Republican Chris Carr raises $1.25M more for 2026 Georgia governor bid

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said Monday he raised another $1.25 million for his 2026 gubernatorial bid from Feb. 1 to June 30.

The Republican announced the fundraising totals to The Associated Press on Monday, although he hasn’t yet filed an official report with the state Ethics Commission. Those reports are due Tuesday.

Carr raised $2.2 million from November through mid-January, but couldn’t raise money while lawmakers were in session from mid-January until the end of March. He didn’t immediately say how much he has spent of the nearly $3.5 million he has raised.

Carr is the only major GOP candidate who has announced for the race in Georgia, which saw titanic battles for the governor’s chair between Republican Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams in 2018 and 2022. Abrams lost both races, and no Democrat has won a governor’s race in Georgia since Roy Barnes in 1998. Republicans argue Georgia needs the stability of continued Republican control.

Democrats are meanwhile trying to prove their successes in other races were not a fluke. Former President Joe Biden won Georgia in 2020 and U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff were elected to the Senate in runoffs in January 2021. In 2022, Warnock beat Republican Herschel Walker in a runoff to claim a full six-year term.

Carr took the unprecedented step of announcing his run for governor in November in part because he said he needed to get an early jump on fundraising. He could face Republican rivals with enough personal wealth to fund their own campaigns. Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, whose family has made a fortune running and supplying gas stations, is expected to announce his bid for governor in the coming weeks. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who sold a substantial engineering company, could also make a bid in the Republican primary.

Carr said in a statement that his numbers show “that kind of energy can’t be bought — it’s earned, and we’re ready to deliver.”

Carr has aligned closely with Kemp but could face opposition from President Donald Trump and his supporters in a primary election. Jones has been close to Trump and would likely angle for his endorsement.

Fueled by displeasure that Carr didn’t back Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss in Georgia, Trump in 2022 endorsed a primary opponent who lost to Carr.

Last week, the two leading Democrats said they had each collected about $1.1 million in early fundraising. Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said she loaned her campaign $200,000 and collected $900,000 from donors, while state Sen. Jason Esteves said he made a much smaller donation to his campaign with the rest coming from donors.