Georgia’s Chris Carr is already running for governor. Is it too soon?

Today’s newsletter highlights include:

Georgia dismantles pregnancy panel after leaked report.
Leader of conservative nonprofit faces ethics complaint.
U.S. House Republicans from Georgia win leadership posts.

Attorney General Chris Carr’s unusually early entrance into the governor’s race kicks off Georgia’s 2026 campaign season hardly two weeks after the 2024 race ended. It may also be testing the patience of the fellow Republican he wants to succeed.

Gov. Brian Kemp’s camp sent a signal after Carr’s announcement that it was too soon for candidates to start the 2026 cycle. After all, Kemp was just elected to lead the Republican Governors Association, which is charged with honing the national GOP strategy.

“The voters of our state and nation gave Republicans a mandate to govern just two weeks ago,” said Kemp adviser Cody Hall, who added the governor is focused on the upcoming legislative session and helping national Republicans “save our country.”

Indeed, the pre-Thanksgiving timing of Carr’s announcement surprised many analysts — and triggered snickering from Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones’ camp. The lieutenant governor is expected to jump in the race after the legislative session next year.

Credit: Alex Brandon/AP

Credit: Alex Brandon/AP

But Carr’s strategists are confident the timing will pay dividends. Unlike several of Carr’s wealthy potential rivals, he can’t self-finance his campaign and needs to start raising cash now, particularly since he can’t do so during the three-month legislative session.

It also affords him a platform in public and in the media as the first major party candidate, free to campaign around the state while other potential contenders are still on the sidelines.

What’s more, Carr had made it an open secret he was running for governor, laying the groundwork for years before he began to tell donors last year he would jump in the race. This move just made the inevitable official.

Some pointed to the relatively early start of the last wide-open race for governor in 2018. Back then, though, leading contenders – Kemp included – waited several months after the presidential election to announce.

The lietuenant governor’s camp, meanwhile, hopes Carr’s candidacy helps draw Donald Trump to Jones’ side – particularly if other MAGA figures like former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler wind up taking roles with the administration.

Will Carr’s timing trigger other candidates — up and down the ballot — to announce earlier? That’s the concern of some senior Republicans who worry a stampede of announcements — or, more likely, a new burst of behind-the-scenes jockeying — could make for an even more unpredictable legislative session.

Already, a guessing game is underway over who could run for Carr’s job. State Sens. Bill Cowsert of Athens and Brian Strickland of McDonough are among the potential candidates.

“I am honored that so many of my Senate colleagues and conservative leaders around the state have encouraged me to run,” Cowsert said. “I am seriously considering it and will make a decision after the upcoming legislative session.”

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Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC

GOOD MORNING! Georgia’s legislative session starts in 52 days. Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger are set to certify the election results today. But there’s still more than a dozen local races headed to a runoff on Dec. 3.

Here are three things to know for today:

There was no red wave among Georgia’s Latino voters this year, the AJC’s Lautaro Grinspan reports.
An Athens man avoided jail time for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, the AJC’s Chris Joyner reports.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been tapped to lead a House subcommittee to work alongside billionaire Elon Musk and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy at Department of Government Efficiency, Tia Mitchell reports.

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Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC

PENALTY POLITICS. The tragic murder case of Laken Riley, who was killed while jogging on the University of Georgia campus in February, ended this week with the conviction and life sentence of her killer, a Venezuelan man whom authorities say entered the U.S. illegally.

But the political fallout from the case will likely continue to reverberate. Conservatives made Riley a rallying cry during the 2024 election cycle, and it could continue over the next two years, especially after the local prosecutor in the case — District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez — decided not to seek the death penalty.

“If there was ever a case where the death penalty was appropriate, this is it,” state Rep. Houston Gaines, R-Athens, posted on X.

Gonzalez won’t be back as district attorney next year, losing her reelection bid to an independent candidate earlier this month. Meanwhile, far-right GOP state Sen. Colton Moore tried to blame Attorney General Chris Carr for not intervening in the case. Carr announced Thursday that he is running for governor.

“For him not to get involved in this one, knowing that the prosecutor was not going to seek the death penalty, is frankly just disappointing to me,” Moore said.

But Carr didn’t have the authority to intervene in the case, says B. Michael Mears, who has tried 27 death penalty cases in Georgia as the former director of the Multi-County County Public Defender Office and is now a professor at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School.

“The power to seek the death penalty resides solely at the discretion of the district attorney,” he said. “The senator may be outraged, but the attorney general doesn’t have the authority to do that.”

Attorney General spokesperson Kara Murray echoed that, saying the local district attorney had exclusive jurisdiction over the case.

“As a father, the Attorney General believes that the Court should have been able to consider the strongest possible sentence given the horrific nature of the crimes committed,” she said in statement. “Unfortunately, the current Athens District Attorney disagreed.”

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Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC

OSSOFF’S STANCE. Georgia’s only Jewish state legislator had harsh words for Georgia’s first Jewish U.S. senator after the latter voted to back a failed effort to limit the sale of certain ammunition to Israel.

State Rep. Esther Panitch, D-Sandy Springs, said U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., defied President Joe Biden, “who understands the history and the most recent intelligence coming from the region,” for supporting the doomed attempt to limit the arms sales.

“In the end, the failed vote will not be felt by the Israeli forces or government,” Panitch said, “but acute feelings of abandonment by our senators are already being felt by pro-Israel constituents, both Jewish and not Jewish, in Georgia.”

A bipartisan coalition easily turned back the measures, which had been sponsored by independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. But Ossoff and fellow Georgia U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock were part of a bloc of more than a dozen Democrats who voted for the limits.

Ossoff invoked President Ronald Reagan’s decision to ban the sale of cluster-type munitions to Israel in 1982, saying pushing those limits doesn’t affect the bond between the two nations but can spur policy changes that help spare innocent lives.

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Credit: Alyssa Pointer/AJC

PANEL DISMISSED. Every member of Georgia’s committee that investigates the deaths of pregnant women has been dismissed after its findings in two cases were leaked to ProPublica and put a national focus on Georgia’s strict abortion ban.

ProPublica was also the first to report about the dismantling of Georgia’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee. Dr. Kathleen Toomey, who leads the state Department of Public Health, wrote in a letter to 32 committee members that the agency was unable to identify who leaked the reports to the news media.

“Therefore, effective immediately the current MMRC is disbanded, and all member seats will be filled through a new application process,” Toomey wrote, according to ProPublica.

ProPublica reported in September that the committee had determined the deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller had been preventable. Both women died after complications from medicated abortions, despite seeking help at Georgia hospitals.

Defenders of Georgia’s abortion ban, which restricts the procedure after fetal cardiac activity is detected, say the law does not preclude doctors from the type of life-saving care the women needed and questioned the safety of abortion pills.

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Credit: Steve Schaefer/AJC

ETHICS COMPLAINT. An ethics complaint filed this week accuses the founder and president of a conservative Georgia nonprofit of not properly registering as a lobbyist.

The Southern Poverty Law Center says Cole Muzio, founder and president of Frontline Policy Council, hasn’t been registered as a lobbyist since 2022. But tax documents show he has been paid to represent Frontline Policy Council and its national partner Family Policy Alliance in conversations with lawmakers. Plus, photographs on Facebook show him at the Capitol or posing with legislators and the group’s website lists him as a lobbyist.

“Laws are getting made, policy is getting decided, and there are people influencing those decisions that the public doesn’t know about,” said R.G. Cravens, manager of research and analysis with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project.

Muzio told the AJC’s Michelle Baruchman he’s not registered because he’s not the group’s lobbyist at the Georgia Capitol. He said he sets the organization’s policy strategy, which has included pushing lawmakers on making abortions more restrictive.

Chelsea Thompson, who works as general counsel for Frontline, has also not registered as a lobbyist, according to the complaint. She will be registered this coming year “because her role has changed on our team,” Muzio said.

“We’re pretty clear on what we stand for and we always try to be above board,” he said. “This is clearly a politically motivated distraction aimed at me personally and the organization because of who we are and what we stand for.”

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LISTEN UP. Today on “Politically Georgia,” Dr. Mark Rosenberg, a veteran of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, joins the show to talk about what health care and Medicaid will look like under President-elect Donald Trump.

Be sure to download the AJC’s Politically Georgia podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are uploaded by noon each day, just in time to have lunch with us. You can also listen live at 10 a.m. EDT on 90.1 FM WABE. Have a question for the show? Give us a call at 770-810-5297.

On Thursday’s show, Bentley Hudgins, Georgia state director of the Human Rights Campaign, and the AJC’s Maya T. Prabhu talked about transgender issues ahead of Trump’s second term. And former AJC political columnist — and founder of this newsletter — Jim Galloway gave his thoughts on the news of the day.

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Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC

THE NEW KID. U.S. Rep.-elect Brian Jack has had quite a productive new member orientation in Washington.

Most notably, the Peachtree City resident was elected to represent the freshman class on the powerful Republican Steering Committee. This is the group that decides who will chair committees and which House committees each GOP lawmaker will serve on.

During Friday’s office lottery, Jack pulled number 28 out of 57 new members. His office choice, 1320 Longworth, is steeped in history.

House historians report that Lyndon B. Johnson occupied the same office from 1939-1942 when he was in the House and before becoming the 36th U.S. president.

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Credit: John Bazemore/AP

GOP LEADERSHIP. U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Cassville, was reelected to his seat on the Republican Steering Committee representing the states of Alabama and Georgia.

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Athens, will represent those two states on the Republican Policy Committee, and U.S. Rep. Rick McCormick, R-Suwanee, is the sophomore class representative. That panel serves as an advisory group to GOP leadership on legislative issues.

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Credit: Susan Walsh/AP

TODAY IN WASHINGTON:

The U.S. House and Senate are out for the Thanksgiving break.
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., will hold a news conference in Toccoa to herald the use of federal dollars to repair 10 miles of natural gas pipes in Northeast Georgia.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, Atlanta-raised tennis pro Chris Eubanks and the data analytics company FICO will host a financial literacy event for HBCU students in Atlanta.

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Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC

FRIDAY PLANS. If you still haven’t had all the post-election analysis you’re craving, Emory University’s James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference is hosting an event at the Carter Center tonight asking the perennial question: “What just happened?”

The panel discussion will be moderated by Emory Political Science Professor Andra Gillespie, who also heads the Johnson Institute.

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Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC

SHOUTOUTS. Today’s birthday:

U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Athens.

Want a birthday shoutout in the Politically Georgia newsletter? There’s a form for that! Click here to submit the shoutouts. It’s not just birthdays. We’re also interested in new jobs, engagements, birth announcements, etc.

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AS ALWAYS, send your best scoops, gossip and insider info to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com and adam.beam@ajc.com.

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