Geoff Duncan, the former Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, announced Tuesday he will run for governor in 2026 as a Democrat, cementing a high-profile party switch and entering a key midterm contest.

In a video announcing his campaign, Duncan says that “Georgia Republicans threw me out of their party,” but “I was leaving anyway.”

And Duncan says he’ll “focus on what matters most to Georgians,” referencing rising costs for child care, medicine and housing, while vowing to “make Georgia the front line of democracy and a backstop against extremism.”

A longtime Georgia Republican who served in the state legislature and as outgoing GOP Gov. Brian Kemp’s No. 2 between 2019 and 2023, Duncan announced that he was switching parties in an Atlanta Journal Constitution op-ed last month. He

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