If Charlie Bailey, the recently elected chair of Georgia’s Democratic Party, had one message for Glynn County Democrats on Monday, it was that however distant they are from the state’s capitol and its largest concentration of people, they mattered.
“It’s the Democratic Party of Georgia, not just Atlanta,” Bailey told some 60 party faithful at the First United Methodist Church in Brunswick.
For years, the state party has relied on the affluent enclaves of Coastal Georgia for funds but has done little to build and strengthen Democratic committees in the region. Bailey said that must change, starting with the input of the region’s Democrats into the state party’s messaging ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
“We will not leave our people out there fighting with one arm,” he said.
The 42-year-old Bailey, an attorney who ran unsuccessfully for attorney general in 2018 and lieutenant governor four years later, faces steep challenges in helping change Democrats’ fortunes in Georgia. He was elected to head the state party in May, succeeding U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams of Atlanta.
Though Democrats occupy both of Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats, Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris by 2.3% of the vote in 2024 and Carter trounced Patti Hewitt by 24%. Two years earlier, Brian Kemp won reelection by 7.5% of the vote over Stacey Abrams.
Signaling what he believes the party’s core message ahead of 2026 ought to be, Bailey referred to the recent tax-and-spending bill signed into law last month by President Donald Trump — the “big, beautiful bill” — as the “big billionaire bill.”
“If we can’t campaign on this, if we can’t campaign to the people of Georgia and the people of this nation, what they get with Republican governors, with the deeds of Republicans, we ought to all go home and sit down,” he said.
In his remarks, Bailey tapped heavily into his roots in the church in his native Harris County. He urged Democrats to call out Republican lawmakers for what he described as their “hypocrisy.”
“I grew up in the church, and what I learned is words without deeds. Well, they are dead, so nobody cares what you say in a speech. Donald Trump, nobody cares what you say in a speech,” he said, taking swipes at Coastal Georgia’s congressman and the state’s lieutenant governor.
“Buddy Carter, nobody cares what you say in a speech. Burt Jones, if, with the great power you have been given, you are not doing anything about it, if you show with your deeds that you don’t give a darn about the working people of this state.”
Later, in an interview with The Current, Bailey, said that homing in on a message that will resonate with voters and their busy lives is vital:
“You need to have a focus on the things that, empirically and anecdotally, people tell us all the time are the chief concerns: Is my kid safe? How are they doing in school? If I get a hospital bill, can I pay it? Do I have some hope where I can look my kid in the eye and say with a straight face, you’re gonna have more opportunity than I, and our messaging needs to be like pretty much only on those things.”
Bailey said he wants to change the perception among party leaders that Coastal Georgia is more of a fundraising stop than a competitive political battleground.
In visiting Democrats in Camden County on Saturday and their counterparts in Glynn on Monday, he was not fundraising for the party, he said.
It was to let folks know that he was in a part of the state where they are outnumbered by Republicans and to assure them that the state party is organizing in every county and in every precinct, he explained.
“A hundred votes here matter, and they are exactly the same as 100 votes in Atlanta or 100 votes in Savannah.”
