ATLANTA – U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-St. Simons Island, has become the first Republican to jump into next year’s U.S. Senate race following term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp’s decision to pass on the contest.
Carter announced his candidacy Thursday with a 30-second video ad posted on YouTube declaring the sixth-term congressman’s close ties with Donald Trump.
“Trump has a warrior in Buddy Carter,” the narrator says in the ad, which goes on to call Carter a “MAGA warrior.”
Carter, 67, a former mayor of Pooler and former member of the General Assembly, was elected to Congress in 2014. He represents Georgia’s 1st Congressional District, which covers all six coastal counties and all or parts of nine inland counties in southeastern Georgia.
The ad criticizes Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff for voting against securing the nation’s borders and opposing efforts at the federal level to ban transgender athletes born male from participating in girls’ sports. Both the illegal immigration and transgender sports issues have been high on Trump’s list of priorities.
With Kemp out of the race, the Republican field is expected to grow significantly larger. Other members of Georgia’s GOP delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives reportedly considering joining the fray include Mike Collins, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Rich McCormick.
Other high-profile potential candidates include Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and state Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John King.
Kemp announced on Monday that he would not running for Ossoff’s Senate seat. The governor was widely considered as having the best shot among Republicans at turning Ossoff out of office next year after a single term.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat, an initiative of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
