EXCLUSIVE: GOP Chairman Thinks His Party Has What It Takes To Beat The Purple Out Of Georgia

ATLANTA — After walloping Democrats to retain the governor’s mansion in 2022 and helping propel a Republican into the White House in 2024, the Georgia GOP thinks the Peach State is one step closer to being ruby red once again.

A longtime Republican stronghold, Georgia sent shockwaves across the political world when it closely favored Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and, just weeks later, ousted both of its GOP senators in favor of their Democratic challengers. Today, however, Georgia GOP Chairman Josh McKoon is feeling optimistic that his party can build upon the headway it’s made with the state’s electorate. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: RNC Chief Passes The Torch As He Kicks Off Senate Run)

“In 2018, Gov. Brian Kemp was elected by a roughly 40,000 vote majority, I think something like that,” McKoon told the DCNF at the 2025 Republican National Committee (RNC) summer meeting. “In 2022, he was elected by a very strong majority, about 54% in the general election against Stacey Abrams — so a huge improvement there.”

“From 2020, we had an 11,000 certified margin-of-victory for Joe Biden,” said McKoon, noting that Trump flipped this small deficit to a whopping 115,000 margin-of-victory four years later. “So 2022, 2024, things have been trending in our direction.”

‘We’re A Competitive State’

Biden raked in 2,473,633 votes in Georgia during the 2020 presidential election, eking out a 11,779 votes over Trump and becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since Bill Clinton in 1992. In runoff elections held in January 2021, both GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler were unseated by Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, all but confirming long-held warnings that red Georgia was turning purple.

In 2018, Kemp was elected governor with a slim margin, besting former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams by less than two percentage points in an election where nearly 4 million votes were cast.

In the years since those elections, voting patterns suggest that Georgia residents are flocking back to the GOP.

In the 2022 rematch between Kemp and Abrams, the governor stomped his perennial rival with a 7.5 point margin, and last November, Trump handily flipped the Peach State back to the GOP with over 115,000 votes more than then Vice President Kamala Harris.

While these numbers are reason for Republicans to be bullish, McKoon said it’s no excuse for his party to be complacent — especially with eyes already on 2026 races and Republicans eager to take back a seat currently occupied by Ossoff.

“We’ve got to continue to do the work,” the Georgia GOP chairman said to the DCNF. “We’re a competitive state, but Georgia remains a center-right state.”

The Cook Political Report rates the Georgia Senate race as a toss-up. While the GOP lost a top contender after Kemp — a very popular sitting governor — opted not to enter, other Republicans such as Rep. Mike Collins, Rep. Buddy Carter and former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley have officially thrown their hat in the ring.

“We’ve got a great opportunity to fire John Ossoff next November and replace him with an America First conservative,” McKoon continued. “I think whoever we wind up nominating, John Ossoff can’t run away from his record.”

The upcoming Senate election in Georgia will play a role in the ultimate balance of power in the U.S. Senate, where the GOP currently holds a 53-seat majority. Republicans will be defending 22 seats while Democrats will only be defending 13, but the vast majority of GOP seats in play are in states Trump easily won, giving Democrats little room for error if they want to reclaim the upper chamber.

“Senator Ossoff is well-prepared to defeat any challenger. Our campaign will continue to build insurmountable momentum to win next November,” Ossoff Campaign Manager Ellen Foster stated to the DCNF.

In recent years, Georgia has emerged as an epicenter for political flashpoints that have gripped the nation.

Nursing student Laken Riley was murdered by an illegal migrant in February 2024 while on a trail run near the University of Georgia campus, igniting debate over the border crisis and illegal migrant crime. The murder prompted stricter laws in the state and also spawned the Laken Riley Act in Congress, which was signed by President Donald Trump in January.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis rocketed to national attention after attempting to prosecute Trump over his alleged conduct in the 2020 presidential election, but she was eventually disqualified from prosecuting the case over alleged impropriety by a Georgia appeals court. Investigators discovered that Willis was paying Nathan Wade, a lead prosecutor in the case at the time, while having an ongoing romantic relationship and taking extravagant vacations together.

‘The Midterms Are Ahead’

Georgia’s growing prominence on the Electoral College map was made all the more apparent as the National Republican Committee (RNC) chose to host its annual summer meeting in Atlanta earlier in August. On Friday, state GOP chairmen from across the U.S. chose Florida State Sen. Joe Gruters, a longtime Trump ally, as the next leader of the RNC.

“The midterms are ahead, where we must expand our majority in the House to Senate and continue electing Republicans nationwide, and then we march more towards the presidential election, where the stakes cannot be higher,” Gruters said in an acceptance speech before RNC members. “The Democrats want open borders, socialist policies and weak leadership — we want strong families, secure communities and American greatness.”

“But here’s the deal at the end of the day, whatever party does a better job of uniting the factions and bringing everybody together, we all win at the end,” Gruters said.

Gruters is taking over the reins from former RNC Chairman Michael Whatley, who officially stepped down from his position to run for an open Senate seat in North Carolina, another state where the outcome could prove tantamount to the GOP’s control of Congress.

The RNC’s finances changed drastically under Whatley’s tenure.

The North Carolinian, who was tapped by Trump to lead the GOP early in 2024 after Ronna McDaniel stepped down, inherited a party with little cash on hand and an election integrity program in need of an upgrade. Whatley left the party with an expansive election integrity effort and with more than $80 million cash on hand — more than five times more than the Democrats.

Also under Whatley’s leadership, the RNC filed over 100 lawsuits across 20 states in the 2024 election cycle, according to the party website. The GOP recruited 230,000 volunteers and 6,500 lawyers who were on the ground on Election Day to help address election issues, Whatley previously told the Daily Caller.

Gruters on Friday indicated that he plans to expand on the success achieved by his predecessor. The newly-minted chairman previously served as RNC treasurer, playing a major part in the GOP’s current cash advantage over Democrats.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) only has $15 million on hand and Harris’ 2024 loss is still weighing heavily on the party, with the DNC paying over $15 million toward her presidential campaign expenses during the first half of 2025. In the DNC’s own summer meeting, one of the first items on the agenda Monday was a “land acknowledgment” of the Dakota people who allegedly owned the surrounding Minnesota land before European colonization.

The fundraising edge could prove game changing for Republicans running in competitive states like North Carolina and Georgia.

McKoon says next November is the perfect opportunity to “fire” Ossoff, arguing the Georgia Democrat had the advantage of having no record when first elected to office.

“He has firmly established himself as one of the most far left members of the United States Senate, wholly disqualified to be serving in the first place, and we’re going to be able to expose them,” the Georgia GOP chairman said to the DCNF. “What we’re going to be doing this year and next year is reminding Georgians relentlessly that this guy is not a common sense guy.”

Ossoff has, for months, been viewed as one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats up for election in 2026. During an August visit to Georgia, Vice President J.D. Vance torched the Democrat as a “far-left liberal” and hammered him for his recent opposition to the One Big Beautiful Bill. Republicans plan to make Ossoff’s vote against the bill’s tax relief components — projected by the White House to give Georgians thousands of dollars in higher take home pay — a top campaign issue during the 2026 midterms.

“He’s a far left California liberal who has no business representing people in Georgia,” McKoon said.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include comment from the Ossoff campaign.

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