Lucy McBath ‘Exploring’ Entering Georgia’s Governor Race

Georgia has its gubernatorial elections during the midterms. It’s really just a way to try and boost interest in the otherwise uninteresting midterm elections and hopefully improving turnout.

I guess it works well enough.

Anyway, with Georgia’s governor’s seat now up for grabs since Gov. Brian Kemp will be term limited, we’re going to see people jump into the race. Attorney General Chris Carr has already announced his candidacy, but now, a Democrat has entered the race: Anti-gun jihadist Lucy McBath.

One of the loudest voices when it comes to advocating gun control is looking to become the governor of a state that contains dozens of firearms industry facilities. 

U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, a Georgia Democrat who spent five years as an Everytown staffer before the group backed her run for office in 2018 with a seven-figure campaign, has filed paperwork for an exploratory committee to run for governor of the Peachtree State in 2026. According to documents filed with the state Georgia Ethics Commission, the committee partners with Blue Wave Politics, a consulting firm that has worked with McBath in the past as well as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Everytown’s political action committee. 

In her past six years on Capitol Hill, McBath has become a stalwart when it comes to backing more restrictions on guns and gun rights. Last year she spearheaded a drive to push the ATF’s budget to $2 billion and introduced the House version of the controversial Gas-Operated Semi-Automatic Firearms Exclusion, or GOSAFE, Act, an “assault weapon” ban in all but name. Before that, her name can be found as a co-sponsor on most anti-gun bills in the chamber, and in 2023 she asked the House for unanimous consent so that she would be considered the first sponsor of the proposed outright reboot of the Federal Assault Weapon Ban that year. 

She even signed on to unpopular bills with few sponsors such as one to prevent states from banning the use of merchant codes by credit card companies on legal gun sales and another to mandate that every component of a demilled firearm is destroyed. 

Overall, Everytown has loudly dropped some $9 million into electing and re-electing her to Congress.

As bad as Stacey Abrams was on guns, McBath is undeniably worse.

Her electoral history is rather interesting. Each election cycle, she seems to get a bigger and bigger share of the vote totals, which tells us she’s really popular in her district. As these are people who will be voting in the gubernatorial election, that means she’s got support. She’s also got a lot of money behind her from Everytown and other anti-gun groups.

But her district is part of Atlanta. That’s not Georgia encapsulated. That’s Atlanta, which is different politically from most of the rest of the state.

Just look at how President Trump did in the state to get an idea of just how different it is.

I’m not saying she can’t win, but I will point out that it’s a very uphill battle for her in a state that very much values the right to keep and bear arms.

Stacey Abrams got her butt kicked her twice. Kamala Harris didn’t do any better, either. I’m not at all convinced McBath would have a snowball’s chance in Hell of winning.

Then again, though, Georgia has become a lot more purple than it used to be. If that trend continues, there is every possibility I’m wrong here. A lot of it will depend on who else runs, and there are still a lot of names left as considering jumping in.

What it might well mean, though, is that McBath will be out of Congress. While her successor isn’t likely to be pro-gun, it’s also unlikely they’ll be quite as anti-gun as she is.

That’ll still be a win so long as she’s kept out of the governor’s mansion.