Georgia Insurance Commissioner John King enters 2026 Republican race for US Senate

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Insurance Commissioner John King on Monday became the second major Republican to enter the 2026 race to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen Jon Ossoff, saying “President Trump needs reinforcements and Georgia needs a new senator.”

King jumped in after U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announced Friday that she would not seek the Republican nomination for Senate, and a week after King’s political patron, Gov. Brian Kemp, made the same decision.

U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, a Republican who represents a coastal Georgia district, announced his campaign for the Senate after Kemp announced he wasn’t running.

Five other GOP officeholders have acknowledged interest to The Associated Press, signaling what could be a wide-open Republican contest. They include two other Republicans in Congress, Mike Collins and Rich McCormick. Also considering the race are Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, state Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper and state Sen. Greg Dolezal.

King, 61, emphasized his biography in his announcement, including being born in Mexico, his rise to major general in the Georgia National Guard and his work in law enforcement as an Atlanta police officer and Doraville police chief.

“I’ve never shied away from a fight, but what truly scares me today is having Jon Ossoff for six more years. President Trump got sent to Washington, D.C., to solve some very big problems,” King said in an announcement video. “He needs help and I’m asking for your support to go help President Trump and solve these incredibly big problems.”

King said Monday that he had been stabbed and shot while serving as an Atlanta police officer. He also was a member of the Atlanta Police Department’s Red Dog unit, an anti-crime task force that drew widespread criticism for its aggressive tactics.

It was King’s experience in the National Guard that brought him to Kemp’s attention. King had never held elective office and had lost out on his application to be Kemp’s National Guard chief when Kemp was faced with filling a vacancy in the insurance commissioner’s office after Jim Beck was indicted on federal criminal charges and suspended in 2019. Kemp chose King, saying he would “restore trust” in the office after not only Beck but also his predecessor John Oxendine faced criminal charges.

King held the post on an interim basis for years, and Kemp appointed him permanently after Beck was convicted in 2022. Later that year, King became the first Hispanic person to be elected to a statewide post in Georgia.

Kemp has made a number of appointments to diversify what has traditionally been an overwhelmingly white and male group of Republican officeholders. Fluent in Spanish, King often delivered messages on behalf of Kemp in that language during the pandemic, and released announcement videos Monday in both English and Spanish.

King was also a key messenger during Kemp’s successful push to limit civil lawsuit verdicts and has become a frequent speaker at political events the last two years. But King, like a number of other Senate hopefuls, remains little-known by the broader electorate.

He also needs to prove that he can raise the large amounts of money needed for a Senate campaign. He raised $1 million during his 2022 reelection campaign, enough for a low-profile statewide office but not for a competitive Republican primary. Overall, the 2026 Senate race is likely to cost hundreds of millions. Ossoff raised more than $11 million just in the first three months of 2025.