2026 is a very busy year in Georgia. To start, there’s a special July election for the newly-opened seat in House District 13, the May Governor, House, and Senate primaries, and the November general election. By all accounts, Georgia is one of the key battleground states this political season.
Charlie Bailey, Chair of the Georgia Democratic Party, joins April to give us the lay of the land in the Empire State of the South. Importantly, Bailey reminds us that despite the GOP‘s voter suppression campaign, every person’s vote is counted equally in Georgia. And the people of Georgia are making their votes loud and clear: the GOP’s 23-year-long reign may be coming to an end.
Charlie Bailey is the Democratic Party of Georgia Chair. He was previously the Democratic nominee for both the 2018 Georgia Attorney General election and the 2022 Georgia lieutenant gubernatorial election.
The following transcript has been edited for formatting purposes.
April Ryan
With us, I want to bring in Charlie Bailey, the current head of the Democratic Party in the state of Georgia. Charlie, thank you so much for joining me.
Charlie Bailey
Well, thanks for having me, April.
April Ryan
Charlie, let me tell you, Georgia is—I mean, I know the song is Georgia on My Mind, Ray Charles. But Georgia has been on my mind for a very long time, and the team at the contrarian, like, I know, I know, but there are certain signs that I think are showing up in Georgia that people really aren’t pointing to. Look at this. A large industry in Georgia is farming. Agrarians, you have a large agrarian industry there, and look at what’s happening with fertilizer. Look at what’s happening with diesel. Look at what’s happening. Look at what’s happening in the grocery stores. Farmers are upset. Look at what’s happened to SNAP. Farmers are upset.
Your white farmers are upset, and many of those white farmers voted for who? Donald John Trump. That’s one of the indices that I’m looking at. And then we have another black woman running for governor. The first time was Stacey Abrams, she didn’t win, but Keisha Lance Bottoms is at the top of the heat. So there’s a little bit of a change in the state of Georgia. Can you give us the lay of the land right now as you see it?
Charlie Bailey
Yeah, well, you know, in Georgia, we are the ultimate battleground, and I would just say to your point on agriculture, and I grew up on a cattle farm in West Georgia, and—
April Ryan
I grew up on a tobacco farm in North Carolina.
Charlie Bailey
We know! We’re cousins on this.
April Ryan
Yes!
Charlie Bailey
And in Georgia, for all the booming industry we have, and, you know, we have a good bit of it, Fortune 500 companies and the like, the number one industry in our state is agriculture still.
And, there’s a lot of farmers that have been—they’ve been battered by tariffs and, and by inflation. We’ve seen farming bankruptcies on the rise. You mentioned the cost of fertilizer, and we got a lot of farmers in our state that still have not gotten their checks from Donald Trump and the feds for the cleanup for Hurricane Helene. That happened a long time ago. And so, they were already suffering there. And then they put on top of them what basically my friend Reverend Warnock, Senator Warnock, talks about. These tariffs are just another tax. It’s just a sale.
So, you got a lot of people feeling, pain and hurt, and when we’ve had elections. They are showing up with their feet. They’re coming out to the polls, and they’re showing it, and you’re seeing overperformance after overperformance. We flipped the Trump plus 12 State House seat in December. So that’s some of the examples,
But if we take a step back, it’s the ultimate battleground. We got Senator Jon Ossoff running for re-election. This will be, you know, this is the most important Senate race in the country.
April Ryan
By himself—no one’s challenging him, so he goes straight to November.
Charlie Bailey
That’s right, that’s right. And the Republicans have already said, from D.C. in that group, they’re gonna spend at least $44 million against them. That’s just the down payment on it. So you’ve got that going on, and then you’ve got this very competitive governor’s race that we’re gonna flip.
April Ryan
So I’m gonna say this, and I’m not paying attention… You pay attention to the money, but do you pay attention to the money, or do you pay attention to the hurt? You know, politics is about people and humanity, and in Georgia, the cost of living is a big issue, right? You can pump all the money into a candidate, but I’m still hurting. You also have housing shortages, welfare reform. You have school policy issues that are coming up. Government ethics! You guys have some big ethical issues, particularly when it comes to elections, election integrity, and also the death penalty that’s on the ballot. Now, am I correct? The state has 31% registered Republicans, 30% registered Democrats. 27%, independents, is that correct?
Charlie Bailey
So, it’s slightly different than that. So, we actually don’t have party registration in Georgia. So, probably the figures you’re looking at are a model, you know, how they model people with these DIM scores and stuff like that. So, it’s probably something like that in terms of straight.
April Ryan: Good luck.
Charlie Bailey
Yeah, it’s very, very close. You know, there’s another way to look at it, April, where if you take leaners as well, probably both those numbers come up, but it’s within a percentage point or two, you know. you could see it… you could call it being 45, 44, you know, R to D, with the remaining 9 being true independent types, so it’s just where you put those leaners, but it is very, very close.
But what you are seeing is, in the primary we have going on right now, for instance, so we’ve got Senate primary on the Republican side, nothing for Jon, to your point. He’s free and clear on it. And then you’ve got a governor’s primary on both sides. The Republicans, particularly in governor, are spending a lot more money than our candidates for governor, because you’ve got a billionaire in Rick Jackson trying to buy it. And the guy that’s really chiefly competing against him, Bert Jones, his daddy… Bert ain’t got no money, but his daddy does.
April Ryan
Now, that is the impacting statement. Bert ain’t got no money, but his daddy does. And I love it.
Charlie Bailey
And so combined they have spent, like, $80 million or something, but all that money that they’ve poured in, all that money, you would think, right, the normal laws of political physics tell us Republicans are going to be out balloting Democrats. What do we see so far? The exact opposite. We are holding, right now, 55% of the people that have come out to vote are pulling Democratic ballots.
April Ryan
And that’s thanks again, that goes back to the hurt, the humanity, what people are dealing with. Gas prices have risen by about 50%. People going to the store… I mean, people are hurting. So, and I think about, Charlie, as we talk about this, we talk about this money. think about what happened with Los Angeles and Karen Bass. Rick Caruso, $110 million. She didn’t have anywhere near that, and she still won.
So, I think we have to see what this moment brings. And also, let’s get into the selection piece. So, are we still dealing with, in Georgia, the issue, if I bring my auntie, who’s upset and wants to show that she’s going to be at the polls and sits there for 2 hours. If I bring her a cracker, I’m going to jail, she’s going to jail, or she can’t, we gotta get off the line. Is that still the case?
Charlie Bailey
Yeah, we can’t take food, we can’t take water, yeah.
April Ryan
That’s ridiculous.
Charlie Bailey
I know, what it is, April, it is the last gas of a dying rule. These folks have been in charge in Georgia for 23 years, and they can’t countenance the idea that this state is changing, and has changed, that they still can’t admit that we have two Democratic senators, and I would say the two best in the country. They can’t even admit that, they cannot admit… this is what 2020 is based on, too, is Donald Trump and these old fools. they don’t think everybody’s votes matter the same, and they cannot admit that the people of Georgia voted him out in 2020, they said, no, the people in Fulton County must have cheated, because they cannot get through their heads that the impacts on people’s lives of the policies they have, I’ve turned folks against them.
April Ryan
i.e, Fannie Willis, i.e. taking the ballots that used to be secure. What’s going on with that? Do you know anything about those ballots, where they are now? Because the integrity of the ballots have been challenged, because they were secure, and now the Trump folks have them somewhere you don’t know what’s what. Yeah. The 2020 ballots, let’s say that.
Charlie Bailey
The 2020 ballots, yeah, and I think that is important, you know, the… they do not have the ballots for this year. This is a backwards-looking, this is an old man fighting an old battle, you know, and…
April Ryan
You know, fighting Joe Biden’s win for president, yeah.
Charlie Bailey
Yeah, I mean, and so, it’s in litigation, the county is fighting against to get back their property, but that is in litigation with DOJ right now, but then we see, of course, they’re trying to impanel the grand jury to go after the private information of all the election workers.
April Ryan
That part. That part. Let’s say that again.
Charlie Bailey
The thing is, they think this is going to intimidate the people of Georgia. They don’t understand the people of Georgia, because what this is doing, you see it in the early vote. What people are saying is, you know what? We can have different opinions about whatever politics. Donald Trump wants to have some tax policy and defend it. He wants to defend kicking a half a million people off their health insurance in Georgia. Go on and defend it. But you do not come in and try to tell us… In the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement. with John Lewis, that you’re gonna take people’s votes. People do not take kindly to it, and they’re gonna come out, they’re coming out as we speak in a backlash. to this… to these, people doing this, and it’s gonna happen again in November. They don’t know, and this is… they don’t understand the South. They do not understand Georgia. They do not understand the backbone and the heart of this state. They do not understand the civil rights movement, and this is being the heart of it, and what they think they are doing is gonna have the opposite effect. People are gonna come out even stronger to vote against them.
April Ryan
Charlie, Im’ma challenge you, they do understand the Civil Rights Movement, and they understand that you’re the cradle. Ebenezer Baptist Church, and right down the street, you have the MLK Center. But listeners, they understand, and you know this, Donald Trump said the Civil Rights Movement hurt white people. So, with that said, and they are probably… they’re hoping for the same reaction of Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss, when they had to testify before Congress, talking about how they were intimidated, how people went to them. And so… but what they don’t… I think what they don’t understand is people got a glimpse of their tactics and understand this is what they… that was the foreshadowing of things to come, with Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss, and now they’re actually saying, this is what we’re gonna do, instead of doing it quietly, you know? At least they’re telling you.
Charlie Bailey
And I think you’re right that they understand the playbook, and it’s an old playbook. This ain’t the first time, you know, the Southern Strategy and all that. You’re 100% right. I think they underestimate, and they don’t understand the people of the state. I think that’s, you know, and they operate, and these Republicans often operate as if we are all caricatures. A white person’s supposed to act this way, and a black person’s supposed to act this way, and all the rest. And that’s their worldview that is distorted and leads them down the down these paths, but… we have, you know, with everything going on here in the Senate race and the governor’s race, the governor’s race to come, obviously the primary’s happening right now, but we’ve also, for all these issues, you know, the courts are really important, and I know that, like, that’s one thing y’all have been focused on.
The sign right behind, you know, behind me here, this is Jen Jordan and Miracle Rankin. These are candidates that we are supporting for the Georgia Supreme Court. They’re going and taking out… we’re trying to take out two incumbents. that signed on to the opinion that dismissed the Donald Trump case. And not only did they do that, they upheld a 6-week abortion ban that we have in this state. and this is the first time the state party has gone on offense to try to take two seats, they run at the same time as these primaries. So right now, people are voting on that race, and everybody, whether you’re picking up a Democratic ballot or a Republican ballot, can vote in that. And the Calais decision. that just came down, makes this race even more important, because we cannot rely on the federal courts. Yeah. It’ll take a while to sort all that out, but we got a state constitution here. We got protections that equal, equal person, equal one, you know, one person, one vote in the state. And so, when we change the Supreme Court, we have a backstop. To, to prevent, unfair maps. Which Brian Kemp has already said he’s gonna try to bring, after the election this year, prior to 2028, bring him back to vote on.
April Ryan
So, and that’s the thing, you were so close after Louisiana versus Callais. I’m glad your elections are still going to happen, and they’re not going to try to redistrict anything, and then have the election, because that upsets the apple cart. Again, May 19th in Georgia, federal, state, and local offices are going to be elected on, and issues that pertain… the debate over school policy, government ethics, death penalty, election integrity… oh my gosh. And what Donald Trump is doing now. But I want to ask you this, and this is the elephant in the room, if you will. No pun intended.
There’s Atlanta. And then there’s Georgia, you know what I’m saying. You have got a Black woman who is at the top of the ticket. Atlanta had a mayor named Keisha, that’s what they were saying. Georgia may have a governor named Keisha. Is that possible? Do you believe the herd is that… That great, that people can turn their head, hold their nose, who… are not… who espouse Donald Trump’s anti-DEI, anti-woke kind of thing, or stance. Do you believe that could happen this time?
Charlie Bailey:
I do, and let me, you know, be careful to say here, I am… I and the Democratic Party of Georgia are Switzerland. While we have primaries going on, we don’t take sides and can’t take sides, and that is an act of primary. I just have to give a caveat.
April Ryan
I understand, but is Georgia ready for this? Because they tried it with Stacey Abrams.
Charlie Bailey
I was Stacy’s running mate in 2022. I was the Lieutenant Governor nominee in 22. I ran on the ticket with her in 2018. I was the Attorney General nominee then, so I understand it well. And I think that, should Keisha win, I think any of our candidates, to include Mayor Bottoms, to include Keisha. can win, yes, in November. I mean, this is a big state, and it’s a complicated state, and yes, we’ve got ghosts of the Old South and all of that, and I grew up in rural West Georgia. I understand it. But, you know, Stacy only lost in 2018. They only missed the runoff by, like, 50,000. 50,000 votes, that would have been in a runoff. And she got 49%, alright? And that was 8 years ago. Let me give you a statistic. In 2018, nationally, D versus R. That was a D plus, like, 8.6 environment. You know, take up all the votes from everywhere, it’s a D plus 8.6… 8.5.
Here, Stacy lost by a point and a half at the top of the ticket, so that’s a delta of 10, okay, from where the middle of the country was, basically, to where Georgia was. In 2024, 6 years later, 2 years ago, much tougher environment for Democrats that year. Nationally, that was an R-plus, you know, Trump won it by, like, what, 1.7. And here, Trump won by 2.2. That’s a delta of half a point. Over those intervening 6 to 8 years, Georgia has moved much more closely to where the median of the country is. And that means for whether it’s Keisha with the nomination, or any of these other… Democrats running with a nomination, they are at worst, at worst, a coin flip. And… and… and I think that the… pounding on this, April, is 23… Yes, we are dealing with Trump again, and now we’re in year two.
We’re in 23 years of Republican rule here, so everything being done in DC, this old fool putting his name on every building he can find, trying to use taxpayer dollars to build a ballroom to his own ego. All the while cutting people off their health. Care, and getting what a billionaire’s getting now, a million dollars a year in tax cuts.
April Ryan
Medicare is one of your issues, too. Medicare is one huge issue there, and I’m glad we brought that up. But real quick, because we’re going to have to wrap this, and I thank you for your time. David Scott, Congressman David Scott, passed away suddenly. He voted on a Tuesday, and that Wednesday, he passed away. There’s a special election, and then, there’s gonna be, an election for him later on. Could you tell us really fast what you see with that and what’s gonna happen?
Charlie Bailey
Yeah, so there’s a special election that will fill out the term, which is just this year. But frankly…
April Ryan
In July.
Charlie Bailey
In July, yes. The more important one is the primary that’s happening right now, because that is a heavily Democratic seat, so whoever wins that primary will be the next congressperson. Okay. And we’ve got several strong Democrats running, with, you know, a fair amount of communication going on, paid communication, at least four that are spending some kind of money. And it’ll be interesting to see which—this is getting a little into the weeds. Congressman Scott’s name will still appear on the ballot because it was so close in time they couldn’t take the ballots back, but those votes won’t count. So…
April Ryan
He’s definitely gonna get some sympathy votes, Tom.
Charlie Bailey
And he definitely will. But, we could be looking at a runoff there. If nobody gets 50% of the remaining votes, we could be looking at a runoff in June, but we’ve got four capable people, main candidates running.
April Ryan
Yeah, there’s a big, I don’t want to call out any names, but I’m just gonna say there’s a big reality show star that’s in this race. Charlie Bailey, the head of the Georgia Democratic Party, you know, I’m thinking of Ray Charles. Georgia, Georgia, Georgia on my mind. Georgia’s on everyone’s mind, and I think Georgia’s gonna be that test, I believe. I believe Georgia’s gonna be that test for me for white people who voted for Donald Trump, who are hurting. in a rural state, a red state. We’ll see. Charlie, thank you.
Charlie Bailey
We’re gonna do it, and anybody wants to help out, go to GeorgiaDemocrat.org, volunteer, pitch in. If you want to do something now, if you want to do something right now, volunteer in these Supreme Court races, and let’s send a shockwave around, the country.
April Ryan
Thank you, Charlie.
Charlie Bailey
Thanks, April.
