ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia's Republican attorney general, Chris Carr, said Thursday that he's running for governor in 2026, becoming the first major candidate from either party to announce a bid.
Prominent Republicans and Democrats are eyeing the seat, which will be open in two years after term-limited Republican Gov. Brian Kemp leaves the office. Other potential Republican contenders include Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, while the Democratic field is less well-defined.
Carr is portraying himself as the best candidate to continue steady Republican leadership in the mold of the late U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, former Gov. Nathan Deal and Kemp.
“I’ve seen what it takes to be successful,” Carr told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “And I want to run as the proven conservative who will create jobs for hardworking Georgians, keep our families and neighborhoods safe and vigorously defend our Constitution and freedoms."
Carr has aligned closely with Kemp but could face opposition from President-elect Donald Trump and his supporters in a primary election. Jones has been close to Trump and would likely angle for his endorsement. By contrast, Trump endorsed primary opponents who ultimately lost to both Carr and Raffensperger in 2022, fueled by his displeasure that neither Carr nor Raffensperger backed Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss in Georgia.
Carr said he was confident that he could win on issues and appeal to enough voters to win a Republican primary, despite his past differences with Trump.
“This race isn't going to be about how loud somebody yells or screams, it’s going to be about a conservative record," he said. "And I’m the one that has that.”
It’s exceptionally early to announce a 2026 political bid. Customarily, statewide candidates in Georgia would announce sometime after 2025's legislative session. But Carr let it be known more than a year ago that he was lining up donors for a run. That's in part because Jones and Raffensperger are much more wealthy than Carr.
Carr filed papers with the Georgia Ethics Commission Thursday creating a campaign committee to raise money for the governor's race. Announcing now could help Carr lock down donors, especially because he won't be able to raise money for his state campaign account during the three-month legislative session that convenes on Jan. 13.
The attorney general’s office in Georgia traditionally has been preoccupied with defending civil lawsuits brought against the state and could only aid in a prosecution if a local district attorney requested help. But Republican lawmakers have given Carr increasing powers to directly prosecute criminals.
In 2019, lawmakers gave Carr the authority to create a human trafficking prosecution unit. Carr’s office says the unit has convicted 50 people, participated in 325 investigations and assisted more than 200 victims.
In 2022, lawmakers directed Carr to create a statewide gang prosecution unit that now has offices in Atlanta, Albany, Augusta, Columbus, Macon and southeast Georgia. That unit has secured more than 40 convictions and indictments against more than 140 people.
“Nobody’s going to come here and locate a business or a job if they don’t feel safe,” Carr said, calling his office’s expansion of prosecutions “very successful.”
After working as a lawyer and the vice president of the conservative Georgia Public Policy Foundation, Carr got his entry into politics when he joined U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson's staff in 2004 and became Isakson's chief of staff in 2007.
Gov. Nathan Deal picked Carr to become Commissioner of Economic Development in 2013 after another old Isakson hand, Chris Cummiskey, left to work for the Southern Co., the Atlanta-based utility giant. Deal put a major emphasis on economic development as Georgia tried to dig out from the wreckage of the Great Recession, and Carr helped facilitate projects worth more than $14 billion in investment that helped create more than 83,000 jobs.
Deal promoted Carr to attorney general in 2016 after Sam Olens resigned to become president of Kennesaw State University. Carr hadn't earned a living practicing law for years and had never personally tried a case. But he wasn't challenged in the Republican primary in 2018 and narrowly beat Democrat Charlie Bailey in the general election.
In 2022, Carr demolished right-wing primary challenger John Gordon despite Gordon getting Trump's endorsement and then beat Democrat Jen Jordan in the narrowest victory of any Republican on the statewide ballot that year.
Georgia's attorney general doesn't face term limits, meaning Carr could have chosen to run for reelection in 2026.
Jones didn't say anything about his political plans Thursday, but underlined his link to Trump.
“Georgians just endured a long election where the lieutenant governor was proud to fight alongside President Trump — now it's time to get to work,” said Jones' chief of staff, Loree Anne Paradise. “Burt is focused on delivering conservative solutions to the issues the General Assembly will tackle during the upcoming legislative session.”
Democratic candidates could include U.S. Rep Lucy McBath and outgoing DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond.
Republicans have won six straight governor’s races in Georgia since Sonny Perdue became the first Republican to be elected in modern times in 2002. Democrats had hoped to break that streak under Stacey Abrams in 2022 after she narrowly lost to Kemp in 2018, but Kemp defeated her by a comfortable margin in their rematch.
FILE - Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr speaks during a news conference to discuss the recent indictment of 61 defendants in Fulton County, Sept. 5, 2023, at the Georgia Department of Public Safety in Atlanta. (Natrice Miller/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are rising Thursday after more companies said they’re making fatter profits than expected. Market superstar Nvidia also topped forecasts, but Wall Street’s ambivalence about whether the heavyweight's report was impressive enough is keeping indexes in check.
The S&P 500 was 0.6% higher, as of 1:02 p.m. Eastern time, following many flips between modest gains and losses through the morning. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 543 points, or 1.3%, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.1%. The moves were part of a busy day for financial markets, as bitcoin briefly broke above $98,000 and crude oil prices continued to rise.
Nvidia was a big reason for the stock market's meandering after yet again beating analysts’ estimates for profit and revenue. It also gave a forecast for revenue in the current quarter that topped most analysts’ expectations thanks to voracious demand for its chips used in artificial-intelligence technology.
Its stock initially sank in afterhours trading late on Wednesday following the release of the results. Some investors said that might have been because the market was looking for Nvidia's revenue forecast to surpass expectations by even more. But its stock then recovered in premarket trading Thursday, and Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said it was another “flawless” profit report provided by Nvidia and CEO Jensen Huang, whom Ives calls “the Godfather of AI.”
How Nvidia’s stock performs has tremendous impact because it’s quickly grown into Wall Street’s most valuable company at nearly $3.6 trillion. That means a 1% move for it packs more weight on the S&P 500 than the same move for any other stock.
Nvidia's stock on Thursday quickly went from an early jump of 4.8% to a loss of 3.6% before settling at a drop of 1.3%. It was one of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500.
The frenzy around AI is sweeping up other stocks, and Snowflake jumped 34.2% after reporting stronger results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The company, whose platform helps customers get a better view of all their silos of data and use AI, also reported stronger revenue growth than expected.
BJ’S Wholesale Club rose 9.6% after likewise delivering a bigger profit than expected. That may help calm worries about how resilient U.S. shoppers can remain, given high prices across the economy and still-high interest rates. A day earlier, Target tumbled after reporting sluggish sales in the latest quarter and giving a dour forecast for the holiday shopping season. It followed Walmart, which gave a much more encouraging outlook.
Roughly 90% of the stocks in the S&P 500 were also rising, and the gains were even bigger among smaller companies. The Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks climbed a market-leading 1.8%.
But Google’s parent company, Alphabet, was helping to drag on indexes. It fell 5.7% after U.S. regulators asked a judge to break up the tech giant by forcing it to sell its industry-leading Chrome web browser.
In a 23-page document filed late Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice called for sweeping punishments that would include restrictions preventing Android from favoring its own search engine. Regulators stopped short of demanding Google sell Android but left the door open to it if the company’s oversight committee continues to see evidence of misconduct.
Drops for other Big Tech stocks also weighed on the market, including slides of 1.7% for Amazon and 0.7% for Meta Platforms.
In stock markets abroad, shares of India’s Adani Enterprises plunged 22.6% Thursday after the U.S. charged founder Gautam Adani, 62, in a federal indictment with securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud. The businessman and one of the world’s richest people is accused of duping investors by concealing that his company’s huge solar energy project on the subcontinent was being facilitated by an alleged bribery scheme.
Indexes elsewhere in Asia and Europe were mixed.
In the crypto market, bitcoin is trading around $97,800 after eclipsing $98,000 for the first time. It’s more than doubled so far this year, and its climb has accelerated since Election Day. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to make the country “the crypto capital of the planet” and create a “strategic reserve” of bitcoin.
Bitcoin and related investments, of course, have a notorious history of big price swings in both directions. MicroStrategy, a company that's been raising cash expressly to buy bitcoin, saw an early gain of 14.6% for its stock on Thursday quickly disappear. It was most recently down 1.6%.
In the oil market, a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 1.2% to bring its gain for the week to 3.8%. Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 1.2%. Oil has been rising amid escalations in the Russia-Ukraine war.
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady following some mixed reports on the U.S. economy. The yield on the 10-year Treasury remained at 4.41% from late Wednesday.
One report said fewer U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week in the latest signal that the job market remains solid. Another report, though, said manufacturing in the mid-Atlantic region unexpectedly shrank. Sales of previously occupied homes, meanwhile, strengthened last month by more than expected.
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Yuri Kageyama contributed.
FILE - People walk under a sidewalk shed near the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)
The facade of the New York Stock Exchange is illuminated on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)
People walk by monitors showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index and Japan's foreign exchange rate against the U.S. dollar at a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
Travelers walk by monitors showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
A woman covering herself from the rain walks by monitors showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
People walk by monitors showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
A woman walks by a monitor showing Japan's foreign exchange rate against the U.S. dollar at a securities firm in Tokyo, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)
