Georgia politics just got a jolt. Geoff Duncan, the former Republican lieutenant governor who famously broke with Donald Trump during the 2020 election fight, has officially launched his campaign for governor — this time as a Democrat.
Duncan, who served from 2019 to 2023, announced his run Tuesday morning with a fiery campaign video that framed him as both a defector from the MAGA movement and a fighter for everyday Georgians.
“This attack from Donald Trump is a badge of honor for me,” Duncan declared, referencing the moment last month when Trump blasted him on Truth Social as a “total loser.” “It means I’m doing something right.”
Duncan’s political transformation has been years in the making. A former pro baseball player turned politician, he originally backed Trump in 2016 and even in 2020. But when Trump tried to overturn Georgia’s election results — with Biden winning the state by 11,779 votes — Duncan refused to play along.
He and Governor Brian Kemp issued a joint statement in December 2020 rejecting Trump’s pressure campaign to illegally replace Georgia’s electors. Duncan later told CNN that while he voted for Trump, “you’ve got to accept the results and move on.”
He was also a witness in the Georgia grand jury investigation into Trump’s election interference. That prosecution later collapsed after Fulton County DA Fani Willis was disqualified, leaving Trump free to reclaim the White House in 2024.
By 2024, Duncan had left office and publicly endorsed Kamala Harris, even appearing on stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago to call on voters to “dump Trump.”
The Georgia GOP expelled him earlier this year, officially labeling him a traitor. Duncan responded with an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution explaining his switch. He wrote that Republican policies on healthcare, guns, and immigration “hurt poor Georgians” and violated his Christian principle to “love your neighbor.”
This summer, after Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Duncan blasted the president’s leadership as “a Ponzi scheme of propaganda.”
Now Duncan is positioning himself as the Democrat who can bring moderates, independents, and disillusioned Republicans together in a state that has become ground zero for the battle over democracy.
“I’m running for governor to put Georgians in the best position to once again love their neighbors and make Georgia a frontline of democracy,” he said Tuesday. “We need to push back, and we need to win.”
Duncan pledged to repeal Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, a law he once supported but now says was a mistake. “I got it wrong,” he admitted. “Women deserve the right to choose.”
Duncan enters a crowded Democratic primary field that already includes former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and ex-state Senator Jason Esteves. Esteves wasted no time hitting Duncan, circulating a photo of him smiling beside Governor Kemp in 2019 as Kemp signed the abortion ban into law.
Bottoms, who has close ties to national Democrats, is expected to be a formidable contender.
If Duncan survives the primary, he’ll be aiming to become the first Democrat to win Georgia’s governor’s mansion since 1998. That would also make him one of the most high-profile converts from Trump’s Republican Party.
Trump himself has yet to weigh in on Duncan’s candidacy. But given their long feud, it’s unlikely the president will stay quiet for long.
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Looks like in on his way to being a total loser!He loses on both counts!
Yeppers, Duncan has turned to THE DARK SIDE and has ZILCH CHANCE of becoming governor of beloved Georgia! Is he stoned or what? If so, he IS a “Democrat”!
Traitor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!