ATLANTA, Ga. — Democratic state Sen. Josh McLaurin won the race for Georgia lieutenant governor on Tuesday, defeating Republican state Sen. Greg Dolezal in one of several statewide offices that changed parties on Election Day.
The win puts a Democrat in the presiding chair of the Georgia Senate for the first time since Mark Taylor, who held the office from 1999 to 2007. McLaurin will take over from Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who served a single term as Senate president and then ran for governor this year without success.
The lieutenant governor runs the Senate and has a strong hand in deciding which bills move at the Capitol, so the result shifts influence over the legislative agenda heading into the 2027 session.
A lawyer by trade, McLaurin is 38 and holds the District 14 Senate seat north of Atlanta. Voters first sent him to the state House, where he served four years, and he moved up to the Senate in 2022. He is a UGA graduate who went on to Yale Law School, and his legal career included a stint as the airline ExpressJet’s acting general counsel.
He reached the general election by beating former state Sen. Nabilah Parkes in a Democratic runoff. On the trail he talked about government accountability, voting rights and public schools, and said he wants more state dollars to go to child care, housing and local services.
Democrats also cut into the Republican majority in the state Senate on Tuesday, though the GOP kept control of the chamber McLaurin will now oversee.
His victory was part of a wider Democratic sweep. Voters picked Democrats for every statewide office on the ballot, including governor, attorney general and secretary of state, and Democratic challengers unseated the Republican labor, insurance and agriculture commissioners along with the state school superintendent.
Beginning in January, Democrats will also hold a majority on the Public Service Commission, the panel that sets rates for Georgia Power and other utilities, the first time in decades the party has run it.
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Filed under: Atlanta GA Politics News
