Former Georgia Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan speaks on stage during the third day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 21, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Former Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan is running for Georgia governor as a Democrat.
Duncan announced his campaign Tuesday with a video targeting President Donald Trump.
“Georgians deserve leaders with the courage to take on Donald Trump and do what’s right,” Duncan said in the video. “As Georgia’s first Democratic governor in 28 years, I will stand up to Trump and his ‘yes’ men in our state while bringing down the costs of child care, health care, and housing so every Georgia family is in the best position possible. That’s what Georgia deserves.”
Duncan pledged to “make Georgia the frontline of democracy and a backstop against extremism.”
A former state representative and professional baseball player, Duncan served one term as lieutenant governor, declining to run for re-election in 2022 after vocally criticizing Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
In 2021, Duncan authored a book called GOP 2.0 outlining his vision for a post-Trump Republican Party, and after his time in office, he became a fixture on cable news shows as an anti-Trump Republican. He was considered as a presidential candidate for the centrist No Labels party in 2024.
Last year, he campaigned on behalf of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, including at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where he blasted the modern Republican Party as “a cult worshiping a felonist.” Before that, he had endorsed former President Joe Biden for another term.
In January, the Georgia Republican Party passed a resolution seeking to bar Duncan from calling himself a Republican and banishing him from party events, saying that his support for Harris and opposition to Trump and other GOP candidates meant he had “forfeited any claim to being even a nominal ‘Republican.’”
In his announcement video, Duncan called attacks from Trump a “badge of honor.”
“I’ve never wavered in taking on Trump,” he said. “So Georgia Republicans threw me out of their party. I was leaving anyway.”
Duncan officially announced his new affiliation last month.
Duncan joins a field of Democrats with a longer history with the party, including former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, state Sen. Jason Esteves of Atlanta and former DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond.
The winner of the May Democratic primary will face off against the top finisher in the GOP field led by Duncan’s successor, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a major Trump ally, and Attorney General Chris Carr, who has sought to align himself with the wing of the Georgia Republican Party represented by Gov. Brian Kemp, supporting Trump’s policies while trying to keep a distance from the president’s more controversial behaviors.
A Jones-Duncan match-up would represent a true political grudge match. Duncan stripped then-state Sen. Burt Jones of his committee chairmanship following Trump’s 2020 loss and Jones’ role in supporting Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud.