ours in the federal government. Donald Trump certainly doesn’t care about Georgia, he only cares about a status for himself in the mirror or using a sock puppet called Burt Jones.”