Politics

With Brian Kemp's announcement that he will not run for U.S. Senate in 2026, his next steps are mere speculation at this point. He's mentioned frequently as a possible candidate for president in 2028. In the meantime, he can play a key role in supporting Republican candidates around the country next year.

Many voters were still exhausted from last November’s presidential election when the state’s political class made a sharp turn and almost immediately began handicapping Georgia’s 2026 statewide races. Here, a look at the Republicans and Democrats who are already setting their sights on the governor's mansion and who else may yet run.

These are Atlanta's 500 most powerful leaders. We spent months consulting experts and sorting through nominations to get a list of the city's most influential people—from artists to chefs to philanthropists to sports coaches and corporate CEOs. In this section, we focus on civic leaders, government and politics, transportation, and utilities.

Of all former U.S. Presidents, Jimmy Carter was our most prolific author, a writer who never failed to surprise readers with his audacious range. From 1975 to 2018, Carter published 30 books, including multiple...

President Carter was someone who the South could be proud to call its own. He embodied the best qualities of the region while rejecting those that held us back as a country and as a people. He was curious, introspective, and like all good Southerners, stubborn as hell.

Welcome to Atlanta where the players play, and we ride in the fast lane of the American news highway. We don’t mean to brag, but when it comes to politics, Atlanta is pretty much the center of the universe: Politicians love us (or love to hate us), our celebs get voters to turn out (for what), and, most importantly, we’re the capital of Georgia, which has emerged as one of the biggest battleground states in the 2024 presidential election. Here’s a look at Atlanta’s headline-making moments over the last four years.

As Democrats attempt to flip the state for a second presidential election, many don’t know that the Democratic Party once dominated politics in Georgia, though in a very different form. For most of the 20th century, much of the South embraced the party, whose ideological identity—like that of its foil, the Republicans—was forged by the deepest conflicts in American history. It was progressive Republicans who pushed for an end to slavery, while Democrats espoused a conservative commitment to the status quo. But over the last 100 years, the nation’s two major political parties have effectively swapped sides. Here’s how it happened.

The 2020 presidential election started out normally enough for Fulton County poll workers. Angie Jones, a site manager, began her day at her voting location at five a.m. But before she prepared the Dominion voting machines or organized standing areas for poll watchers, Jones joined the entire poll worker team—assistant managers, clerks, and technicians alike—to recite and sign their respective state oaths. This ritual is done before every election, big and small, to promise that poll workers will “truly, impartially, and faithfully perform” their duties. “In 2020, the general election went smoothly for us, and nothing stood out as unusual,” Jones says. “[But] after we closed at seven p.m. and Donald Trump was losing Georgia, the focus was on us.”

These are Atlanta's 500 most powerful leaders. We spent months consulting experts and sorting through nominations to get a list of the city's most influential people—from artists to chefs to philanthropists to sports coaches and corporate CEOs. In this section, we focus on civic leaders, government and politics, transportation, and utilities.

If the word “redistricting” is giving you deja vu, you’re remembering correctly. Georgia just drew new district maps in 2021, but in October, a federal judge threw out those maps, calling them racially discriminatory, and instructed Georgia lawmakers to draw new ones. On Wednesday, the legislature convened for a special session to draw the new district maps. To help you understand what’s happening, here are some of your redistricting questions, answered.