Bottoms win, Democrats flip House and utility board

Good morning and welcome to the Georgia Gang on this Sunday, November 8th. Keisha Lance Bottoms makes history as the first black woman elected governor in America, leading a Democratic sweep of every statewide office. Also, Democrats flipped the Georgia House for the first time in 22 years, and Democrats take control of the Public Service Commission, the board that regulates your power bill. Melita, Phil, Theron, and Brian are all here. The debate and discussion begin right now. From the Fox 5 studios, the Georgia gang starts now. Georgia voters made history Tuesday. Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms beat Republican Rick Jackson by roughly 360,000 votes, about 54 to 46 percent, becoming the first black woman elected governor in the United States and Georgia's first. Female governor. It ends nearly 24 years of Republican control of the governor's mansion. So Theron, you worked for the Keisha Lance Bottoms campaign. Congratulations on a huge historic win. The polls called this a toss-up, but what did they miss here? Well, Lori, first I want to thank all of you all for those who reached out and congratulated me. Thank you all for that. I'm not going to do that. But Lori, I got to start by really honestly doing a few thank yous. And I got to start with the entire Democratic ticket. Congratulations to everyone on statewide offices who won in the House and the Senate and all the offices. But then also, I got to make sure that I give total credit to Keisha Lance Bottoms and the campaign that she ran. It all started with her. Her announcement to actually put her and her family, the sacrifices they made to run for this seat, and her family went through a lot. Derek and Lincoln and Lennox and Langston and Lance and Sister Tracy and Mom Sylvia. This was a family that came together to do what they thought was best for Georgia, and they are so grateful and so thankful that Georgia voters elected her. Other thing, Lori, is that I gotta shout out a couple people, of course, the entire campaign staff. I went over in August. There were people there before me, Melita knows. I talk about this all the time. They laid the foundation. They did a fantastic job of getting her through the primary. They gave me the opportunity to come on and lead the campaign into November, but Rashad Taylor and Sharon Hickson There are two people who I've known for a very long time. The governor-elect, great to call her that, announced us, she said the three-legged stool. Apparently I was the one leg of the stool that was missing, but she brought us all together for this victory. And then lastly, just thank you to all of the voters of Georgia who voted for Senator Ossoff, Keisha Lance Bottoms, and the entire ticket. She is so thankful for your vote, and even those that did not vote for her. And people that did not want her to be their governor-elect just know that she will be a governor for all Georgia. So I'm very excited. I'm ready to get some rest, but I'm also ready to get to work. And stay tuned. We've got a lot of big things coming. Yeah, lots to talk about. Brian, you know, you worked for the Rick Jackson campaign. He poured enormous sums of his own money in this race and still lost. So what's your postmortem here? But certainly the Enormous resources he put in did make a huge difference in the primary and I think we know now in hindsight that any amount of resources simply did not matter in this atmosphere in Georgia. When the Republicans are losing in Kansas and Texas and Ohio, there's really not much of a pathway for Georgia Republicans. And Farron remembers for the last two years what I've been saying as we've made appearances, I said, National politics decides everything if Trump is below 40% approval in Georgia. There's really not much of a chance for Republicans to win here. So, you know, I hate to be right, but I was certainly right. You ask about the polls and why they were wrong. The two places where the polls were wrong were Georgia and Texas. What do they have in common? They're dynamic, growing populations. Pollsters weren't able to model who was showing up at the polls. The pollsters got it right in Kansas and Ohio. In Michigan, places that aren't growing like Georgia and Texas are. So when I saw in early voting that we couldn't model a lot of these voters who were showing up as Democrat or Republican, I knew what they were, and they were not Republicans. And so from the first week of early voting, I knew that we were on a bad trajectory. And it's new voters, it's people who don't have a long history in Georgia, and it is people who are very energized and angry with President Trump. And that is what this entire election came down to. Congratulations to Theron and congratulations to the governor-elect. Certainly, they did ride a wave, no doubt about it, but they also did not fumble. They held the ball steady. They stayed on message, and here we are. Well, so what else sank the Republican ticket? As you mentioned, President Trump wasn't on the ballot, but it sure appeared that voters rejected him and anyone affiliated with him. So were they voting against President Trump and his policies, or were they voting for Democrats, Melita? I've said for many weeks now that voters were fed up and ready to vote. And what they were fed up with was not just President Trump, although he's given them plenty of reasons to be fed up. Gas and grocery prices, the war. But they were also fed up with the corruption they see from the Trump administration. They were fed up with Republican incumbents who didn't have the spine to stand up to the Trump administration in any fashion. In fact, even some of the Republicans who won reelection to Congress won with much slimmer margins this time because voters are really fed up with a spineless Congress and a corrupt government. Phil? You're right. Voters are angry. And as Brian pointed out, the National does link right with Georgia. And I had to laugh on my coffee table. Here was the Wall Street Journal. U.S. economy grew 3.4% this summer. That's great. That's because of Trump. Jobs are great. Nobody cares about that. They are upset. You go every week, you look at the gas pump that you're pumping, you don't like that. Then you're reminded in the grocery store, you don't like that. And just in Georgia, the wave came in, knocked out all the Republicans. the statewide offices, and even the example was the ag commissioner, Tyler Harper, great guy, seventh generation Georgia farmer, defeated by some totally unqualified Democrat who was a gardener. And so that's my opinion, and it's a shock. My point is, Harper lost by 300,000 votes because of the anger that we're talking about. And that was the wave. Now, I do want to congratulate the governor-elect. And you guys ran a great campaign. campaign. I'm impressed with the transition team. I know we'll talk about Georgia a little bit more. I like to think that these are basically pro-business Democrats, and that's going to be good for the state. And we'll talk about that more. But yes, Brian and I are going to be talking about the post-Trump era, too, and how the Republicans can come back. But I hope the Democrats don't misread this election. It wasn't because the people wanted Biden and open borders and inflation. That's not it. I hope they don't. They don't misread their victory. All right, a lot to unpack there. First and foremost, you know, one of the things that I think Republicans have got to realize, and I agree with everything that Melita said, is that they were lied to. And a lot of the disaffected Republicans that I sit on this show, I knew it about a month ago. When I would talk to disaffected Republicans, Trump lied to them. And then we had leadership in this state, Republicans, who can disassociate themselves with his agenda and with him. Secondly, And I know you have your opinion about the agriculture candidate, but I've met her, I've talked to her, she's qualified, and she's a good woman. And the other thing we've got to say here, and I want to just thank all the voters, but I cannot sit here and not thank black women. I said this two years ago. I talked about how black women have been the most negatively impacted people in this country. 600, 700,000 of them were laid off, DEI programs, they've been punished. And a lot of those black women, including my mother. My wife and others woke up when Kamala Harris and when and so what we have to do is realize that we have all these women in these positions and Keisha Lance Bottoms historically became the first African-American woman ever elected in this country as a black governor. And I want to say this. She deserves all the credibility. We asked others help, but she ran this race and we got to make sure we pause and not let people take away the credibility from her and what she did. I agree. Let me speak to your credibility on the issue. I gave a lot of talks with you in the wake of the 2024 election, and I saw you speak with a lot of emotion at that time about how this impacted and how black women saw this through their lens. It was very eye-opening for me, and I appreciate the emotion that you feel here, because I know how you feel about your wife and your mom. I want to point out, as far as rebuilding the Republican side of this, that In exit polls, more people cited corruption than cited affordability, and that is an indictment. And if there's one thing that we must change as Republicans is there's got to be the freedom to point out the obvious. We have got to stand up for the rule of law. We cannot use the DOJ to go after people in the bureaucracy on trumped-up charges. We thought people didn't notice. Well, apparently they did. Thank you. That is something that Republicans in Congress, if they don't take it seriously, we do not have a pathway back because we're not serious people. So we've got to get our hands along that. This has bothered me all along. And in Georgia, Republicans have to rebuild as well, and it's going to be really hard if the Democrats play their cards right. They're going to come out, they're going to pass Medicaid expansion, that's going to be popular. They're going to roll back the heartbeat bill, people are probably going to be okay with that. They might pass a red flag law. Those are places where they don't get the middle. The question then becomes, what do Democrats do to appease their base? Because they've got to feed them some red meat. And how do they divide their own coalition? Those are going to be the tough decisions. But they have some low-hanging fruit in the meantime. And Keisha Lance Bottoms seems to be, in her opening statement, aware of that and going to seize that opportunity. Well, at the top of the ticket, Senator John Ossoff crushed Republican Mike Collins by 18 percentage points, the worst general election loss for a Georgia Republican Senate nominee since 1984. Melita, I guess the only surprise here was how big the margin was. And Ossoff says he has zero interest in running for president, but what does an 18-point win do for his national standing? Well, I think what it does is it gives him a crown of speaking for others. It gives him a way of being a leader in the Senate. A way of having power on committees and power to lead and power to help other Democrats in other parts of the country now, just as some of the Democrats from other parts of the country came in to help him. So that victory speech he gave is one that public speaking teachers will use for generations to say, this is what you aspire to. And so he has the... the world beneath his feet and he's so young he's the youngest member of the senate so he has plenty of room to grow into a huge leader Who brings others with him? I can give you each 20 seconds. Phil? He will be growing into a big leader. He'll be on the national stage now. The big question, I think, in a lot of people's minds will be, is he going to be more of a centrist now? He went way to the left during the campaign, as we discussed on the show. So what path is he going to be? It seems like the Democrats here are talking pro-business. Will he be pro-business? Senator Ossoff also deserves to credit. I kept saying for weeks on this program the unity between him and Keisha Lance Bottoms and really the entire ticket. When Keisha said hold ballot energy, that's what we happened. That's happened. His resources that he poured in. We had a true coordinated campaign. Shout out to the party as well. But I think it's going to be very hard for my good friend, Senator Ossoff, to restrain himself from basically allowing people to tell him he needs to run for president. He was the number one targeted senator in the country. He blew Mike Collins out. I trust him that he doesn't want to run, but it's going to be very hard not to put him in a conversation. Very hard. But he deserves all the credit for what he got. Democrats are telling us the number one pick to be president right now is John Ossoff. Now, the early guy often falls off. He's playing hard to get, and he's pretty good at it. He's really savvy. His speech-writing skills and delivery are ones that fit the modern social media age very well. And there is a pendulum swing away from octogenarians. People want a young candidate. There's a lot of reasons why he must take it seriously. And he can easily walk back the I'm going to serve six years. He can do the, the nation needs me in this time. This time of crisis and I don't see anybody else who can do it. That's what he can do. All right. We'll leave it there, folks, because coming up, Democrats have also flipped the Georgia House and Carolyn Hughesley could become the first black woman to lead it. We'll discuss next. Come, y'all. Have a question or comment for the Georgia Gang? Email them at georgiagang at foxtv.com. Democrats are poised to take control of the Georgia House for the first time since 2004. Minority leader Carolyn Hughesley is now in line to become the first black woman speaker. So, Melita, Hughesley says she's ready to be speaker. I know you have been following all of these races in the Georgia House. You predicted a big win, and you got it. Well, I'm thrilled. to see so many women and men who have flipped seats in the House and Leader Hughesley has been around for more than 30 years. She's very well equipped to take on this role and I believe she'll do a really good job because she has a very good servant heart, a servant leadership mindset and her husband is the mayor elect of Columbus so they make quite the power couple. And what's wonderful is now we will have Democratic committee chairs and Democrats will have a chance to pass legislation. And some of those Democratic committee chairs will be women who've been at the Gold Dome for a long time. And so it's really heartening to see the work that WinList and other organizations have done for the last more than two decades to recruit women coming to fruition with these new legislators. Well, Democrats say that they're ready to govern. Lieutenant Governor-elect Josh McLaurin called Tuesday the complete and utter collapse of Donald Trump's MAGA coalition. Republicans still hold the Senate, though, 29 to 27, and McLaurin will preside over it. Democrats are pointing to Medicaid expansion, Phil, child care, housing, public schools, and abortion rights as their priorities. Well, this is historic because we are looking at a divided government. We haven't had one in a long time. I know the Senate GOP caucus, as you point out, the GOP has narrow control with 29 seats. They'll probably strip Josh McLaurin of his appointment powers of chairmanships. He still is the presiding officer of the Senate. And so the man of the hour for the Republicans is going to be the president pro tem of the Senate, Larry Walker. And so the three powers are going to be, yes, the governor, and yes, Carolyn Hughes. And by the way, she is a pro-business Democrat. And I'm going to be rooting on this show for pro-business Democrats down the road against the crazies. And then Larry Walker will be... Maybe that third leg of a, there's another stool there, Theron, that's three legs there. But I think that one last comment on the House, by the way, the Senate Republicans are going to have to stick together. But even Speaker Hughes in January has got to be careful. That's a very narrow margin. Every speaker has to worry about the defections. If there are two or three defections among the Democrats, they can't do some of their problems. What are we looking for? Yes, appointments. And then we're looking for the budget. Theron, right out of the gate, Governor Kemp said he was not going to call a special session to strip any powers or to redraw the lines. The first thing that Governor-elect Bottoms did, she kept her word. She called Governor Brian Kemp. She's told publicly, she said publicly they had a great conversation and his office has been very cooperative with the campaign and transition team and making sure we transition the government. But I want to go back to something that Melita said about Carolyn Hughes and so many other women and men in the House. They've been waiting on this moment. They've come so close, so close, after years, after years. And I want to give them, again, credibility, right? Make sure we see them completely. They raised the money. The candidate quality was exceptional. They went into some of these rural districts that a lot of people didn't think that they can actually compete in. They won. And so I think that these leaders are prepared. Many of them have been down there for decades. They're going to be ready for this moment. They're going to lead these committees. They're going to govern for all Georgians. In the Senate. It's going to be tight. 29-27, Lori, is going to be completely up to Democrats to work across the aisle. But now Republicans have to work more across the aisle. If someone who has been able to navigate state government for the last 24 years, where Republicans have controlled majority of that time, now you've got to be able to work both sides of the aisle. And so I hope that everyone will come together and do what's best for Georgia. But Governor-elect Bottoms is going to work with everyone to make sure that we do what's best for Georgia. to her and others to do. And Brent, I think about all the folks I used to cover who have been, you know, waiting for this day. The Billy Mitchells, Mary Margaret Oliver, who we talked about, you know, how do they rule, you know, in this new government? Well, I first met Carolyn Hughley when I was in my 20s and I am a few days beyond that now. So she has been around for a long time. She does know where the levers of power are and she has the support of her caucus. I think she's in pretty strong standing there. One thing that they do have to worry about is some of those seats they won by. 30 votes or 50 votes. I mean, these are super tight margins. And we remember from 2024 which ones of those were going to be up for grabs this year. And, you know, the Republicans lost all of those this year. So we'll see what 2028 holds in the environment. But I agree with Phil. One thing that I've been talking about in my speeches is that in the Democratic coalition nationally, the most conservative and pro-business and pragmatic element of it, Is black and brown voters, you know, black voters and Latino voters. And that's who is going to be in control here is black leaders up and down the line. So that gives me hope that they're going to be pragmatic and going to maintain the business climate here in Georgia and keep the good times rolling. I don't know because I know they have their base they have to take care of, but I hope that's what they do. To Brian's point, though, just as there are some Democrats who won by slim margins, there are a whole lot of Republicans who kept their seats by very slim margins. And they have to be very aware that Democrats are nipping at their heels. And so there's going to have to be a lot more cooperation and coalition building. Under the gold dome than the last few legislative sessions have seen. And we have to go get black and brown Republicans to run. And if we don't, we will not win in Georgia. Darren's been here for 10 years. We've got to do better. I go in those rooms and it's all white. You cannot win that way. And it's all male. The Republicans in their own tent outnumber the women, the men outnumber the women, 8.6 to 1. All right. Coming up, Democrats also take control of the commission that regulates your power bills. We'll discuss next. Join the discussion on the Georgia Gang Facebook page and watch past episodes on the Georgia Gang YouTube channel. Democrats now also control the Public Service Commission, the board that regulates Georgia Power for the first time in more than 20 years. Incumbent Peter Hubbard won a full six-year term and Sheila Edwards beat Republican Josh Tolbert, who had more than $3 million in pro-industry backing. With Commissioner Alicia Johnson, that gives Democrats three of the five seats. Georgia Power says it looks forward to working with them. Phil, voters flipped two seats last year over power bills and now the majority. So I guess the question is, what is the future of data centers That is the big question, and it's on the mind nationally. In fact, you saw the stock market on Friday is going to agree with me on this because we need data centers. We need electrical reliability. We've got more power we have to look out. Communities have to decide yay or nay. And I'm afraid these two Democrats are not mainstream Democrats like we've been talking about. They want to attack the fossil fuel industry. They don't like oil and gas. And we cannot have this. This radicalism, and I think that's where Democrats have a weak spot here. We're talking about being pro-business and having bipartisan pro-business policies. That's going to be a real problem, and they're going to be a problem for the Democrat Party. Farron, the mayor called for a two-year moratorium on new data centers in Georgia. Does she get it, especially with this Democratic Public Service Commission? Well, let me go back to this commission, and I think we have to give them a chance to figure out how they're going to govern. I don't want us to disqualify Sheila Edwards and go after Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson on this show because, honestly, it's a new day in Georgia, Lori. Let me just say that. It's a new day in Georgia. And so with Democrats taking over, we're not going to come in and just totally overturn things that are working. If it's working and it's good for the people of Georgia, I think you'll see a lot of Democrats stay the course. However, when you get to the Public Service Commission and you get to rate increases and rate freezes, and data centers and all that stuff. I think that this commission needs some time to really talk to people. So now I'm transitioning to what you said about Governor-elect Bibles. What she said is that she wants to put a pause on all new data center construction. But what that means, Lori, and she's also said it throughout the campaign trail, she wants to get leaders and experts in the room together to figure out what are the things that can be fixed, what are the things that are causing people's problems. And what we heard throughout the state of Georgia, entire state of Georgia, was people wanted more information more transparency about data centers. So I think that people will come together and have a conversation, and you just got to let the legislative process play itself out as far as a pause and what that looks like. But ultimately, I do believe that this Public Service Commission will make some changes, but ultimately, they're going to do what they believe is right for the people. I hope they have a balance between what the utilities and what we need in 10 to 20 years and also the consumers and how they need to be treated. A PSC member has to have balance. I got to have it quickly, Brian. Here's the thing. Affordability is the number one issue. Data centers are increasing affordability because that's what's paid for our rate freeze and for the downward pressure after that. So let's be very careful about that and its impact on consumers. This is helping all of us. Number two, if they do go toward green energy mandates and don't do the fossil fuel generation, that's going to raise prices, too. So we're going to go in the wrong direction on affordability. And Theron's right. The power on that is in their hands. All right. We'll leave it there. Coming up, winners and losers. Stay tuned. Burger. Time now for the week's winners and losers. We'll Okay, Melita, we'll start with you. Well, I have a consolation prize for Brian if you'll pass it down. He said several times that his dog would be be flying over Brookhaven if certain things happened. This is to aid the journey, some little angel wings. right The other thing I'd like to say is that we often think of... He's even this color. Hello. Yeah. Well, I'm glad they'll match. Color coordination. back. We often think of the people who lose in campaigns as real losers, but everyone on both sides of the aisle who ran for office and had a tough fight are the winners because democracy wins when people, the voters, have choices. And so even though a lot of people lost on Tuesday, democracy won. And I will say Rick Jackson's concession speech was just the classiest speech I've seen in a really long time. He set the standard for that. Absolutely. Phil. Lori, I have to agree with that. You and I were listening to that election night. And, yes, the winners are the Democrats that we've been talking about, so congratulations to them. And congratulations to the Republicans for holding the state Senate. They can be a break on things. Our winner is Matt Taibbi's new book, The Honoring of Ignorance. He's retired from public ignorance. The Honoring of Ignorance. Thank you. I'm so excited about the book here. I've got to pull myself together. But he's talking about... You've got a rough week there. I know. Work with me here. Work with me here. Okay. The Seven Mirages... The Seven Mirages. The Seven Mirages. The Seven Mirages. He's on Amazon, and he talks about polling very harshly. That's why he got out of it. It's hard to poll. Baron. All right. You know, my winner is going to be everyone who worked on all the campaigns, Democrats who won, up and down the ballot. You guys know who you are. My amazing winner is going to be Keisha Lance Bottoms. Again, amazing job, Keisha. We are so proud of you, and you're going to make Georgia proud. Also, I want to give a huge shout-out to the first responders. We didn't talk about this today, Lori, but I know you had it on the list. There's a massive flood going on in McCaysville. Yes, yes. So thank you to all those. First responders who are doing that. And then lastly, the Atlanta Dream. Thank you guys for an amazing season. You come back next year and do better. I'm glad you mentioned them. All right, Brian. Brian. My winners have to be some folks who have had a rough week because they've served Georgia well. And that is one of them is Speaker John Burns, who has led the House honorably. And he's done it in a very bipartisan fashion. He's done it by building relationships with Democrats and leading the state very well. And it has been an honor to travel alongside Rick Jackson. It didn't go the way that he wanted to, but as Laurie said. The graciousness that Georgia saw on Tuesday night and his willingness to be a helping hand to Governor-elect Bottoms is very genuine. That's the guy that I knew.