The race to take on vulnerable Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia expanded Monday after state Insurance Commissioner John King joined Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter in the Republican primary.
In a social media post, King, a retired Army National Guard major general and former police chief, highlighted his journey from Mexican native to becoming Georgia’s first Hispanic statewide elected official and sought to tie himself closely to President Donald Trump.
“I’m a lawman, soldier, and the first Hispanic elected statewide in Georgia history. Solving problems is what I do,” he wrote Monday on social media. “President Trump needs reinforcements and Georgia needs a new senator.”
His announcement comes less than a week after Carter kicked off the GOP primary for Ossoff’s seat by also linking his candidacy to his support for Trump’s second-term agenda.
“Trump has a warrior in Buddy Carter,” the narrator says in the congressman’s launch ad. “Buddy helped Trump secure our border and put America first.”
Ossoff is a top GOP target this cycle in a state that Trump narrowly carried last year. He topped CQ Roll Call’s recent list of the most vulnerable senators up for reelection next year, while Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the Senate contest in Georgia as a battleground.
The race was thrown wide-open last week after popular Gov. Brian Kemp, whom many Republicans had viewed as a top recruit, said he would not challenge Ossoff. Then on Friday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a close Trump ally, announced on social media that she, too, would not seek the Republican nomination, although she left open the possibility that she could run for governor.
“Someone once said, ‘The Senate is where good ideas go to die.’ They were right,” she said. “That’s why I’m not running.”
Axios reported last week that Kemp plans to meet with Trump in the coming weeks to coordinate on GOP recruitment and an endorsement in the race. Some of the potential names discussed included Reps. Brian Jack and Mike Collins and former Sen. Kelly Loeffler, now head of the Small Business Administration. An adviser told Axios, however, that Loeffler would prefer to run for governor.
Other potential GOP candidates include Rep. Rich McCormick and state Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper.
Ossoff has already begun stockpiling a vast campaign war chest in anticipation of a tough reelection fight; he reported raising $11.2 million during the first three months of the year.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll released late last month found Ossoff besting King in a hypothetical matchup 51 percent to 38 percent. It did not test him against Carter.
King first entered state government in 2019, when Kemp appointed him to the position of Georgia insurance and safety fire commissioner after the incumbent was forced out amid a fraud and money-laundering scandal. In 2022, King won a full four-year term.
A longtime supporter of Trump, King co-chaired the president’s 2020 reelection campaign in Georgia.
Born in Mexico, King moved to the U.S. when he was 17 to “learn English, beginning a journey that’s only possible in the United States,” according to his biography on his campaign website. If elected, he would be Georgia’s first Hispanic member of Congress.
King served four decades in the U.S. Army National Guard, rising from a private to the rank of major general. His military service included deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Bosnia and Herzegovina before he retired from active duty in 2023.
Carter, a pharmacist and former state legislator, was first elected to represent Georgia’s 1st District in 2014, succeeding Republican Jack Kingston. He easily won a sixth term to his Savannah-anchored district last fall by 24 points, and Republicans will be heavily favored to keep the seat in party hands next year.
It’s not the first time Carter has eyed a Senate run. He reportedly considered a bid against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in 2022 but backed off after Trump endorsed former NFL star Herschel Walker.
A member of the Republican Main Street Caucus, Carter has emerged as an ally of Trump. In February, he introduced a bill that would authorize the president to begin negotiations on the U.S. acquiring Greenland and would rename the autonomous Danish territory “Red, White, and Blueland.”
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