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Gov. Brian Kemp’s announcement that he’s not running in the 2026 GOP U.S. Senate primary opens the way for a multi-candidate field to emerge. Interestingly, James Magazine Online last week reported on a Trafalgar Group poll on what Republican would do best running against incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff if Kemp stayed out. The nearest candidate who came close in favorability to Ossoff is U.S. Rep. Mike Collins— author of the popular Laken Riley Act that cracks down on illegal aliens. 

For any Republican candidate to defeat Ossoff, though, the challenge is the need to spend heavily, conduct grassroots retail politics and drive up Ossoff’s negatives to be competitive statewide. The challenge for Ossoff is that he is viewed unfavorably in recent polls by a majority of likely voters, so he must somehow boost his favorability rating.   

“I spoke with President Trump and Senate leadership… and expressed my commitment to work alongside them to ensure we have a strong Republican nominee who can win next November and ultimately be a conservative voice in the U.S. Senate who will put hardworking Georgians first,” Kemp said. 

To ensure such a “strong nominee” centers on who the Republican base believes will be their best shot to unseat the only Democrat senator in the country running for re-election in a state Trump won last year.  

The following are some facts for Republicans and Democrats to consider as Georgia’s 2026 election cycle draws nearer: 

• No Democratic statewide candidate has won a majority of the vote in this state in a general election since 2006— yes 19 years ago, when Democrats Thurbert Baker, Tommy Irvin and Michael Thurmond won re-election to their respective statewide posts. This holds true even though Georgia currently has two Democratic senators— but neither won a majority in their general election (the election we have the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November). Both had to go to “extra innings” (runoffs) to win their Senate seats. 

• Republicans have swept every non-federal statewide post (governor down to labor commissioner) since 2010. In the 2022 election cycle, Republicans averaged 52.9 percent of the vote in the elections for those 8 statewide constitutional offices, and Democrats only 45.6 percent. Republicans running for those 8 statewide constitutional offices got between 51.4 percent (Burt Jones, Lt. Governor) and 54.2 percent (Richard Woods, state school superintendent). Democrats for those 8 statewide offices got only between 44 percent (secretary of state race) and 46.6 percent (attorney general). Thus, no Democrat running statewide for our non-federal races even managed to reach 47 percent of the vote. (Democrat Raphael Warnock of course did surpass that to beat Republican Herschel Walker. But, again, take into consideration the above non-federal races, and that Walker was a flawed candidate.) If you include the U.S. Senate race, Republicans in 2022 averaged 52.4 percent statewide, Democrats 46 percent. Also important— in 2022, of the 8 statewide non-federal races, Democrats only came within 200,000 votes of winning lieutenant governor (Jones won that by about 194,000 votes). Chris Carr won attorney general by about 206,000 votes, but in the other 6 statewide non-federal races Democrats lost by more than 250,000 votes each (for each office). 

• Since 2008, the worst GOP showing statewide was a Public Service Commission race where Republican Bubba McDonald got 47.2 percent to 47.9 for the Democrat and 4.9 Libertarian (but McDonald won the runoff). And since 2010, the worst GOP showing statewide has been Walker’s 48.5 percent against Warnock in the 2022 general (second worst was Walker’s 48.6 percent in the runoff with Warnock). Republican Kelly Loeffler got 49 percent in her runoff against Warnock in 2020 and Perdue got 49.4 percent in his runoff against Ossoff. This suggests that the Republican “minimum” base next year is upper 40s— say 48 to 49 percent— meaning no matter what (short of some big scandal or scandals), Republicans running statewide in November of next year should start in the upper 40s, so that not much more is needed to break 50 percent. 

• Now-President Donald Trump got between 49.3 and 51 percent in his 3 times on the Georgia ballot— even with his tepid support in some of Atlanta’s “country-club” precincts. Accordingly, hard to imagine a Republican statewide candidate next year doing worse than Trump’s lowest showing (again, unless they nominate another “Herschel Walker”). 

• All this could suggest that it takes just about everything going right for a Democrat just to get a low 51 percent statewide. Republican strategists we’ve interviewed believe it would be very difficult to see a Democrat winning any statewide race outright in November 2026 at this stage (more likely they would need a runoff to do so).