Confronted with the reality of four more years of Donald Trump in the White House, Georgia Democrats are beginning to draw up plans to oppose the president-elect that break from the protest-driven movement that followed his 2016 election.
This time around, there has been no groundswell behind an anti-Trump “resistance” or massive marches against his policies. Instead, party leaders talk of maintaining a focus on core issues, such as expanding Medicaid, while sharpening other agenda priorities.
And they talk about working with the Trump administration and other Republicans where possible, while mounting a determined opposition to measures such as new transgender restrictions that the GOP used as a wedge issue during the 2024 campaign.
Most of all, party leaders say they must learn from mistakes, including a muddled economic message and a misreading of the electorate’s mood after Trump bested Vice President Kamala Harris by about 120,000 votes and flipped Georgia back to the GOP.
“I’ve never learned much from my wins. I’ve learned more from my losses. And we need a sea change,” said Jen Jordan, the party’s 2022 nominee for attorney general. “We need to be ready. Because there will be a backlash against Donald Trump in 2026.”
Senior Democrats indeed agree the best cure for a postelection hangover is overreach and excess by their political opponents, from the White House to Gov. Brian Kemp’s office to GOP legislative leaders.
Credit: Christina Matacotta for the AJC
Credit: Christina Matacotta for the AJC
But while Trump has stoked controversy with polarizing picks for his incoming administration, Kemp and other senior Republicans have been careful to say they don’t feel emboldened to take up new abortion limits or similarly divisive policies.
“It’s the economy, stupid,” Senate GOP Leader Steve Gooch said of plans to cut taxes and limit spending next year. “We need to look back at what happened over the last four years. Democrats lost touch with their base. We have not.”
Some Democratic leaders say it’s not the policies that should change, but the way they are delivered to voters. After all, they say, Harris outdid Joe Biden in Georgia by more than 70,000 votes — more than other battleground states.
Baldwin County Democratic Chair Quentin Howell said pledges to preserve abortion rights, improve infrastructure and overhaul the criminal justice system helped propel Joe Biden, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to statewide victories in the past two election cycles.
“We saved the country in 2020 with our victories, and we did it again in 2021 and 2022,” Howell said. “We were on a roll with the same policies. What we need to do is what we’ve been doing: keep pressing the flesh, making sure voters know what we stand for.”
Culture wars
The party must hash out its trajectory in the crucible of upcoming elections. Ossoff faces a tough reelection fight in 2026, and Republicans will likely target him as a top pickup opportunity.
And there’s no clear Democratic front-runner in the race to succeed Kemp, who cannot run for a third term.
Further complicating the Democratic path forward is the ongoing fight over the party’s chair, U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, who is under pressure to step down after Trump’s victory.
She recently endorsed changes to the bylaws that could pave the way for her to relinquish her role, but to some, the battle over her leadership is just the start of a broader discussion.
Parker Short, the former leader of the Young Democrats of Georgia, said future Democratic contenders need to catch up with voters by making a more concerted push to back a higher minimum wage and legalizing sports betting and recreational marijuana.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
“Democrats failed to talk about material issues that impacted peoples’ lives,” Short said. “When you see Missouri voting to pass a $15 minimum wage, you see that voters want a populist message — and Harris wasn’t able to capitalize on that message.”
Other party leaders fretted that Democrats were maintaining their edge in metro Atlanta at the cost of slipping in other parts of the state. Trump increased his vote share in more than 130 of Georgia’s 159 counties compared with the 2020 election.
“Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett did what they needed to do. Gwinnett hobbled along. But we lost ground in most other counties,” said Nate Rich of the Cherokee County Democrats, who said he felt there was “zero focus” from the party in key rural and exurban areas.
“I’m glad we hit 70% Democrats support in Fulton, but at some point, we’re facing the law of diminishing returns,” he said. “We’re hemorrhaging in other counties.”
Credit: WSB-TV
Credit: WSB-TV
State Rep. Carolyn Hugley of Columbus, the newly elected House Democratic leader, said she expects a renewed focus on boosting education funding and enhancing job training programs to help the party work to close the gap in rural areas.
“I’m a country girl from Arkansas, so I can go to South Georgia and tell you the difference from soybeans and cotton when I see it,” she said. “We need to meet people where they are and talk to them about the things important to them.”
Most of all, perhaps, Democratic leaders say they are poised to capitalize on the potential for GOP overreach after Trump’s slim, but decisive, victory.
State Sen. Harold Jones II of Augusta, the Senate’s top Democrat, said the party will be ready to fight new efforts to impose abortion limits or adopt more permissive gun measures, which GOP leaders say is unlikely.
But what’s almost a certainty is a new push to ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports at the high school and college level, echoing policies that Trump and state Republican leaders embraced in the run-up to the 2024 vote.
“We want to make sure that voters realize that this is the same Republican Party that’s prioritizing culture wars” and not prioritizing other efforts, such as expanding Medicaid, Jones said.
“We won’t hesitate to show Georgians who is on their true side — and who is using these cultural issues as a distraction.”
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