Democratic Candidates For Georgia Governor Talk Trump

Most of the Democrats who say they are running for governor appeared in a forum televised from a Savannah church Thursday night, where they worked to differentiate themselves before a primary election just four months away.

All seven of them passed two key litmus tests for the Democratic base, including Geoff Duncan, a former Republican state leader.

They all said they would expand Medicaid if they reached the governor’s office, and they all would fight back against President Donald Trump.

Duncan, as lieutenant governor, famously rebuked Trump’s assertions that the 2020 election was stolen, and he defied Trump’s efforts to overturn the results. Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms also could point to experience pushing back against the president during his first term.

The other five candidates said they would use the courts or other means to foil Trump when they disagreed with him. As Olujimi Wesley Brown, a reverend and architect put it, he “will build a firewall that protects us from Donald Trump, his antics and his chaos.”

Despite some nuance on other issues, such as affordable housing and the economy, they revealed similar beliefs and approaches to policy.

Most, for instance, focused on requiring more from corporations in exchange for the billions in tax breaks that they enjoy.

Former DeKalb County CEO and state labor commissioner, Michael Thurmond, said he would require recipients to hire local labor rather than foreigners, an apparent jab at the subsidies handed to South Korean company Hyundai under the watch of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.

Federal agents raided the company’s electric vehicle battery plant west of Savannah in September, detaining 475 workers, most of them Korean nationals. The Trump administration said the action followed a monthslong investigation into the company’s employment practices.

State Rep. Ruwa Romman, D-Duluth, said Georgia should invest the money in people instead. If she were governor, she said, she would subsidize access to health care to make Georgia’s relatively young workforce even more attractive to employers.

She and Jason Esteves, a former state senator and Atlanta school board chairman, sounded a defiant tone about corporations, both blaming them for the rising cost of housing and both offering a similar solution.

“I’m going to stop private equity funds from buying up all of our single-family homes,” Esteves said, eliciting applause from the audience at Jonesville Baptist Church in Savannah.

State Rep. Derrick Lamarr Jackson, D-Tyrone, like Romman, said low wages were a core issue. Both would work to raise pay.

Bottoms, Esteves and Thurmond would offer free adult education to address a mismatch between job skills and employer needs. Brown would insert more technical education into high school classrooms while Duncan would help cover the cost of child care, freeing up more parents to work.

Thurmond, the oldest candidate at 73, touted his experience in government leadership, saying Georgia needs a governor who will not require training wheels.

Duncan had the most unique selling point: he said he could draw independents and disaffected Republicans to land a Democrat in the governor’s mansion for the first time in nearly three decades.

But he will have to convince Democrats that he has truly abandoned GOP orthodoxy after supporting policies that are anathema to many liberals, such as gun ownership and banning abortion.

Duncan said he is relieved that he no longer must “make excuses” for Trump. “I don’t have to watch that school shooting on TV and be expected to make an excuse,” he said. “This is a heartfelt move.”

The event was televised by WJCL 22, an ABC affiliate that said a similar forum for Republican gubernatorial candidates would occur in the spring, ahead of the May 19 primary election.

This article is available through a partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Association’s nonprofit, tax-exempt Educational Foundation.