The upcoming Georgia Democratic primary for governor offers a revealing case study. The field for the May 19 primary includes prominent Black public officials such as former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, former DeKalb County Chief Executive Officer Michael Thurmond and former state Sen. Jason Esteves. Several additional Black candidates — many of them accomplished, though less visible in polling — further crowd the field. Former Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a white never-Trumper who left his party and wrote a book calling for it to take a new path, is also a competitive candidate in the Democratic primary. He has said that he voted for Joe Biden in 2020, and he spoke at the 2024 Democratic Convention on behalf of Kamala Harris.
The arithmetic is straightforward, even if the implications are not. A divided electorate can produce outcomes that do not reflect the primary interests and philosophy of a party or its constituents. In Georgia, where Black voters constitute nearly a third of the electorate and form the backbone of the Democratic coalition, fragmentation could allow a candidate like Duncan to consolidate moderate and independent voters and advance in ways that would have been unlikely in a more unified field.
Polling suggests that Bottoms has a wide lead and is likely to reach a runoff. The more consequential question is who joins her: Could a crowded field of strong Black Democratic candidates create an opening for a white candidate — even one who was last elected as a Republican — to squeeze into a runoff? Furthermore, if Duncan defeats Bottoms in a runoff, the general election could present Democratic voters with a choice of candidates who do not reflect their traditional beliefs.
These issues are not confined to the South. In Illinois, the March 17 Democratic primary to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin revealed similar tensions. Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton ultimately prevailed over U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly, despite early concerns that overlapping constituencies among Stratton and Kelly, both of whom are Black, could fracture support for both of them and benefit Krishnamoorthi, who was born in India. Strong backing of Stratton by Gov. JB Pritzker proved decisive in making her the next likely senator from the Land of Lincoln.
Back in Georgia, recent local elections offer a cautionary example of how fragmentation could undermine Black political strength. In Rockdale County just outside of Atlanta, a crowded 2024 Democratic primary for chair of the county board allowed JaNice Van Ness, a white former Republican state senator running in the local race as a Democrat, to advance to a runoff and ultimately defeat longtime incumbent Oz Nesbitt Sr., who is Black. Multiple credible Black candidates collectively drew enough support to prevent a first-round victory by Nesbitt, altering the trajectory and the eventual outcome of the race.
The implications extend beyond any single contest. In Fulton County, Ga., two Black Democratic county commissioners, Mo Ivory and Marvin S. Arrington Jr., are challenging the Black longtime chairman, Robb Pitts (who has been in the news lately as the face of resistance against the FBI’s seizure of the county’s 2020 ballots), in the May 19 primary. The contest has already grown contentious, and the likelihood that there will be voter fragmentation among Democrats could lead to a Republican victory in November’s general election.
This moment also reflects a generational and structural shift. There was a time when influential figures like the late Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a Baptist minister who represented Harlem in the U.S. House, or the late Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson, or the late Chicago mayor Harold Washington could effectively unify Black voters behind a single candidate. Today, the landscape is more decentralized. The growth in the number of Black elected officials, the diversification of political perspectives within Black communities and the assertiveness of younger candidates have diminished the role of political kingmakers. Candidates are less inclined to wait their turn, and voters are less inclined to follow a single lead.
For incumbents, candidates and voters, the charge is not to romanticize the past but to recognize that a more open and competitive political environment can be a sign of democratic health. Whether this moment reflects a genuine maturation of Black politics — where ideas, performance and vision outweigh race, a standard rarely met among politicians of any race or ethnicity — remains to be seen. At the same time, care must be taken to ensure that intra-racial competition does not fragment the vote so deeply that it undercuts decades of hard-won progress in political representation for, and from, marginalized communities.
Governing's opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing's editors or management.
