GA-Sen-B: While there was immediately talk that Stacey Abrams, who was Team Blue’s 2018 nominee for governor, could run in the special, she quickly said no. Former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson, Clarkston Mayor Ted Terry, and 2018 lieutenant governor nominee Sarah Riggs Amico also each said that they’d continue their campaigns against Perdue rather than switch to the special election.
Jon Ossoff, who was the Democratic nominee for the ultra-expensive 2017 special election for the 6th Congressional District, had been publicly considering a bid against Perdue, and BuzzFeed’s Darren Sands reports that he’s also now considering running in the special. It’s not clear which race Ossoff is leaning towards, but two unnamed sources say that Isackson’s resignation made him more likely to run for the Senate, and Sands says they expect Ossoff to announce his intentions “soon.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also name-drops the Rev. Raphael Warnock, 2014 gubernatorial nominee Jason Carter, and 2014 Senate nominee Michelle Nunn as possibilities. However, this trio was mentioned earlier this year as potential candidates against Perdue, but none of them have shown any obvious interest in running for that seat this cycle.
As for possible Republican appointees, we're not going to dive down that rabbit hole just yet. This is an election with only one voter—Kemp—and the results won't be announced for months, so unless the governor himself tips his hand, there's simply no way to know whom he might choose.
Isakson’s resignation announcement, which came about four years after he announced that he’d been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, marks the end of a long career in politics that coincided with the GOP’s rise to power in Georgia, a state that Democrats had controlled since the end of Reconstruction. Isakson was first elected to the state House on his second try in 1976, the same year that former Democratic Gov. Jimmy Carter was being elected president, and he was one of just 24 Republicans in what was a 182-member chamber at the time.
Isakson became minority leader after the 1982 elections, and he held that post until he ran for governor in 1990. However, he lost that contest 53-45 against Democrat Lt. Gov. Zell Miller, who would have his own long and memorable career. Isakson was elected to the state Senate two years later but left the legislature again in 1996 to run for an open U.S. Senate seat. This time, though, he lost the GOP primary runoff by a 53-47 margin to Guy Millner, who had nearly cost Miller re-election as governor in 1994; Millner would narrowly lose the general election to Democrat Max Cleland.
Isakson bounced back again in 1997 when his old rival Miller appointed him to the state Board of Education. Isakson got another chance to seek a promotion in 1999 in a special election to succeed former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who had also just resigned from Congress. Isakson decisively won the all-party primary for what was a safely red seat in the northern Atlanta suburbs with 65% of the vote, and he didn’t have any trouble holding it over the next two elections.
Isakson once again ran for the Senate in 2004 when Miller, who had been appointed to the chamber in 2000, decided not to seek a full term. In 2002, Republicans had taken control of both the governorship and state Senate for the first time since Reconstruction and also flipped the other U.S. Senate seat, so there was little question that the GOP nominee would prevail.
In the primary, Isakson faced fellow Rep. Mac Collins and businessman and future presidential candidate Herman Cain. Both Collins and Cain tried to portray Isakson, who was the frontrunner throughout the race, as too liberal because he didn't want to outlaw abortions in the event of rape or incest. Several prominent social conservative groups backed both Collins and Cain, but their inability to unite behind one anti-Isakson candidate may have helped him. Isakson avoided a runoff by taking a majority with 53% of the vote, while Cain led Collins 26-21 for second place.
Collins never conceded to Isakson, but that didn’t do him any serious harm in the general election. Democrats nominated Rep. Denise Majette, who would have been the state’s first black senator, but she faced very long odds in a year where George W. Bush was on track to easily carry Georgia; it didn’t help that Miller, who still identified as a Democrat, was loudly backing Bush’s re-election campaign. Isakson won 58-40 at the same time that Bush took the state by a similar margin, and the GOP completed their takeover of state government by winning the state House.
Georgia would gradually move to the left over the next several years, but not fast enough to endanger Isakson. The incumbent had no trouble winning re-election during the 2010 GOP wave, and he decisively won again in 2016 even as Donald Trump was taking Georgia by a modest 50-45 margin. However, Team Red lost ground in two years later in the once-safely red Atlanta suburbs, and Democrats now have a chance to take the state’s electoral votes and both U.S. Senate seats for the first time in decades.
