IT WAS the best of times, it was the dumbest of times.
This past primary season displayed both the slightest glimmer of hope to climb out of our current dystopian despair, and also confirmed the worst suspicions about the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the American democratic project as it marks its 250th, and potentially final, year.
With the dust finally settled after last week’s runoff elections, here’s my honest take on what went down and why it matters:
Low-information voters still dominate
For those of us steeped in politics, both local and national, for some reason it still comes as a shock to find out that the vast majority of voters do little to no research whatsoever before going into the voting booth.
Nepo baby Jim Kingston – who by some accounts hasn’t lived anywhere near Savannah for years – easily won his Republican primary to see who will compete for the First Congressional District seat being vacated by the departing, unlamented Buddy Carter (more on him later).
Little J Kingston has virtually no track record to recommend him for congressional office, but he does have that well-known last name.
And that, apparently, was more than enough.
For those of you new to the area, Jim’s father Jack Kingston was Savannah’s congressman for over 20 years – reelected a remarkable ten times.
One of Jack’s main claims to fame was being a chief advocate of the cartoonish “Freedom Fries” episode – in which French fries in the Congressional cafeteria were literally renamed to insult France for not signing onto the wasteful and pointless Iraq War, which Jack Kingston was a huge supporter of.
Jack would be repaid for his loyalty to the George W. Bush administration with various committee positions, but he never gained serious national prominence outside of constant Fox News appearances.
The most famous of those appearances was when he insulted some Democrat or another for not wearing an American flag lapel pin – while he himself was not wearing an American flag pin.
Yep, that’s how stupid things were back then, kids. Not any different from today really, just a question of degree.
To be clear, this is not just a criticism of Republican voters. The Democratic side was at least as guilty this time around of checking the boxes based on name ID alone.
Joyce Marie Griggs, who has run and lost three consecutive times for the First District seat, easily made it into a runoff (more on that later), almost certainly based on her name ID alone.
While she eventually would be defeated in that runoff, the mere fact that she beat out so many other, in my opinion more deserving, candidates is a sobering reminder of the overwhelming power of name ID.
In a similar situation, another crowded field of Democratic candidates – many of them surprisingly good – was crushed by former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who avoided a predicted runoff to be Dem nominee for governor.
She is, quite simply, by far the best known of the names who competed, despite barely finishing her single term as ATL mayor, which was beset by repeated scandal during the pandemic.
She is also, quite frankly, not highly regarded in Atlanta itself, nor is she highly regarded by state Democrats.
But Democratic primary voters made their choice for gubernatorial nominee known, loudly, and I do expect the party apparatus – such as it exists at all – to close ranks behind Lance Bottoms.
Which leads us to:
Dems fumble Supreme Court ball on the one-yard line
This one is closely related to the low-information voter issue. But it deserves a special callout for the massive ramifications involved in this catastrophic loss by state Democrats, an epic fail even by their standards.
You could make the case that the most important races on the ballot this year for both parties was for Georgia Supreme Court. Reason being, that body will eventually rule on any plan by Republicans to further gerrymander the state in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent gutting of the Voting Rights Act.
While the current makeup of the state Supreme Court is overwhelmingly Republican-appointed justices, two Dem wins this year combined with more in 2028 could shift the balance.
Bottom line, getting two Democrats on the Georgia Supreme Court at this time would be an insurance policy beyond price.
But true to form, the state Democratic Party didn’t have its act together – shocker, I know – and made a too-little, far-too-late push to get voters to check the box for Jen Jordan and Miracle Rankin, said Dem candidates for Supreme Court.
Part of this is just how the ballot is written: There is no party affiliation stated for these allegedly "non-partisan" positions, just a statement of who is the incumbent.
And most voters, when push comes to shove, vote for an incumbent in the absence of any other information.
As a result, the state Supreme Court will remain very strongly Republican-dominated, with virtually no chance of that changing anytime soon.
While Republicans have for the moment changed their mind about redistricting immediately, there’s no question they will take another bite of the apple at some point soon.
And we will look back on 2026 as the fateful election that could have prevented it.
Money still rules
Loathsome billionaire Rick Jackson defeated his Trump-approved opponent Burt Jones rather easily to get the nod as Republican candidate for Georgia governor.
In a surprise to pundits, it wasn't a particularly close race at all.
Said pundits have opined that Jones – who is currently our sitting Lieutenant Governor – was hurt by his proximity to current Gov. Brian Kemp, who has famously butt heads repeatedly with Donald Trump.
That doesn’t make any sense at all to me, given that Gov. Kemp actually has remarkably high approval ratings.
No, Occam’s Razor tells us this is what actually happened: Jackson bought a shit ton of ads.
And Republican primary voters, MAGA credentials notwithstanding, chose the guy they saw repeatedly every single time they opened Facebook and YouTube. Call it Revenge of the Boomers.
Nothing could be more emblematic of our times than a guy who made his billions in the abusive and backward U.S. healthcare system, mostly advocating for further reduction in consumer/patient protections, being inches away from being our next governor due to that special tendency of American voters to vote directly opposite their own interests.
I’ve been saying for quite a while that whatever your feelings are about Brian Kemp – and I wouldn’t call myself a fan – any Republican successor would make Kemp look like Abraham Lincoln by comparison.
(I said something similar about Nathan Deal, the Republican governor who preceded Kemp. The massive and steady decline in quality of Republican candidates in this century is a phenomenon that will be studied for generations.)
The mere fact that Kemp has been able to be relatively popular among Republicans despite being Trump’s foil for so long is remarkable. Rick Jackson is almost certainly not going to display a similar level of independence from that wing of the party.
But much like beloved Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie was recently defeated in his primary by a complete unknown who received a record-shattering amount of money from outside interests (Israel lobby, cough-cough, Israel lobby), Jackson simply bought the nomination straight-up.
The resulting matchup between him and Keisha Lance Bottoms is interesting only in that this is a Red state in a Blue year. Lance Bottoms is currently narrowly favored to win, but there are way too many variables at play to make a prediction yet.
Glimmer of Hope: Amanda Hollowell
The flaw in my cynical take on this election was the narrow runoff victory of Amanda Hollowell over Joyce Marie Griggs, who as previously stated has run and lost three times for the First Congressional District seat.
I fully expected Griggs to be the nominee yet again, and also be defeated in the general election yet again. But Hollowell skillfully consolidated the support of several other candidates in the primary to get just enough support to beat Griggs.
With Hollowell being their nominee and judging by the enormous Democratic turnout numbers in the primary, it’s my belief that Dems have at least a fighting chance to take the First Congressional District seat for the first time this century.
Hollowell's youthful, energetic campaign combined with an undeniable Blue lean in the state this year could be the game-changer.
Given the likelihood of future Republican redistricting, this might be the last chance Dems ever have of taking the seat.
Jon Ossoff is in beast mode
The numbers tell the tale: U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff, running unopposed in the Democratic primary, got more votes than all Republican Senate candidates combined.
Running unopposed.
Ossoff has raised a similarly jaw-dropping $80 million-plus. His Republican opponent, Mike Collins, has raised about $5 million.
Not a typo: $80 million vs. $5 million.
This isn't unusual for Ossoff, who is a money magnet. In his first run for Senate, he raised more than any Senate candidate in U.S. history.
While you might be tempted to say Ossoff belongs in the “Money still rules” category, the sheer volume of votes for him tells me that – money notwithstanding – Ossoff is For Real™.
He's got plenty of money, sure. But I'm not sure he really needs it.
Barring some unforeseen event – like ICE shutting down Democratic polling places this November, to name just one previously unthinkable event with a greater than zero chance of happening – Ossoff will be reelected easily as U.S. Senator.
And I believe, will instantly, at that moment, also become a serious candidate for U.S. president.
Last but not least:
Good Riddance, Buddy Carter
Look, I'm accustomed to having a Republican congressman. The aforementioned Jack Kingston was my congressman literally a third of my life.
This is a conservative area. I get it. Believe me, I get it.
But Kingston was a statesman descending from Mt. Olympus compared to Earl "Buddy" Carter, who never met a townhall he wouldn't either whine his way through or bail on completely, and who never met a dumb idea he wouldn't support.
Carter – whose previous claim as a pharmacy owner was prescribing one of the highest amounts of opioids during the height of the opioid epidemic – put forth virtually no legislation of note in his decade-plus in office.
Indeed, the most recent legislation he proposed was – and I'm not making this up – to rename Greenland "Red, White and Blueland."
I'm not making that up, folks.
That was our congressman, Savannahians. Emphasis on was, since Carter left his seat to run unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate.
Are we going to get Jim Kingston or Amanda Hollowell? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out which one I'm going to vote for.
But either way, it's an improvement. I mean, it's got to be, right?