Georgia · Governor
election 2026-11-03 · forecast as of 2026-10-01 · margins and probabilities are for Keisha Lance Bottoms
Who is running?
Keisha Lance Bottoms (Democratic), Rick Jackson (Republican). The margin below is Keisha Lance Bottoms minus the other candidate in the main contest; the rest are on the ballot and not in it.
The race, in brief
Georgia elects a governor on November 3, 2026, with Republican Brian Kemp ineligible for a third consecutive term. The text calls Georgia a swing state federally with a Republican lean at the state level: Kemp beat Stacey Abrams by 7.5 points in 2022, Democrats have not won the governorship since 1998, but in 2025 Democrats won two Public Service Commission seats. The 2026 primary was the first since 2006 in which Democratic turnout exceeded Republican.
The Republican nominee is healthcare executive Rick Jackson, who trailed Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones 38.4% to 32.5% on May 19 and won the June 16 runoff 52.6% to 47.4%, with Attorney General Chris Carr endorsing him. The Democratic nominee is Keisha Lance Bottoms, former mayor of Atlanta, who won her primary with 56.2%. As of July 31, 2026 Jackson had raised $118,914,891 and spent $114,023,757, with $4,319,290 on hand; Bottoms had raised $5,777,898 with $772,079 on hand.
Cook, Decision Desk HQ, Fox News, Inside Elections, RealClearPolitics and Sabato's Crystal Ball list the race as Tossup; Silver Bulletin lists it as 'Flip' (September 19, 2026). The aggregate polling average is Jackson 46.5%, Bottoms 46.1%. Recent polls include InsiderAdvantage (R), September 22–23, Jackson 48% to 46%; YouGov, September 15–18, Jackson 45% to 44% among registered voters; and Rasmussen Reports (R), September 14, Jackson 48% to 45%.
A paragraph quoting a model forecast from the day this brief was written is omitted; the current forecast is at the top of this page.
The facts, each beside its sentence
Incumbent Republican governor Brian Kemp is ineligible to seek re-election to a third consecutive term.
Incumbent Republican governor Brian Kemp is ineligible to seek re-election to a third consecutive term.
Jackson will face off against Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms in November.
Jackson will face off against Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms in November.
Keisha Lance Bottoms, former director of the Office of Public Engagement (2022–2023) and former mayor of Atlanta (2018–2022)
==== Nominee ==== *Rick Jackson, healthcare executive
incumbent governor Brian Kemp was re-elected in a rematch against Democrat Stacey Abrams by a 7.5 percent margin
candidate: Rick Jackson (businessman) votes: 373,543 percentage: 52.6
Silver Bulletin Flip September 19, 2026
|Rick Jackson (R) $118,914,891 $114,023,757 $4,319,290
Average |46.5% 46.1% 7.7% |Jackson +0.4%
InsiderAdvantage (R) September 22–23, 2026 1,200 (LV)
YouGov September 15–18, 2026 3,414 (RV)
Rasmussen Reports (R) September 14, 2026 1,019 (LV)
The 2026 gubernatorial primary was the first time that Democratic turnout exceeded that of Republicans since 2006.
Chris Carr, attorney general of Georgia (2016–present) (endorsed Jackson in runoff)
the 2025 Georgia Public Service Commission special election resulted in two Democrats being elected to the Commission, both by landslide victories
Democrats have not won a gubernatorial election in Georgia since 1998.
Not in the source: The forecast rows in facts carry no basis field, so the dossier cannot say what the model's numbers stand on (for example, whether the statewide polls in the text are in it).; The ratings table gives only the party letter or 'Tossup'/'Flip'; no Lean/Likely/Safe strength is given. Silver Bulletin's 'Flip' is not explained in the text.; The text gives no presidential results for Georgia.; The first-round Republican primary results table is truncated after Raffensperger (15.0%); Carr's and the minor candidates' shares are missing.; Endorsement sections are empty in the text beyond Carr's runoff endorsement.
Read from the district's section of Wikipedia's state page (CC BY-SA), archived as c896e385f5ce; written by claude-fable-5-1 (batch reader) on 2026-09-30 and checked mechanically: every quote occurs verbatim in the archived text, every number in the brief occurs in the inputs. No probability here is the reader's.
How it has voted for president
| Two-party margin | 2016 | 2020 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| President | R+5.3 | D+0.2 | R+2.2 |
A shift of 3.1 points toward the Democrats from 2016 to 2024. county returns summed; MEDSL county file (2016), an MIT-licensed county file (2020, checked against certified state results) and MEDSL precinct returns (2024). For a district split across counties this is an estimate, and where the state published the exact 2024 figure for these lines, that exact figure is the one the model uses.
The state in numbers
| Measure | State | Average state | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bachelor's degree or higher, 25+, 2023 | 34.2% | 34.0% | +0.2 pts |
| White, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 49.8% | 66.3% | -16.4 pts |
| Black, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 31.0% | 10.1% | +20.9 pts |
| Hispanic or Latino, 2023 | 10.7% | 12.9% | -2.2 pts |
| Asian, non-Hispanic, 2023 | 4.3% | 4.4% | -0.0 pts |
| Foreign-born, 2023 | 10.8% | 9.6% | +1.2 pts |
| Median age, 2023 | 37.4 | 39.1 | -1.68 |
| Median household income, 2023 | $74,664 | $77,633 | $-2,969 |
| Median home value, 2023 | $272,900 | $314,132 | $-41,232 |
| Owner-occupied homes, 2023 | 65.4% | 67.4% | -2.0 pts |
| Unemployment (ACS), 2023 | 5.1% | 4.8% | +0.3 pts |
| Federal government workers, 2023 | 2.9% | 3.0% | -0.1 pts |
| Work from home, 2023 | 14.2% | 12.3% | +2.0 pts |
| Households on SNAP, 2023 | 12.3% | 11.1% | +1.2 pts |
| Households with Social Security income, 2023 | 29.2% | 32.1% | -2.9 pts |
| Households with public assistance income, 2023 | 1.9% | 2.6% | -0.7 pts |
| Moved in from another state, past year, 2023 | 2.8% | 2.9% | -0.1 pts |
| Gini index, 2023 | 0.48 | 0.47 | +0.01 |
| Unemployment, latest month (BLS), 2026-07 | 3.3% | 4.0% | -0.7 pts |
| Change in unemployment, past 12 months, 2026-07 | -0.3 pts | -0.1 pts | -0.2 pts |
| Change since the last election (24 months), 2026-07 | -0.6 pts | -0.1 pts | -0.5 pts |
| Per-capita personal income (BEA), 2024 | $63,006 | $70,662 | $-7,656 |
| Per-capita income growth since 2019, nominal, 2024 | 29.8% | 32.4% | -2.5 pts |
| Government and other transfers, share of income, 2024 | 18.6% | 19.4% | -0.8 pts |
| Social Security, share of income, 2022 | 5.7% | 6.1% | -0.4 pts |
| Medicare, share of income, 2022 | 4.3% | 4.4% | -0.1 pts |
| Medicaid, share of income, 2022 | 2.3% | 3.8% | -1.5 pts |
| SNAP, share of income, 2022 | 0.7% | 0.6% | +0.2 pts |
| Earned Income Tax Credit, share of income, 2022 | 0.5% | 0.3% | +0.2 pts |
| Veterans' benefits, share of income, 2022 | 1.2% | 0.9% | +0.3 pts |
| Federal civilian jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 1.5% | 1.5% | +0.0 pts |
| Military jobs, share of all jobs, 2022 | 1.3% | 1.2% | +0.2 pts |
ACS 5-year state tables; BLS county unemployment and BEA county income, transfers and jobs summed to the state. Every figure is a named column of a named public-domain table, archived before it was read.
Who is ahead, and by how much?
Two numbers because they answer two questions. The nowcast is where opinion stands; the election-day forecast is where it is likely to end up.
How likely is each to win?
Monte Carlo error is ±0.2 points. A change smaller than that is simulation noise rather than news, and this page will not describe it as movement.
How wide is the range?
Nowcast: 90% of simulations fall between -10.6 and +8.4 points. Election day: -10.4 to +12.5. The election-day interval is 3.9 points wider, which is the 33 days of movement still to come.
What is the uncertainty made of?
Total sd 7.27 points, made of race-specific polling error 47%, drift to election day 31%, latent opinion 11%, correlated polling error 11%. The decomposition is stored with the forecast rather than reconstructed, so a probability whose dominant input is a placeholder is visibly that.
What evidence is this built on?
10 polls, most recent 2026-09-18. 50% verified against a primary source.
What changed since the last run?
Shaded band is the 90% interval, line is the central estimate, positive is Keisha Lance Bottoms ahead of Rick Jackson. Over 15 stored forecasts the central estimate moved +0.3 points. There were 7 specification changes (marked on the axis) and no new polls arrived over this window — so every movement in this chart is a change to the model, not a change in the race.
Since 2026-10-01: margin -0.03 points, win probability -0.3 points, on +0 polls.
Not answered here: why it changed. Splitting a move into new polls, time and specification means re-running the earlier model against the later inputs -- two extra posterior fits -- so it is computed on a cadence (scripts/attribute_forecasts.py) rather than while you wait. This pair of runs has not been decomposed yet. The size of the move is shown; the cause is not guessed at.
How has this model done before?
Measured on 230 forecasts across 230 races in cycles 2016,2018,2020,2022,2024: mean absolute error 4.56 points, Brier score 0.0543. The nominal 90% interval contained the result 94% of the time, the 80% interval 84%, and the 50% interval 47%. Read that with care: a national polling miss moves every race in a cycle at once, so the sample size for a question about the intervals is 5 cycle(s), not 230 forecasts. Per cycle -- bias +1.644 pts; 2016: n=43 bias=+4.68 cov90=0.860; 2018: n=63 bias=-0.52 cov90=1.000; 2020: n=35 bias=+5.44 cov90=0.886; 2022: n=54 bias=-0.60 cov90=0.944; 2024: n=35 bias=+1.48 cov90=1.000.
Where did every number come from?
Nowcast run ffc26964-cf1c-46e0-8513-f09ad1c0b075 and election-day run 3352129b-9213-4274-a99c-4c5bffa3ed19, model single_race_latent/0.8.1 at commit bdf7e83107c17a2399efe61a44ef1bbee48f9284, seeds 20260924 and 20260924.