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- [00:00]
A
Hey there, listeners. Two quick notes before we get started today.
- [00:03]
B
First, a reminder that we've got our first live show of the year coming up on January 27th at the Comedy Cellar in New York City. It's going to be a live 2028 Democratic primary draft with friends of the pod, Nate Silver and Claire Malone. You can go get tickets to that@gdpolitics.com Second, the GD Politics merch store is going away at the end of the month and will be back later this year year. So if you want any shirts, hats, totes, what have you, they're all pretty cool, if I do say so myself. You can go get those@gdpolitics.com merch before the end of the month. All right, here's the show.
- [00:45]
A
I don't know if it's your vibe, but you're definitely allowed to swear on this podcast.
- [00:48]
C
Yeah, not my deal.
- [00:50]
A
Okay. All right, all right, all right.
- [00:51]
C
I mean, I'm not like, I played six years of minor league baseball. I know how to swear. But.
- [00:56]
A
But just not for public consumption.
- [00:58]
C
Well, just try to keep myself under control.
- [01:01]
A
And also, how should I should I refer to you as former Lieutenant Governor?
- [01:05]
C
Call me Jeff.
- [01:17]
B
Hello and welcome to the GD Politics podcast. I'm Galen Drew.
- [01:21]
A
It's a midterm year, as you know.
- [01:23]
B
And we're less than two months away from the start of the primary calendar. Things will kick off in Arkansas, North Carolina and Texas on March 3rd, so get ready. We're gonna have plenty of coverage of those elections throughout the year. And of course, heading into the big election in November. I think you should expect a table setting episode in your feeds before too long. But today we're gonna hear from one of the more unique candidates running this cycle, Jeff Duncan, the former Republican Lieutenant governor of Georgia, who's now running for governor of the state as a Democrat. He began his political career as a Republican in the state legislature and then served as lieutenant governor alongside current Governor Brian Kemp from 2019 to 2023. He became better known on the national scene after the 2020 election as one of a number of Republicans in the state who pushed back strongly against Trump's.
- [02:16]
A
Attempts to to overturn the results in Georgia.
- [02:19]
B
He chose not to run for reelection in 2022, endorsed Kamala Harris for president in 2024, and formally became a Democrat last year. Now he's running for governor in a Democratic primary that includes former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance bottoms and former DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond. On the Republican side, current Lt. Governor Burke Jones is competing against Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who notably rejected Trump's request he, quote, find 11,780 votes in 2020. Democrats have not won the governor's mansion in Georgia since 1998. So will this be the year that they do it? And will Jeff Duncan be the one to try? Here's my conversation with them.
- [03:07]
A
Jeff, welcome to the podcast.
- [03:09]
C
Glad to be here.
- [03:10]
A
We were planning on speaking on January 5th in part to discuss the 5th anniversary of January 6th, which we will get into. But we postpone that because of some big news. The United States strikes on Venezuela and capture of Nicolas Maduro and his wife. So we might as well start there. I mean, do you think that the US Was right to capture Maduro?
- [03:33]
C
Well, let's start here. Removing a international drug trafficker from power, I think we can all agree, is a good thing. The individual decisions and mechanics around how that was done will be certainly questioned. I think there's some troubling concerns about how Donald Trump is talking about running their entire oil industry and running their government and not really having a plan. I think there's some serious questions starting to surface. Well, what I will say is probably the most concerning issue is that Donald Trump is not paying attention to America's problems. Right. There's still this affordability crisis that is real and palpable in people's lives. And there's people literally sitting in the grocery store line right now that can't buy all their groceries. I also think it's interesting to talk about the healthcare crisis, right? As the clock turned to 2026, there's a lot of people who started facing premiums that they can't afford.
- [04:28]
A
And we, and we will absolutely get into some of that stuff. But I mean, part of the reason that your story is so interesting is because you used to be a Republican. We're going to talk about what happened in 2020. Like, this is one of those places where it can be a little bit tricky, right? Former Representative Adam Kinzinger, who I've talked to on this podcast, came out quickly saying, you know, this was the right move. We should have taken out Maduro. A lot of Democrats have sort of caught themselves in a, in a weird space, like being quite critical of Trump, but also wanting to say that Maduro should be gone. I mean, like, as somebody who was a traditional Republican, you know, maybe believed in the three legged stool of Republicanism between, you know, a strong national security, traditional values, and free markets. Like, where do you find yourself at a moment like this thinking about what the United States should do, I guess, as a newly minted Democrat.
- [05:20]
C
Yeah, look, we're all Americans. I think when we talk about foreign policy, I mean, it should be in American terms, right. We're, we're talking about up people's lives being affected by drugs, by, you know, we've got soldiers on the ground and in the air. We look at foreign policy issues, international issues, I believe, as Americans. The concerning part, as I mentioned a moment ago, is this overreach, whether you're a Republican or Democrat, this overreach into completely steering oil markets. Right. Within hours of capturing a Maduro and his wife and taking them out of the country, you've already started talking, Donald Trump already started talking about taking over the entire oil industry and bringing US Companies in. And you know, it, I think, becomes a troublesome narrative to keep the international coalitions that you need to do stuff like this on board when you start seeing this stuff play out. But look, that's who Donald Trump is. I think that's where this, we'll start to divide Ds and Rs. But look, make no mistake about it, I want to make sure I say this too. Republicans every day are having a harder and harder time trying to explain Donald Trump's actions. Right. Whether it be tariffs, whether it be foreign policy gaffes, whether it be weaponization of the Department of Justice, whether it be tearing down the east wing of the White House. You give, I said this yesterday on tv. You give a Republican a six pack in two hours. They still can't explain you what tariffs are doing in a good way for this country. That's the crisis going on inside the Republican Party.
- [07:01]
A
So I want to come back to some current events and policy questions, but let's talk about the chain of events that led to you becoming a Democrat in the first place. You were lieutenant governor of Georgia from 2019 to 2023. Before that, you were a state representative. I guess. How would you describe your political views back then?
- [07:21]
C
Yeah, my journey to becoming a Democrat, ironically enough, started probably the first day I got sworn in as a state representative, as a Republican. Right. When I never grew up in this hyper partisan household, I never carried hyper partisan views. I had friends on all sides of the aisles throughout my life, growing up personally and professionally. So when I got sworn in, I saw this partisan fist fight happening almost immediately inside the State House. Right. Good ideas were getting slammed just because they had a D next to their name or because they had an R next to their name. And so I started building coalitions across the aisle, working with Democrats. Every bill I ever drafted, I think for the most part, and passed, was bipartisan, almost unanimous bipartisan, because I felt like the bills that only passed down party lines did a really good job of making a point, but rarely made a difference. And so that really was this journey that started for me when I ran for lieutenant governor in 2018, got sworn in in 2019, I really kind of did it. As I'm going to do this differently. I'm going to work across the aisle. And that's exactly what we did for four years. We passed bipartisan stuff almost every hour of every day as lieutenant governor. And certainly there were some issues out there. The transition to becoming a Democrat for me really accelerated in two critical spots. One was in the following of Ahmaud Arbery being murdered in Brunswick, Georgia. It was tragic. I talked to his mom, and she was as brokenhearted as any human as I've ever talked to. And she said she wanted to pass hate crimes legislation. And when I walked back into the Republican caucus meeting to talk about it, they were like, no, no, don't do that. That's unintended consequences in a Pandora's box. And so I worked with Democrats to pass it, and that really accelerated my push. But also the 2020 election, I mean, how can you look past Donald Trump and his attempts and the entire base falling for his bait?
- [09:19]
A
Let's talk about that 2020 election. I mean, I want to hear what it was like. I mean, for you behind the scenes in Georgia in the aftermath of the 2020 election. A lot of us have heard the phone call. We've seen images on tv like you lived it, and sort of now you're on the other side of the partisan aisle. And so I would think in this moment, you can sort of speak freely about what the conversations were like, what it was like talking to Governor Brian Kemp at the time and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
- [09:48]
C
Yeah, there was no doubt in my mind within hours. Look, I had soured on Donald Trump years beforehand. I mean, look, you could just see the shallowness of the individual. And I created distance between myself and him. I was not a MAGA disciple. That just was never something that made sense to me. But within hours of the 2020 election results coming in, Donald Trump immediately was spreading lies. He had started sowing seeds of doubt weeks, if not months in advance of that. So there was already signs of it. But I didn't care if I was a Republican or not. I was not going to stand up and illegally steal Millions of votes. And so I was willing to stand up and started pushing back as hard as I could on TV and on, you know, podcasts and radio interviews and newspaper interviews, every which way I knew possible to spread the message. And I was asking the right questions. I was calling Brad Raffensperger's office. I was talking to Gabe Sterling. I was talking to the elections board, I was talking to county elections officials, the Attorney General's office. I was doing the homework to make sure there was no instances of fraud. And there wasn't. In every. Every hour of every day, we kept getting further and further away from that 2020 election. Donald Trump's attempts and his cast of characters started to become more bombastic and more just unhinged with the amount of lies that were coming out. Every time Donald Trump would send a tweet with my name in it, spreading a lie, saying something, you know, completely, blatantly false, the death threats would start. My phone would ring, my wife's phone would ring. We ended up. I was sitting in this chair right here in my. In my home office, and we had armed state troopers around our house protecting us not from terrorists, but from Republicans. It was rough. It was tough. I mean, having your kids come home from school, getting picked on, having neighbors not talking to you, getting harassed at the grocery store. Yeah, it was pretty intense.
- [11:41]
A
In the immediate aftermath of the election. You, along with the governor and the speaker, put out a relatively muted statement saying you were taking allegations of fraud seriously. By early December, you were sort of on cnn, like you said, speaking your mind, saying that you were disgusted by the President, his behavior wasn't American. How did Governor Kemp react to you at the time?
- [12:07]
C
Well, first of all, I was on television within, I think, a day or two after the election. So it was, it was. It was pretty immediate. So I think I was one of the first folks to jump on. Uh, you know, look, there was not a lot of hyper communication between me and the speaker and the governor and, And, And. And the Secretary of State and the Attorney General. There wasn't like this overwhelming. We were just simply all doing our own homework on our own research. We were. We were asking the right questions. We had everybody's phone numbers to call. That. That had purview. Look, I. I said this on a number of interviews. I would have been the second most popular Republican in the country if I would have been the one to find the missing box of votes in some county across Georgia. But they weren't there. There was no signs, there was no examples. Everywhere I went I told people to email me, call me, send me the information that you've got. And the best example of fraud that we ever seem to find was somebody would come up to you and say, jeff, I know you're doing the right thing, but I just want to tell you I have an instance of the fraud that will change this election's outcome. And I'm like, great, send it to me. Where can I look? Well, it's hard. I saw it on Facebook. That was the most tangible piece, piece of proof that throughout, you know, even five years later, that we've still got.
- [13:18]
A
This was quite the experience that you and Governor Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Gabriel Sterling, who was in the Secretary of State's office, all experienced together. And you've all sort of come out of it in different ways. Right. You know, the governor is still in office, relatively popular. Brad Raffensperger, still in office, managed to win a Republican primary after going toe to toe with. With the president. You're now a Democrat. I mean, was that an experience that formed a kind of bond between you guys?
- [13:53]
C
I wouldn't say so. I think we all had good working relationships, you know, and. And. And got a lot of good things done in Georgia, working together in a number of different ways. I would say that about Republicans. I would say that about Democrats, too. But what I will say is, what's unique is I didn't run again for reelection, not because I couldn't win. I saw the same polling data Governor Kemp saw. I saw the same polling data that Brad Raffensperger saw. I had the same polling data. I would have won. I didn't run because I was embarrassed to call myself a Republican. I was embarrassed to walk into a room. It wasn't just about election fraud. It was about the bombastic, unexplainable, unhumane behavior of Donald Trump. I got tired of waking up with asterisk marks next to the phrase of loving your neighbor. And as a Republican, right. It got to a point where if your neighbor didn't look like you, act like you, love, like you, vote like you, you couldn't love your neighbor. And that made no sense to me. And so I started distancing myself. And I certainly didn't want to walk in a room and have to only tell 50% of the truth. It didn't appeal to me. And so I stepped away from running and just continued this journey of. You know, some folks will say, jeff, have you lost your mind? And the answer is, no, I haven't lost My mind, I found my heart. That's truly, truly where I'm at after.
- [15:07]
A
January 6th and after deciding not to run again. I mean, you first tried to direct the Republican Party in a different direction. You wrote GOP 2.0, arguing for conservative policies based in empathy and a respectful tone and conservatism, maybe like old school conservatism. Why weren't you. And that was an effort that I think a lot of people tried to pursue, a lot of people with your views tried to pursue. After Trump lost in 2020, why weren't those efforts more successful? Right. Like Trump is back in office.
- [15:43]
C
Donald Trump has stolen the heart and soul of the Republican Party. He has turned it into a. Into a blood sport, a cage match. Fill in the blanks. People want to. They're attracted. Too many people are attracted to the visceral, vile edge that he puts out there every minute of every. And I think the problem for me was I saw the inefficiencies of doing that. You don't solve problems where Donald Trump comes from. You don't solve problems where the Republican Party is sitting at. And that really started this evolution of me looking at some of these individual policies that, by the way, I didn't get right as a Republican. Some of these things. Medicaid expansion. I tried to explore every route possible without expanding Medicaid. And the reality is there's no way to. To make an impactful impact, to positively impact the healthcare system in the state of Georgia without expanding Medicaid. You have to do it. Republicans are broken thinking that just because somebody doesn't have health insurance means they're not gonna get sick or have to go to the hospital. That's wrong. I was wrong on guns. I was wrong to sit there and think that the NRA had anybody's best interest at heart. I got tired of walking by that TV screen and trying to figure out an excuse why we shouldn't pass common sense gun legislation when I'm watching a mass shooting play out. And same with abortion. Abortion was an issue once I started to hear the stories, the horrific stories of the healthcare issues, the difficult health decisions that were being made, the personal situations. It opened my eyes up to the fact that nobody, including me, should have their own personal opinions be forced on other people on such an important issue like abortion. It shouldn't.
- [17:21]
A
I want to talk a little bit about this. I mean, you're mentioning a lot of different policy areas on which you've changed her mind since being a Republican. And I think that will probably be an attack against you in this campaign? Not probably. You know, you can go online and, and read some of the attacks against you from some of your opponents already. You know, Emily's List links to your old campaign website from when you were running for lieutenant governor. And folks will find there, you know, lots of information that jives with traditional Republicanism on abortion and being pro life and being pro private industry, being, you know, pro a strong national security, maybe hawkish on immigration, all, all of these things.
- [18:07]
C
And by the way, I do think some of those issues are a number of Democrats are supportive of a strong national security. I think that that, that fits, that protects all folks pro business, pro jobs, pro economy. Those are things that fit a lot of Democrats mindsets, too.
- [18:21]
A
So, you know, this will, this will in some ways be an uphill battle to win over a Democratic primary electorate. So let me just ask this plainly. Why are you running for governor?
- [18:33]
C
Because I think Georgia's best days are in front of us. And I want to lead Georgians to those best days. And the brutal reality of this election in Georgia is you've got to win more than the base, right? We've seen multiple election cycles of Democrats doing a great job getting Democrats to show up to the polls. But to be governor in Georgia for the first time in nearly 30 years, we have a chance for a Democratic governor to win. And you got to win more than the base. You got to get Democrats, independents and disgusted Republicans. And I feel like Georgia's Democrats and independents are wired differently than the national scene. I think they want somebody to stay focused on their issues. I'm campaigning on three primary issues. I think a majority of Georgians, including Republicans, are worried about the same three things, the affordability crisis, the health care crisis, and the Donald Trump crisis. Those are the three things I feel like I give us the best chance to win this election against Georgia. Burt Jones, which essentially, Burt Jones is essentially Latin for Donald Trump these days.
- [19:29]
A
What's your theory of the case? You know, you're saying you have the best chance, but why can you win sort of, if that's the argument for you being governor? Because you can win in a general election. Like lay out the case for me.
- [19:42]
C
Well, I just started. Democrats, Independents and Republicans show up and vote for Jeff Duncan in November of 26 and help Democrats up and down the ticket. I think also it's important to understand, you know, my style, my operating style for years in the public square has not been to pull pins and throw grenades at the other side. It's to turn chaos into conversations it's to build bipartisan conversations. It's to work on solving real people, real people's problems. You know, if you want to improve public education like I do, if you want to improve the healthcare system, if you want to improve economic development opportunity throughout the state, if you want to pay more attention to natural resources, you just go down the list of the things that Democrats care about. None of that happens with a second place trophy. You've got to win. And so I feel like I've got the best opportunity to do that and then show up day one ready for the job, ready to represent millions of not only Democrats, independents and Republicans.
- [20:36]
A
I guess what makes you more electable with independents and Republicans than, you know, just for example, your competition in the Democratic primaries, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and some other folks as well. But sort of what makes you more electable than them and able to win over those independents and Republicans?
- [20:54]
C
Well, I think it's, I think reverse engineer that I think Republicans, there's the folks that would vote for me are on the same journey. They're just trailing behind me. They're on the same journey of being disgusted with, embarrassed of Donald Trump and MAGA and the mainstream Republicans that are continuing to thumb their nose at, at everybody else in the world. I think independents are also many independents are one or two social issues away from being able to consider themselves a Democrat. And I think Democrats are ready to win. So you put all that together and look, it's not that I'm going to disrespect. I don't know if I've never disrespected issues before. I certainly wouldn't ever in the future. And as governor, I'll pay attention and learn and educate myself and my administration. But to win this election, we have to stay disciplined and focused. And I'm encouraging Democrats running for city council, county commission, every state house, state senate, and even in this governor's race, stay focused on affordability, healthcare, and Donald Trump. Those are the three things that most Georgians want us to stay focused on.
- [21:55]
B
Today's podcast is brought to you by you, the listeners. Without paid subscribers, GD Politics wouldn't exist. Your support means that we can continue making an independent podcast that's guided by curiosity, rigor and and a sense of humor. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes, which I promise will be worth it in this midterm election year. You can also join the paid subscriber chat and connect your personal feed to your favorite podcast player so you get every episode right where you Listen to podcasts. Becoming a paid subscriber to GD Politics is a great way to kick off 2026. So go check it out@gdpolitics.com I'll see you there.
- [22:36]
A
What's a place where you still think that Republicans are right?
- [22:41]
C
I don't know. I mean, I think the lines are blurred in a lot of this stuff. The devil's always in the details. I do think a majority of Georgians, including Democrats, are fiscally conservative. I think Democrats have gotten a bad rap in being demonized as not being fiscally conservative. Nobody wants to have waste and abuse in government, for sure, being fiscally responsible, but that doesn't mean cutting people out of services. Um, you know, so I, I, I think that, and I also think, you know, this pro business, I, I kind of pushed back a couple of minutes ago about this on the piece. I think a majority of Democrats are pro business, too. People want to have economic development opportunities, but they also don't want to be pushed, pushed to the side because of a business or because of a large corporate balance sheet that has more lawyers or more lobbyists. Uh, so I think there's a lot more common ground, especially at the state level.
- [23:30]
A
I mean, are there areas where you are like, no Democrats? You're getting this wrong. This is a situation where you can learn from me.
- [23:40]
C
No, I don't think so. I think this is a, I think this is a joint discussion. I think it's walking through the same, the same set of issues together and looking at them pragmatically.
- [23:49]
A
Well, because I asked, you know, like, if the idea is that you're more electable and can appeal to independents and Republicans, then you'd think, like, that's accompanied by having maybe more heterodox views, being just not your traditional Democrat. But I'm hearing what a little bit is sort of like in becoming a Democrat, you've become a top to bottom Democrat. Are there ways in which you are different from the top to bottom Democrat?
- [24:16]
C
I think I match up well with a majority of Georgians that fit that wide spectrum of probably 80% of Georgians that are Democrats, Independents, and those discussed with Republicans. I think 80% of them want somebody to come up and not look at the issues from the campaign cycle or the mail piece that shows up in the headline. They want somebody that's able to put the facts and the details on the table and to be able to understand what's fact, what's fiction, and make good decisions. I think it's always interesting to me when we elect people in elections and for whatever the race is, we always ends up the campaigns come down to two or three issues, whatever the issue of that cycle is. But the reality is very few of those things end up being the things that you govern on. For example, I ran for lieutenant governor in the state of Georgia. I certainly didn't campaign that I would be the best lieutenant governor in the history of Georgia for a pandemic. I certainly didn't see unprecedented civil unrest happening in our streets. I didn't certainly see 10% unemployment happening in one day. And I certainly didn't see a sitting president trying to overturn an election. I think Georgians are ready and Americans in general are ready to elect people that are able to be good, common sense decision makers, honest umpires. And that's really what I claim to be.
- [25:26]
A
So let's talk about a few of those areas. Immigration, what is the Jeff Duncan approach to that?
- [25:33]
C
Well, in every room I walk into full of Democrats, we certainly seem to come to a quick consensus that an orderly and secure border process is a must. And that makes sense in most people's worlds. But this inhumane ICE operation that continues to go on, including today's shooting, and I'm just getting tidbits right before I came on, it sounds like this woman has died in Minneapolis. These inhumane raids are all about Kristi NOEM Getting a 5 second soundbite. It's all about Donald Trump continuing to let his animal instincts shine.
- [26:12]
A
I guess what's the policy? Right. Cause I think it is easy for Democrats to fall back on mostly anti Trumpism, but it's been hard for Democrats. And now I guess as a, as a new like it was easy as a Republican to know what the policy is on immigration. It's articulated over and over and over again. It's probably one of the best defined issues for Republicans.
- [26:34]
B
For Democrats, that's not so.
- [26:36]
A
So I guess what is the, what definition would you like to sort of give yourself as a newly minted Democrat?
- [26:42]
C
Well, I'm running for governor. Right. Right. And there's only certain things a governor can do. There's only certain things a state can do. I can assure you that if Donald Trump wants to use state of Georgia assets to amplify his ICE efforts, I will not allow that to happen as governor. I think that's first and foremost. I think the inhumane approach of trying to uproot entire communities and families and industries just for the sole purpose of pacifying a handful of people's egos is wrong. And history will not Be kind. So as governor, I will not use those assets, state assets, and also I'll use the courts to the best of my ability. I think that's not been a perfect process. But since Donald Trump's coming back into office over the last nearly 12 months, I think we've seen the courts have been very effective in pushing back on a number of these issues that have played out. I think the same thing plays out for National Guard being deployed in quote, unquote, Democratic cities. I think it's wrong. When they're not needed, they're not needed. It's only, you know, it seems to be an effort to create more chaos than solve any problems. And so as governor, I'll certainly use all of my capacities to push back on him, mandating that we use our state, our National Guard for those exercises.
- [27:56]
A
How about the issue of abortion?
- [27:58]
C
Yeah, look, this is an issue I didn't get right as we talked about before. You know, I learned a lot from Kamala Harris on this particular issue. Right. She walked me through kind of her thinking and her process and she's like, irregardless of anybody's personal decisions or personal thoughts or opinions on abortion, none of us wake up with the right to force those on somebody else. And she's absolutely right. You know, abortion is not a binary issue in people's lives, as I've come to learn. There's medical conditions that affect the mother, that affect the child, there's personal situations that affect the mother and the family that I will never understand and a two dimensional piece of paper will never understand. And so day one, as governor, I've promised to sign an executive order that clarifies doctors can practice medicine in Georgia without fear of prosecution. And secondly, I'll introduce legislation to repeal the six week ban and meet millions of women where they want us to meet them at. That's the right thing to do.
- [28:57]
A
Have your personal views on the issue changed?
- [29:02]
C
Yeah, certainly there have been parts of my personal purview on the issue as I've gained more awareness and more understanding. But I don't think there's two people in the world that have the same exact positioning on abortion. It's such a complicated personal issue. I don't wake up with the same exact thoughts that you do or my wife does or my neighbor does or anybody on either side of the issue, I guess.
- [29:22]
A
What is your view?
- [29:23]
C
And by the way, it shouldn't be of any, any, it should not be of any sort of importance to somebody else asking it. Like I would, I would not Ask you what your personal opinions are on it because that's you and your family's personal opinions.
- [29:37]
A
So I guess what you're saying is like you wouldn't share your personal views, but you think that Georgians should be able to make whatever decisions they want.
- [29:44]
C
Absolutely. I shouldn't push and I shouldn't ask somebody else what their personal opinions are. They should have the freedoms and flexibility to make that decision with themselves, their family, their faith, and their doctors.
- [29:53]
A
So this is one of the areas where, for example, Emily's List is campaigning against you in a way. They link to your old campaign website where it says, you know, fight for every innocent life as if it was your own. Is your position on abortion? I guess we're getting to a place in the conversation where it's like critics will just say that you are now saying that you've switched every position for the sake of political expediency.
- [30:17]
C
I'll just stop the question there because I think that's just a generic term that's used to just create momentum, unnecessary momentum. Every position is a pretty all encompassing term.
- [30:28]
A
Yeah, okay. Sorry, sorry. So I guess that you've changed a lot of positions for political expediency to sort of change party, et cetera. I'm curious, like, how do you respond to that criticism?
- [30:38]
C
Yeah, I think it's part of the journey for me. Right. As I've taken the time to understand the issues better. For example, guns. Let's switch topics and go to guns. I grew up in a 9010 Republican district. The NRA was spoken in high regard. When I got down to the Capitol and realized after a few years what their efforts were, that they only cared about themselves, it started to change my minds as we started to watch mass shootings play out in churches and schools and communities and I started asking questions like 90% of other Americans that want universal background checks, red flag laws, and in home safe storage laws. When my mind started to morph towards that like that absolutely makes sense. I think nobody sits really in the same political positions their entire life. So that's one of those issues. Medicaid is one we talked about earlier. Abortion is another issue. I just feel like we have to have opportunities. And look, Democrats are guilty of doing this too. Right. As we talked about earlier, I don't think it was right for Democrats to just rubber stamp Joe Biden's open and unsecure border for three plus years. I don't think that made sense. I think that was not only a bad political stance he took, but it was a bad structural stance he took for the country. I think Democrats should have made a quicker correction. But you know, we have to start doing that as Democrats and Republicans. If we want to truly fix this country. We've got to not just take the rubber stamp and put it on there because somebody said it from our same party. We've got to be willing and able and mature enough to put the details of the issue on the table. Right. For example, going back to the abortion issue, almost everybody is both pro life and pro choice. Right? Right. A Republican who believes in exceptions for rape and incest and the health of the mother or the child. Right. Is actually pro choice to a point. A Democrat or pro choice individual who doesn't believe in late term abortions becomes pro life at a point on the table. So these aren't binary issues in political circles. It is in mail pieces that you send out, in 30 second advertisements that you run. It's binary, but the realities of the issues are three dimensional.
- [32:39]
A
Yeah, no, I, I mean, I totally agree with you. And it's clear from looking at just public opinion polling that Americans views are nuanced and complicated and that oftentimes doesn't get represented in politics because I guess particularly in primaries, for example, people feel motivated to just toe the party line and then sort of the most engaged voters also participate in those primaries and it becomes a feedback loop. And so are there ways that you think the Democratic Party should be less rigid? Are there policy areas where you say, hey, you know, maybe it's worth rethinking this, maybe it's worth being more nuanced about this or that?
- [33:24]
C
I don't think it's nuanced, I just think it's focused. Right. Democrats have an opportunity of a lifetime. Donald Trump is literally that bad that every time he opens his mouth, the Democratic Party should get exponentially bigger. And it is right. This tent continues to swell and swell and swell. The focus is we've got to meet people where they're at, what they're worried about. Those are the votes that are up there to get as I continue to beat a drum. Affordability, health care and Donald Trump. Affordability, healthcare and Donald Trump. That is what a majority of folks wake up and worried about. We can have discussions about other issues. We can talk in deep nature about social issues, but that certainly doesn't need to be the tip of the spears as we try to campaign and grow. If Democrats play their cards right in this cycle, we're not just going to win an election. Right. And we're not just going to win a cycle, flip the House, flip the Senate, win a bunch of governorships. We're going to actually create a momentum behind us that wins for decades because Donald Trump is literally that bad.
- [34:24]
A
I think, you know, I, I tend to believe you when you say that you are the more electable candidate in a general election in Georgia for Democrats. However, if you look at the primary polling at the moment, there's not a lot of it. But according to the latest poll from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Keisha Lance Bottoms, like I mentioned, former mayor of Atlanta has 40% support. Then the former DeKalb CEO Michael Thurman has 11% support. You have 5% support. You know, how do you by the.
- [34:55]
C
Way, that's pretty good for two weeks after I announced I was running for governor and six weeks after I announced I was changing parties. That's pretty good.
- [35:03]
A
What's the plan to win the Democratic primary? Because I hear you with the electability argument for the general election.
- [35:11]
C
I've run statewide before, and there's one, there's one really important detail to it. It's effort. You got to work. You got to every minute of every day. You got to be moving around the state, moving around the country, doing whatever you got to do. I was in D.C. for two days yesterday. I was testifying in the January 6th committee hearings. I was on MSNBC with Jen Psaki and did Morning Joe getting our message out. You got to work. You got to be everywhere. I'll be in Savannah tomorrow morning. We'll be in Gwinnett county on Saturday. Yeah, you got to work. You got to meet people where they're at. Democrats are thirsty. Look, make no mistake about this. Democrats want to win. When I walk into communities all across the state, right, whether it be the black community, the urban community, the rural community, the faith community, the Asian community, you name it, they're ready to win. We've had almost 30 years of losses for Democrats in the governor's race.
- [36:02]
A
Why shouldn't voters choose Keisha Lance Bottoms?
- [36:06]
C
That's for them to figure out. That's not for me. I'm running because Jeff Duncan, I believe, is the best candidate to be the next governor of Georgia. They'll figure out their own reasons. We all have resumes to run on. We got headwinds.
- [36:16]
A
Wait, so you're not going to attack your opponent and like the front runner in the race or like at least credit, like a give people an explanation for why they should choose you instead of her?
- [36:28]
C
There there'll be time to talk about each other's resumes. But right now I'm casting a vision forward, a vision that's focused on on figuring out on the affordability issues here. Here's what you do with affordability. It's just not a buzzword. Affordability is you take 10% of the state's rainy day fund, $1.7 billion out of the $17 billion rainy day fund, and you start to better invest in the CAPS program to lower childcare cost. You better invest in the TANF program, which helps be nimble around folks with poverty. You start to find ways to expand Medicaid. You take and reinvest in Georgians. That's how you start to attack the crisis. Yeah, look, we've all got resumes to run on. I've certainly got a headwind because I used to be a Republican, but in most rooms I walk into, that doesn't appear to be a headwind.
- [37:11]
A
I want to talk, before I let you go, a little bit about, I don't know if I would say it's somebody who's had a similar experience to you, but somebody who's had an interesting experience that perhaps you can relate to and who is a fellow Georgian, and that's Marjorie Taylor Greene. She did a really long profile in the New York Times about her change of heart, in a way, and saying that she was naive and that she's changed her views on how to behave in politics. What do you make of the journey or the evolution of your fellow Georgian, Marjorie Taylor Greene?
- [37:51]
C
Well, I think first and foremost, I don't know her very well. I've probably shaken her hand twice in my life. I've maybe seen her eye to eye three times ever. So I don't know her very well. I've never talked to her about her particular journey. For me, it speaks to the chaos going on inside the Republican Party. Nobody wants to explain Donald Trump. Nobody can explain Donald Trump. It just doesn't make sense. And to see somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who by all metrics and standards drank more MAGA juice than any human being in the state of Georgia over the last umpteen years, to see her change her views in heart, you know, that's pretty telling. But I do think it speaks to because look, at the end of the day, Donald Trump's running a Ponzi scheme. Right? That's the only way to explain it. It's a Ponzi scheme. It's all built on lies. It's all built on misinformation. It's all built on vapor. It's not real. And so when you start watching somebody get one, just throw something as stupid as building condos in Gaza when people are losing their lives and people are being attacked. I mean, it's just every day he's got to get 1% shinier so that you forget about what he promised and what stupid thing he said the day before. And it's starting to fall apart. I worry that the Americans are going to get really hurt when this starts to blow over and Donald Trump starts to. His bad decisions start to negatively affect the economy, our safety, or our international trade. I mean, this stuff is real. I worry.
- [39:26]
A
Marjorie Taylor Greene is in the position that lawmakers often find themselves in when they decide that it's time to open up and say what they really think, which is leaving office. Right. She just submitted her resignation formally. Her last day, I think, was January 5th. And so now she no longer feels hemmed in by, you know, party politics and partisanship. And obviously, you're sort of revving up a campaign. She's winding down one. But I am, I am curious, like, are there ever ways that you feel like you have to hem yourself in in order? You know, clearly you said part of the reason you became a Democrat is because you had to hem yourself in too much as a Republican. Right. You, there were a lot of asterisks. You had to explain away a lot of, a lot of things that you just didn't want to explain away anymore. Are there lessons for the Democratic Party to take? Right, because you, you in the Democratic Party now have a far left as well, a left flank that you have to contend with. And are there ways that you hem yourself in out of fear of frustrating them or annoying them?
- [40:30]
C
I'm just going to be me, right? At the end of the day, if that means I don't win a primary, then that is what it is. I'm just going to be me. I'm going to show up and make good decisions, ask good questions, try to do the best job I possibly can, stay disciplined and focused on the issues that matter most. I think we have to do a better job in this country of, of putting, you know, listening to the extremes to the point that, you know, equate to their actual sizes. The extremes on the left and the extremes on the right are a lot smaller than they sound. And I don't think we should let the extremes, you know, set the policy for an overwhelming majority of Georgians or Americans for that matter. I'm just going to do the best job I can possibly do. And if that means I win an election. That's awesome. I'll be ready to go day one. I've got game day experience as lieutenant governor. I know how the state budget works. I know how the state agencies work. I know how all the programs work. I know how the legislature works. I know. I know that game. I will walk into that office day one and be ready to go to work for Democrats, Independents and Republicans.
- [41:29]
A
All right, well, we're going to leave things there for today. Thank you so much for joining me today, Jeff.
- [41:33]
C
Thank you so much. Appreciate the opportunity.
- [41:36]
A
My name is Galen Druke. Remember to become a subscriber to this podcast at G and wherever you get your podcast. Paid subscribers get about twice the number.
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B
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- [41:45]
A
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- [41:52]
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- [41:54]
A
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