(Georgia Recorder) – On the Republican side are state Sen. Bill Cowsert of Athens and state Sen. Brian Strickland of McDonough, and the Democrats competing for their party’s nomination are state Rep. Tanya Miller of Atlanta and Bob Trammell, a former state House minority leader from Luthersville.
Both pairs squared off Tuesday as part of the Atlanta Press Club’s Loudermilk-Young Debate Series during the first week of early voting. The last day to vote is May 19, and the winner of each primary race will go on to face each other in November.
The candidates are battling it out for an open seat. Sitting Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, is running for governor after holding the seat since 2016.
The Republican matchup
The two Republicans used Tuesday’s debate to present their case for who would be more effective if elected as they both painted a vision for the office that would increase the focus on fighting crime, including election fraud.
Strickland, who chairs the Senate’s judiciary committee and who has been a state lawmaker for more than a decade, touted the dozens of endorsements he has racked up from sheriffs, district attorneys and solicitors.
“I’m proud to be law enforcement’s choice in this race,” Strickland said. “They trust me. They know my reputation.”
Strickland prodded Cowsert on his lack of endorsements from sheriffs.
“Unfortunately, part of the reason is that I didn’t ask for it,” Cowsert said. “I’ve been going to the voters, asking for their support, and perhaps I took for granted that the sheriffs and law enforcement would sort of collect with me as much as I fought for them over the years.”
Cowsert, who has served in the Senate for two decades, said there may be some “hurt feelings” among district attorneys as a result of his intense focus on investigating Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is a Democrat. Cowsert chairs a special investigative committee that subpoenaed Willis to testify before the committee late last year.
He was asked Tuesday to address potential voter concerns that his actions amounted to political prosecution.
“No, I plan to call them out, whichever party they are. We deserve better than corrupt politicians at any level, particularly prosecutors,” Cowsert said.
Cowsert raised concerns about Strickland’s educational background, noting that Strickland’s for-profit law school, Florida Coastal School of Law, closed amid funding and accreditation problems. Cowsert went to law school at the University of Georgia.
“I have tried over 500 jury trials throughout the state of Georgia. There’s nobody who can match the experience, the understanding of the litigation process and the law. I think that’s important,” Cowsert said.
Strickland shrugged off the criticism after the debate.
“I guess he doesn’t think I’m smart enough to be a lawyer and be attorney general, but I think I turned out pretty good,” Strickland quipped to reporters.
While Cowsert has trained his sights on “rogue” prosecutors, Strickland focused his attacks on former President Joe Biden in his comments at Tuesday’s debate.
“Georgia is still feeling the impact of four years of the Joe Biden open border,” Strickland said. “What we need is someone in this office who will stand up and support the president, not only with securing the border, but deal with the impact that we now see from all these people in our state.”
The Democratic candidates
The two Democrats facing off in the primary election are both vowing to be a check on the Trump administration. What they mostly disagree on is who is best equipped to win in the November general election and put a Democrat in the office for the first time in nearly two decades.
Trammell, who is from a rural community in west Georgia, argues he is the one who is “battle-tested.” He lost his House seat in 2020 after national Republicans said they would spend $1 million to oust him from his office and therefore his leadership role. He questioned how Miller, who represents a deep blue House district, would handle Republican opposition.
“I appreciate your experience in court and your trial experience, but when it comes to the full combat general election experience of facing a Republican, I have been battle tested,” Trammell said. “You can either be battle tested or untested.”
Miller, who was elected to her House seat in 2022, pointed to the background as a former federal state prosecutor as what will help her appeal to a broad swath of voters in November.
“We are talking about 2026. We are living in a new time, and a new era,” Miller said. “Trump is deeply unpopular, and what we know about Democrats is that they do not want the same old Democratic playbook. They want someone who is a fighter. They want someone who will stand up to Donald Trump and someone who will stand up to corporate interests.”
Both Democrats have questioned the constitutionality of Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, which is currently being challenged in court, and they both said they would protect the state from the Trump administration policies that they say hurt Georgians.
“Haven’t we had enough of Donald Trump’s chaos?” Trammell said. “He’s attacking our voting rights, jacking up costs and even getting us into war. Enough is enough.”
Trammell said he would have immediately challenged the Justice Department in court after federal agents seized ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County earlier this year. He said he would also make sure Georgia is on the “right side” of the fight over birthright citizenship, noting that Carr signed onto a brief supporting Trump’s attempts to end the policy.
Miller said Democratic attorneys general have been on the forefront pushing back on Trump administration policies, including fighting tariffs, cuts to food aid benefits and education funding and challenging what she called immigration enforcement “excesses and constitutional violations.”
“The question for me will be simple: Does it help Georgians? Does the law support it? And if it helps Georgians, if it helps our state and it supports the law, we will join a lawsuit, and we will bring a lawsuit, or we will defend ourselves.”
