ATLANTA, Ga. — Georgians will pick a new lieutenant governor Tuesday, and the two state senators seeking the job are offering sharply different answers on taxes, health care and the cost of living.
The office matters more than its title suggests. The lieutenant governor presides over the state Senate, sends each bill to a committee, names the committee chairs and decides when a measure gets called for a floor vote, giving the post heavy sway over which of the hundreds of bills filed each year become law. The officeholder is also next in line if the governor cannot serve.
Republican Greg Dolezal represents District 27 around Cumming, chairs the Senate Transportation Committee and is vice chairman of Senate Appropriations. He was the first chair of the Georgia Freedom Caucus and won the GOP primary over former state Sen. John F. Kennedy. He is running on lower property and income taxes, school choice, public safety and tighter spending, and he wants to limit large institutional investors from buying single-family homes. He has also said he would cut tax breaks for data centers and opposes special carve-outs for big companies.
Democrat Josh McLaurin is a Sandy Springs attorney who flipped a state House seat in 2018 and moved to the Senate in 2022. Holding degrees from Yale Law School and the University of Georgia, he is campaigning on lower costs for working families, Medicaid expansion, housing affordability, voting rights and changes to the state abortion restrictions. In an October debate he argued the tax burden should shift away from working people and toward the wealthiest individuals and businesses, and he pitched more market-based housing supply.
Dolezal has drawn criticism from some legislators over a campaign ad on sharia law that they called Islamophobic.
Early voting ends Friday, and polls open at 7 a.m. on Election Day, Nov. 3.
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