Another one: Georgia's Senate race attracts insurance chief John King
King becomes second GOP Senate candidate after Kemp bows out
Insurance & Safety Fire Commissioner John King on Monday became the second Republican to formally challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, casting himself as a lawman who can unite both the MAGA and establishment factions of his party.
King, a native of Mexico, launched his campaign with announcement videos in both English and Spanish. “I have never shied away from a fight,” he said. “But what truly scares me today is having Jon Ossoff [in the Senate] for six more years.”
“President Trump got sent to Washington, D.C., to solve some very big problems. He needs help and I'm asking for your support to go help President Trump and solve these incredibly big problems.”
King is a relative newcomer to elected politics, having been appointed as the state’s insurance chief by Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019. Before that, he was a beat cop who climbed the ranks to become police chief in Doraville, an Atlanta suburb where a majority of residents are of Hispanic descent.
He also has an extensive military background as a former major general in the National Guard, where some of his duties have included helping Texas build field hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic and cracking down on the flow of migrants at the southern border. He ran for and won a full term as insurance commissioner in 2022, becoming Georgia’s first Hispanic statewide elected official.
King hopes to use his impressive resume to his advantage in both the primary and the general election as his party scrambles to find an alternative to Kemp, who announced this month that he wouldn’t seek the Senate seat. But it remains to be seen if he can make the transition from a low-level statewide position to a multimillion-dollar campaign with national implications.
He enters a Senate primary that already includes U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter and is only likely to grow: at least two other members of the congressional delegation, Mike Collins and Rich McCormick, are likely to join the race soon. And Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger also hasn’t ruled out a run.