A grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, Jason Carter, may be the unexpected beneficiary of Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson’s announcement that he’ll retire at the end of the year.
The former state senator and 2014 Democratic gubernatorial nominee is being floated as a candidate for the seat Isakson said Wednesday he’ll vacate on Dec. 31, due to health concerns. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp will appoint a replacement to serve until the November 2020 elections, and the special election winner will finish out the final two years of Isakson’s term. At the same time, first-term Republican Sen. David Perdue faces reelection in a race Democrats have been eyeing as a potential pickup opportunity.
Carter is one of several potential Democratic candidates for the Georgia 2020 special election who have run for office unsuccessfully in recent years. That includes another Georgia political legacy, nonprofit CEO Michelle Nunn, daughter of former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn, and her party’s Senate nominee in 2014 against Perdue. Jon Ossoff, the loser in a spring 2017 special election that at the time morphed into a national referendum on President Trump’s early months in office, is another possibility. Other potential candidates include former U.S. deputy attorney general Sally Yates, and former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.
Jason Carter served in the legislature for five years, ending in January 2015. The former Peace Corps volunteer and lawyer ran for governor in an awful Democratic year. He and Democratic Senate nominee Nunn were highly touted 2014 Democratic recruits, but each came up well short — Carter lost to Republican Gov. Nathan Deal 53-45%, while she came up short against Republican Senate nominee Perdue by a similar margin. Nationally, Republicans won a Senate majority for the first time in eight years, and the House GOP expanded its ranks to the highest point since the late 1920s.
On the campaign trail in 2014, then-Gov. Deal criticized Carter as too young and inexperienced to lead the state.
“You have been in the state Senate for the entire amount of time that I’ve been governor of this state,” Deal, then 72, said to his opponent.
“You’ve never passed a bill. You’ve never been put in a position of leadership in your own conference.” Deal said. “Why would anybody decide that you have the leadership skills to lead this state?”
In that campaign Carter didn’t particularly talk up his lineage as he sought the job his grandfather held before winning the White House in 1976. Jimmy Carter served as governor from 1971-75 at a time Democrats dominated the state.
Jimmy Carter remains among the Peach State’s most prominent residents. He’s made his hometown of Plains, Ga., his base of operations since being ousted from the White House in a 1980 landslide. Carter has had a second act of sorts as an international elections observer and humanitarian, though his anti-Israel invective has drawn fierce criticism.
Other efforts at creating a Carter political dynasty have fallen short. Jason Carter’s father, Jack Carter, ran for Senate in Nevada in 2006, but lost to Republican Sen. John Ensign 55-41%.
In Georgia in 2020, if Jason Carter ran for Senate, he would participate in a special election that is called a “jungle election” in which political parties do not nominate a candidate to run in a general election. Rather, the top two finishers will meet in a runoff, meaning the finalists could be two Republicans or two Democrats. A candidate who reaches a 50% threshold wins outright, but if that threshold is not reached then a runoff kicks in.
