The midterm debates are here, and candidates for 11 statewide offices in Georgia will be taking the stage in Atlanta on Monday and Tuesday.
The Atlanta Press Club hosts the Loudermilk-Young debates every election cycle, and this fall is no different. While other debates take place across the state, the APC debates will bring all the candidates together under one roof.
Early voting in Georgia begins Tuesday, Oct. 13 and runs through Oct. 30. Election day will be held on Nov. 3, with a Dec. 1 runoff election day should any races be too close to call in November.
To check your voting location and polling times, visit the GA My Voter Page.
The first six debates are scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. on Monday and run through 9 p.m., with the governor’s debate (though one-sided) closing out the series.
Follow along for live updates on the Georgia midterm debates.
‘Greg (Dolezal) is the Mike Collins of this race,’ Lt. Gov. debate kicks off
02:38 PM ET, October 12 2026, Irene Wright
Josh McLaurin, the Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor, kicked off the Atlanta Press Club debates by saying his opponent “is the Mike Collins of this race,” referencing the Republican Senate candidate who has been marred by controversy throughout his campaign.
He was attacking Republican Greg Dolezal, a state senator who has supported the MAGA movement, denied the results of the 2020 election and campaigned on anti-Muslim rhetoric.
The two candidates are coming from similar backgrounds, having both spent time in the state house over the past few years under Republican Governor Brian Kemp. And there are few things they actually agree on like a pause on data centers and limiting tax breaks for corporations in Georgia. But that may be where their similarities end.
Dolezal supports school choice, said decades of Washington decisions were to blame for the current economic crisis and called for a pause on any new data centers. He has also removed references to President Donald Trump from his campaign website and didn’t connect himself to the president during the debate, despite appearing with Trump during multiple visits to Georgia. Dolezal accused McLaurin of removing a previous Twitter account he ran, to which McLaurin said it was deleted to “preserve my peace.”
McLaurin stood by his stance calling for judges to remain non-partisan, a slight break from other members of his party. He also supported a moratorium on data centers and a possible moritorium on new Flock cameras while additional guardrails are activated. The state senator referenced Dolezal’s previous anti-Sharia Law ads as a way to exclude Georgia’s Muslim population.
In comments made after the debate, McLaurin called the current political environment “exhausting,” and that he hopes to “make politics boring again.”
“They (the voters) don’t want to see a whole bunch of burn it down politics from either side, and so the commitment I’m makig to the Republicans and the Independents who are considering voting for me this year is that I want to restore a more calm and peaceful version of politics where we actually do work together,” McLaurin said.
During questions, Dolezal said he can take his leadership skills from the private sector and apply it to a new statewide role.
“I think that what you do is you cast a vision, you set a high bar, you rally people around that vision, you compromise to get the job done, and that’s how we’ll be hopefully as nice as any governor in the state,” Dolezal said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Midterm candidates take debate stage in Atlanta: Live Updates
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