A former Republican who stood up to President Donald Trump when he tried to overturn the 2020 election is now running for governor in Georgia—as a Democrat.
Geoff Duncan, who served as the Peach State’s lieutenant governor from 2019 to 2023, announced on Tuesday morning that he’s joining a crowded Democratic primary field in the 2026 gubernatorial race.
In his announcement video, Duncan touted his fierce criticism of Trump, which earned him a personal call-out from the president in August.
I’m in. Georgians deserve leaders with the courage to take on Donald Trump, lower costs for families, and do what’s right. With your help, we can win this election and I’ll proudly serve as Georgia’s Democratic governor.https://t.co/Lnq9nWuDS2 pic.twitter.com/D6Ri3dVspF
— Geoff Duncan (@GeoffDuncanGA) September 16, 2025
When Duncan announced that he was leaving the Republican Party in August, Trump branded him as a “total loser” in a late-night social media tirade.
“This attack from Donald Trump is a badge of honor for me,” Duncan said of that irate Truth Social post in his campaign launch video. “It means I’m doing something right.”
Duncan’s break with his old party began in 2020, when Trump pressured a slew of Georgia Republicans to subvert the vote in their state, which Joe Biden won by 11,779 votes.
That campaign was headlined by Trump’s infamous phone-call shakedown with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which the president said, “Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.”
In Dec. 2020, Duncan and Republican Gov. Brian Kemp issued a statement explaining that it would be illegal for the Georgia legislature to convene a special assembly and pick its own slate of presidential electors—a last-ditch scheme that four Trump-supporting members of the Georgia Senate had hatched to sway the results.
Duncan also publicly contradicted Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud in the state, saying that he had voted for Trump personally but that “regardless of the fact the person you voted for or not, you’ve got to accept the results and move on.”
By 2024, he was out of office and publicly supporting Kamala Harris. He even spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, urging voters to “dump Trump.”
His public support for Harris earned him the boot from the Georgia GOP, which voted in January of this year to expel Duncan from the state party.
This summer, he renewed his criticism of Trump and the MAGA GOP after the president fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner.
The “Ponzi Scheme of Propaganda” continues to unravel for Trump. https://t.co/87phggmEA5
— Geoff Duncan (@GeoffDuncanGA) August 1, 2025
“The ‘Ponzi Scheme of Propaganda’ continues to unravel for Trump,” Duncan wrote on X.
In an op-ed that he wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution explaining his decision to join the Democratic Party, Duncan claimed that his move away from the GOP predated Trump’s election-stealing and stemmed from his “daily struggle to love my neighbor.”
Republican policies on healthcare, immigration, and gun rights, he wrote, hurt poor Georgians and represented “a lesson on how not to love your neighbor.”
Duncan reiterated his cost-of-living and compassion message in his announcement video, where he called himself “a proud Democrat,” while also nodding to his record as a thorn in Trump’s side.
“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. “We need to push back, and we need to win.”
Duncan, a former pro baseball player turned lawmaker, will face an uphill battle to win a crowded Democratic primary. If he can earn the nomination, he’ll seek to become the state’s first Democratic governor since 1998.
Dem Gov. candidate Jason Esteves’ campaign responds to Geoff Duncan getting into the race as a Democrat with a photo of Duncan standing Gov. Brian Kemp signing Georgia’s six-week abortion ban in 2019. Esteves’ spox says, Georgia women won’t forget.” pic.twitter.com/9Ydn7QPzn8
— Patricia Murphy (@MurphyAJC) September 16, 2025
His primary competitors include former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and former state Senator Jason Esteves.
Esteves wasted no time trying to brand Duncan as an outsider in the party, with a spokesperson for his campaign sharing an image of Duncan looking on happily as Gov. Kemp signed a six-week abortion ban into law in 2019.
Duncan told the Constitution on Tuesday that he would seek to repeal the state’s restrictive abortion law if elected governor.
“I got it wrong,” he said. “Women deserve the right to choose.”
Trump has yet to weigh in on whether he likes Duncan’s odds in the race.
The post Republican Who Trump Turned Into a Democrat Running for Governor appeared first on The Daily Beast.
