Hello.

I'm Karen Greer, news anchor at WSB TV in Atlanta.

Welcome to the Atlanta Press Club Loudermilk-Young Debate Series from the studios of Georgia Public Broadcasting.

The 2026 debate series was made possible by grants to the Atlanta Press Club from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation and the Robert Charles Loudermilk Senior Foundation.

This is the debate for candidates running for Lieutenant governor of Georgia.

We have two esteemed journalists who will question the candidates.

Sarah Kallis is the politics reporter at Georgia Public Broadcasting.

Chuck Williams is a senior reporter at w r b l TV in Columbus, Georgia.

I'm going to kick things off today by asking each of the candidates to introduce themselves and tell viewers why they should be the next lieutenant governor of Georgia.

Candidates will have 60s to introduce themselves.

We'll go in alphabetical order, starting with Greg Dolezal.

Hello, Georgia.

My name is Greg Dolezal.

I'm a husband, a father of four, a small business owner.

And for the last eight years, I've had the privilege of representing my neighbors in the Georgia Senate.

I'm running for lieutenant governor because Georgia is a special place, and I want to keep it that way.

That means keeping this a great place to raise a family, lower taxes, safe communities, excellent schools, and an economy where hard work still gets you ahead.

Georgia has succeeded because we've governed differently than other states that tax too much and spend too much and regulate too much.

My goal today is simple.

When this debate is over, you'll know where I stand, what I've done, and the kind of Georgia I want to build.

Let's get started.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Josh McLaurin.

You may now introduce yourself.

Thank you so much.

Good afternoon.

My name is Josh McLaurin and I have the honor of being the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor of Georgia.

I'm a Georgia native.

I grew up in Cobb County, went to the University of Georgia, where I was a double door graduate.

Go, dawgs.

Great win over Alabama.

And I've been in the state legislature where I've been fighting against the Trump era and its excesses.

But fighting for working people and investing in the things that matter.

For those eight years.

Greg and I came in at the same time.

But we have extremely different records.

I actually have the bipartisan record.

I've worked with Republicans in both the House and the Senate to do things like regulate predatory Carr booting for the very first time, invest $1 million in breakthrough therapies for veterans with post-traumatic stress to care about their mental health.

I only did that by having good relationships with Republicans.

The most ironic thing about this debate is that Greg does not have those good relationships with Republicans.

Some of them are going to vote for me.

And the reason is because, Greg is the Mike Collins of this race.

He may be a state level politician, but he is bringing Maga and Trumpism to Georgia, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to give you a sense of his record.

All right.

For the full set of debate rules, please visit Atlanta Press club.org.

Our panel will now ask a question to an individual candidate.

We're going to begin with Sarah Kallis, who will ask a question for Josh McLaurin.

Once again, you have 60s for your response.

Senator McLaurin, you've mentioned affordable housing as a cornerstone of your campaign promises, but you voted against a bill to potentially reduce property taxes.

Could you explain your vote on this issue and how you will make housing more affordable otherwise?

Sarah, I'm really glad that you asked this question because the majority Republicans and Senator Dolezal, most of all, have been pushing this property tax lie that you can somehow eliminate all property taxes and still fund local governments.

Again, this race is bigger than Partizanship.

I have been the one to go to the Georgia Municipal Association, the Cities Association and the Association for counties.

Greg did not go to either of those forums, and both Democrats and Republicans and local government across the state are saying that their budgets, their ability to provide essential services that you rely on would be devastated if they were to eliminate property taxes entirely.

Greg and other Republicans have been selling a lie on this, which came to fruition at the end of legislative session.

They ended up not making good on their promises and passing a very reduced bill.

I want to build more housing.

I want a market based solution to work with the chambers of commerce and the affordable housing advocates to to build all the housing.

We need to meet demand that will expand the tax base, and it will bring everyone's per capita property taxes down.

That's real smart relief.

That works with everybody and doesn't rely on empty promises and lies.

Chuck Williams, please ask a question for Greg Dolezal.

Senator Dolezal, who or what is responsible for the current economic crisis we're facing, and what specifically can you do as lieutenant governor to bring down the cost of groceries and gas?

Thank you, Chuck, for that question.

Washington, D.C.

Frankly, Republicans and Democrats for years and for decades have printed money spent more than we have ran up the deficits.

But, Chuck, my focus is not what Washington, D.C.

Does.

My focus is how we respond in Georgia.

And just this year alone, Republicans took the lead to lower taxes across the board, not only property taxes, but income taxes, increasing the standard deduction.

And for the average Georgia family, that has resulted in a one year reduction of your taxes of about $1,700.

Now, Josh opposed some of these measures.

These are common sense measures that delivered for the people of Georgia.

We can never insulate ourselves fully from Washington, D.C., but what we can do is we can lead at the state level to ensure that we're looking out for Georgians.

Can I respond?

Since I was?

Yes.

You may.

Okay.

Let me be very clear.

This state is in the bottom 20% for median income.

Nationally, it's in the bottom 20% for per capita government investment.

We don't have conservative budgeting.

We have starvation budgeting.

We're one of ten states that has not expanded Medicaid.

20 rural hospitals have closed over the last 20 years.

Now Greg wants to put a pleasant face on his politics, his Maga politics and his underinvestment.

He wants to pretend that you can have your cake and eat it, too.

And we shouldn't be taxing working people like we are.

We shouldn't be taxing legacy residents in communities.

We should be taxing the oligarchs and billionaires who can afford to pay.

And that's what he has no vision or ambition to do.

And that is our time.

Sarah, your turn to ask a question of Greg Dolezal.

Senator Dolezal, you sponsored a bill to create the Georgia Promise Scholarship Program, which allows students attending low performing public schools to attend private school using state funding.

Do you plan to expand this program if elected Lieutenant governor?

Sir, thank you for the question.

The Georgia Promise Scholarship has been a resounding success.

I'm happy to announce that this year it is fully subscribed.

What it does is allows parents whose children are stuck in a failing school, and we define that by schools that are in the bottom 25% of the schools in Georgia.

And we allow parents to take their state tax dollars that would otherwise be spent on that child and use that same money for an education opportunity of the parents choice.

Now we have data on this program.

We know that four fifths of the families that have taken advantage of this are in the lower income strata.

45% of the students that have taken advantage of this program are African American.

Josh would like to keep children trapped in these failing schools, not give them an escape hatch.

Well, we, as Republicans have done is fully funded education, fully funded public education while still giving parents a choice.

No, we're going to move on.

Chuck, you have the last question right now for Josh McLaurin.

Senator McLaurin, I'm going to ask you what I asked Senator Dolezal, despite your rebuttal a second ago, but who do you think or what do you think is responsible for the current economic crisis?

And specifically, what would you do as lieutenant governor to help lower the cost of gas and groceries?

Donald Trump, as we know, has embarked on some of the most chaotic politics this country has ever seen over the last couple of years.

I mean, it's way worse than his first term.

I don't have to tell you that the Ice raids that are tearing apart families, militarizing the streets of American cities, the tariffs, they're crushing Georgian farmers and working families.

All of his chaos politics, the Iran war, gas prices have come to a head during this election season.

So we're focusing on them and talking about the real cause.

I want to be clear on this debate stage, when Greg was in the runoff debate in the primary, he said he was a strong supporter of Donald Trump, a strong supporter of mass deportations.

He said he's unapologetically against Sharia law, which is a made up problem where he's basically demonizing the Muslim community to try to flare up his base and win a primary.

He has committed to the most extreme Maga impulses that Donald Trump has brought to Georgia.

And the reason that other Georgia Republicans, including elected officials, some of whom will be voting for me this year, is because Greg is too dangerous even for their Republican politics.

And I have to make clear that we all know that that's the cause of the economic crisis that we're seeing.

Greg Dolezal will give you a chance for a rebuttal here, since you're addressed here.

Thank you.

I appreciate that you heard zero solutions of how we're going to solve the affordability crisis.

Josh goes to bed at night and wakes up in the morning thinking about Donald Trump.

I wake up in the morning thinking about how we can solve the problems for the people of Georgia.

Governor Kemp has taken the lead this month and suspended the gasoline tax.

We have been able to do that multiple times, both when President Trump was in office and when Joe Biden was in office.

We have Georgia led solutions to be able to respond to the macro challenges that face Georgians.

Because of the conservative leadership that has been leading the state for two decades.

All right.

Thank you so much.

That concludes our first round.

Each candidate will now have an opportunity to ask their opponent a question.

You have 30s to ask that question.

60s to respond.

And the person who asked the question will get a 32nd rebuttal.

Greg Dolezal please ask your question to Josh McLaurin.

Thank you.

Josh.

There was a bill that was going to require convicted child molesters to place a no trick or treating sign in front of their house during Halloween.

You objected to this bill because you said it was going to be, and I quote, downright humiliating for the child molester.

You've got to help me out on this one.

Josh.

What were you thinking?

So I'm a lawyer, and lawyers take hard cases when the Constitution requires it.

And I will not apologize for standing for constitutional rights, even when it's difficult.

The ACLU is a First Amendment organization.

They take incredibly hard positions with unpopular clients, sometimes because the rule of law is what matters.

Now.

There will be people who scratch their heads.

Sometimes when a lawyer says, I'm committed to the First Amendment, you know, and usually when we take these votes, Greg, and you know this too, we have some research staff.

We know when federal courts have already ruled against some of these laws.

And we know when we're walking into lawsuits where we're going to have to spend taxpayer money.

So it's great for your politics.

I mean, you can appeal to your base all day, your 70% Forsyth County District, where you've won every primary by going all the way to the right.

You can appeal to that politics, but at the end of the day, taxpayers have to pay the bill.

When we do unconstitutional things.

So again, I need voters to pay attention to the details and not by what Greg is saying at a top political level, as he's done for eight years.

It's more important to look at the actual rule of law to defend constitutional rights, and to do so in a way that preserves taxpayer money.

Mr.

Dolezal, your rebuttal.

Yeah.

This gets to an overarching problem that Josh and Keisha Lance Bottoms both have.

They are soft on crime.

Josh was one of just three members of the Georgia State Senate, Republican or Democrat, to vote against the Fentanyl Eradication Act.

He was one of just five state senators to vote against a Democrat bill that was going to increase fines and prison time for violent street racing.

Josh McLaurin alongside Keisha Lance Bottoms.

When it comes to public safety, will be like pouring gasoline on the Wendy's fire.

Jackson McLaurin your turn to ask a question of Greg Dolezal.

Sure.

Well, Greg, you said a minute ago I'm the one who dreams of Donald Trump.

I use the Wayback Machine to look at your website on May 19th.

During this primary season, when you were running for the Republican nomination, and it was full of references to Trump.

In fact, your splash page when you load the page was a Trump/Vance podium where you spoke at a rally.

You had a picture of you and your wife thumbs uping with Trump and multiple times it said stood with President Trump.

In fact, one of them said when others ran, I stood with President Trump.

Well, you've removed all those Trump references from your website.

And my question is why?

Josh, we have redesigned our website a few times throughout the course of this campaign.

It's something that campaigns do.

I haven't studied your website to know if you do or not, but you should know a little bit about deleting things.

Josh, you have a Twitter account that is completely been wormhole, completely deleted.

Over 3,000 tweets have been removed because you took a Twitter account down that the voters no longer have access to.

So I would return the same question to you.

Josh, will you release every single one of those tweets for public consumption and reinstate them on your Twitter account today?

I'm not I don't have access to that Twitter account.

I deleted it because it was at a time when social media was an unhelpful way to communicate, and I realized I needed to preserve my peace, which I think a lot of people can understand with social media.

The bigger issue here is that you are now doing the exact running from Trump that you criticize your Republican colleagues from, although the reality is you showed your heart during this primary.

You want to exclude Muslim people.

You want to cheer on Ice as they deport and remove family members.

You want to do all that in the name of Maga.

And the only reason that you're trying to clean up your act now is that, you know, you're in a 50 50 district, i.e.

the Georgia statewide electorate.

It is transparent that for eight years, your face, you made a funny face.

And as moms often say, it's stuck that way.

And I think Georgians know what they're going to get if they elect you lieutenant governor.

That is time you're watching the general election debate for Georgia Lieutenant governor, we will now go back to our esteemed panel, who will ask questions to the candidate of their choice until we run out of time.

Chuck Williams, we're going to begin with you.

I'm going to pose this to both of them.

Um, and I guess we can start with who do you want to start?

Senator Dolezal will start with Senator Dolezal, local communities and places like Columbus, Effingham County, Coweta County are dealing with data center projects throughout the state.

How much weight should be placed on local opposition?

How much weight should that carry as opposed to what the statewide good or goals are?

Thank you for the question.

I believe these decisions should be borne 100% by local governments, but with strict guardrails put in place at the state level to ensure that natural resources and people's power bills are protected.

But let's zoom out for a second.

Why has Georgia become the number one state in America for data centers?

It's because they were invited to come here with cash payments by politicians like Keisha, Lance Bottoms and Josh McLaurin.

Josh had a vote in the Georgia State House, and I wish he would have voted with me on this one, but he voted to extend the data center tax credit in 2022.

In 2024, when we had the votes to pause the data center tax credit, Josh voted no.

My position is firm and it is simple.

Not one dime of your property taxes or income taxes should be used to subsidize trillion dollar data centers.

Your your power bills should not go up a penny because a data center exists anywhere in the state of Georgia.

No non-disclosure agreements, no eminent domain for data centers.

All right.

Josh McLaurin, answer that same question, please.

Sure.

Well, I'd like to see the receipts on what he's saying, because I don't think that's a fair characterization at all.

What I will say is that I've taken the position that the water issues the amount of water, that these suck up, the power issues, that these massive corporations are not paying their own way.

And the sound and diesel emissions, these are all issues that local governments should have the ability to deal with and block.

And local governments should be getting the best of these trillion dollar corporations and imposing property tax relief in in their districts by taxing the data centers instead, if that's what they choose to do.

But until we can solve those environmental concerns, we have got to slow down development because these communities have an immense interest in blocking these massive AI companies from entering their space.

But I want to point out something about Greg's hypocrisy here, because he may look like a populist on the surface.

Again, that's the theme.

But he has used multiple AI ads, some of them the most racist anti-Muslim ads.

He used ads that were AI generated to attack JFK during the primary.

And my question is, where does he think those are generated?

He is using and profiting from the same systems that he is now criticizing, and he wants you to believe that he wouldn't continue to do the same thing as lieutenant governor.

Because of that, we are going to give you time for rebuttal.

Thank you.

Josh, here's the receipts.

2022, House Bill 12 91.

You first voted no.

The bill failed on the floor.

They then worked people to get the bill to pass.

You flipped your vote to yes.

Now, I don't know what you were given, but what were Georgians were given in exchange for?

That was becoming the number one state in the union for data centers.

The data center pause 2024, House Bill 11 92.

We'll put both of these up on our Non-deleted Twitter account later, and the voters can see it for themselves.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Sarah Kallis your turn to ask a candidate of your choice.

Senator Dolezal, in campaign ads and on your website, you've said that you want to ban Sharia law in Georgia.

Are you aware of any instances where Sharia law has been used?

And if not, why is it necessary to ban it?

Thank you for the question.

There have been a few cases in family law where it has been referenced and attempted to be used, and that's gone all the way up to the appellate court here in the state of Georgia.

But we don't just look at Georgia, we look at things like this.

We look at places like Texas, where there is an Islamic tribunal set up outside of Dallas, Texas, where cases are adjudicated, not according to the United States Constitution, but according to a foreign law.

And the bill that I wrote that I hope that we can pass someday makes crystal clear that only the United States Constitution and the precepts and concepts therein can be utilized in the adjudication of cases in Georgia courts.

Chuck, we're going to go to you.

I want to stay with data centers for just a second.

Looking ahead, five, ten years down the road.

What does a successful data center policy for the state of Georgia look like and how, as lieutenant governor, will you shape that policy?

And we'll start with you, Senator McLaurin.

Sure.

So kind of going off of what I said a minute ago, it all has to do with the local communities agency and control.

The local community needs to be able to set the terms, negotiate hardball with these big corporations, get favorable tax treatment if they want them.

But as we've seen, communities across the state have risen up against these data centers until we can better understand them, better understand their environmental consequences, and most importantly, get state regulation to stop all of the bad effects.

And there's some evidence that publics do support responsible development.

If all of the issues are addressed.

But that has to be the top priority.

So again, this is balanced.

This isn't just populist red meat where we make promises we can't keep good government.

A steady hand requires looking at both sides of the issue.

But but more than anything, listening to the local community and empowering the local government to say no and halt when that's what they want to do.

Senator Dolezal.

Thank you.

I agree with Josh on the local control piece.

You'll find no distance between he and I on there, but where I where I depart with him is on the tax incentives.

There we go again with the tax incentives.

I do not believe that a hard working Georgian should have to get up in the morning and wake up and go pay taxes and leave trillion dollar companies with tax abatements, whether there's a local tax abatement, whether those are state tax abatements, they should not exist.

I had a bill this year to actually allow data centers to be taxed more than other commercial property.

Josh voted against that bill as well.

He has been in the data centers corner every single turn and chance that he has had in the state Senate and in the state House.

I'd like to briefly respond.

Okay.

I have been very clear today.

We need to tax data centers.

These are oligarch driven, large AI companies that are developing their technology too fast.

They're afraid of their own technology.

We absolutely need to be taxing them.

And I want to make sure that my record is not mischaracterized on that today.

All right.

I want to interject and ask a question of my own name.

One position that your party has taken that you believe is wrong.

And what will you do as a lieutenant governor to change that?

Let's start with you, Mr.

Dolezal.

Thank you for that question.

Well, this is one these data center tax credits had bipartisan support when they moved through the General Assembly, had bipartisan support originally when they were renewed.

Now, Republicans came a little bit more my way in 2024.

And they put a bill in place to pause these data center tax credits.

This gets to a more broad policy position.

I do not believe that we should be giving any sort of special tax treatment to large corporations, whether they're data centers or otherwise.

I look at the constituents in my district who get up every single day and go to work, and I cannot explain to them why our tax code has become like Swiss cheese with carve out after carve out after carve out for special interest, after special interest, after special interest.

This is an issue that I have led on in the Senate.

The party is coming my way.

We have outvoted the Democrats in trying to get some of these things done, and I look forward to working not only with Republicans on this, but hopefully Democrats as well as the next lieutenant governor.

All right.

Mr.

McLaurin.

Thank you for the question.

Some in my party have wanted judges meaning courts to be partisan, to have a D by their name when I think they should be nonpartisan.

Look, I went to law school.

Going back to that whole thing about trying to be fair as an attorney and really see both sides.

I don't think that everything in life should be Partizan.

I think Partizanship has become very exhausting in this country.

I think we're all very tired of the constant mudslinging, and I apologize that we have to do a little debate here today to sort out this election.

But judges in particular should not be subject to partisan pressures.

And so I have fought occasionally with my House and Senate colleagues.

I've been in both chambers about the idea that we should be making Judges Partizan, and I'm firmly committed to the idea that judges should be the nonpartisan, fair, neutral arbiters of the rule of law.

All right, Sarah, can you ask your next question, please?

Senator McLaurin, as cases of misuse mount, some voters are increasingly concerned about automated license plate readers like Flock cameras.

Should the state regulate this technology, and if so, what steps should they take?

Thank you.

Sarah, I know that there is some bipartisan momentum on regulating Flock right now.

I have made clear that I would put a warrant requirement on use of the system or whatever warrant exceptions exist.

So if law enforcement has probable cause that there's a burglary that's in progress, or they obtain a warrant from a judge, then they can access those systems.

In fact, I went to the police chief's meeting in Savannah and spoke to about 100 chiefs and told them that that was my position.

And I didn't get a whole lot of pushback afterwards.

During the Q&A portion.

In fact, what they really were concerned about was whether their officers can get paid and they can get portable benefits, which, you know, you'll hear all this fear mongering about me and Keisha and burning cars.

And that's the old school traditional Republican law and order playbook.

But the reality is we want to support law enforcement with professional salaries, professional standards of conduct, and where we can trust that those systems are robust enough to stop bad actors, then that's great, but we need some assurance for the public that this will not become a mass surveillance state.

And I think a warrant requirement that limits use of the systems unless you absolutely need them, is the right way to draw the line.

We have time for one more question for each candidate.

Okay.

This is for Senator Dolezal General Assembly last session looked at property tax and income tax relief.

You can pick one.

Which one is more important for Georgians helping on the income tax side or the property tax side?

I'll go along with your parlor game here, Chuck.

But I think it's a false premise.

The reality is I think that we can do both.

But property taxes, in my opinion, are one of the most insidious forms of taxation that exist anywhere in the American economy.

There are attacks on an unrealized gain, and I do not believe that you should have to pay more money to the government this year than you did last year, just because your neighbor sold their house for more money or a development came in across the street.

I've held this position for years.

In fact, in my own county we have put floating homestead exemptions in place to protect our citizens for ever increasing property taxes.

How would you like to answer that, Mr.

McLaurin?

Sure.

I mean, I voted for property tax relief for seniors.

I've expanded homestead exemptions.

I'm certainly attentive to the issue.

I think, like I said before, we can use a market driven approach to build more housing, different types of housing stock have lower price options for first time home buyers.

That sort of thing will expand the tax base.

This is again market driven and will relieve the individual burden per taxpayer.

The income tax thing is especially a scam.

It's half of the state budget.

If you eliminate the income tax, you blow a completely unfillable hole in the state budget.

The math just doesn't work.

The time has flown by.

That's all the time we have for questions.

The candidates will now have 60s for closing statement.

Josh McLaurin, let's begin with you.

Sure.

I know you were exhausted of politics.

I think Trump has done a lot to make politics more exhausting.

The chaos that's happening every day costs still going up.

None of the 2024 promises were met.

And what's worse is we have some state politicians here at the state level who are cheering that on, Mr.

Dolezal over here, Senator Dolezal bragged about being one of four senators out of 56 to call for a special session in 2020 to overturn the 2020 election results.

How tired are we of hearing about the 2020 election?

And the problem is, he may have some good ideas on ending corporate ownership of housing.

That's something we agree on.

But if you don't show up to GEMA, if you don't show up to a, C, C, G to work with the local government partners, if you don't show up to any of these groups and build those relationships, and all you do is throw red meat to your base and repeat Maga talking points, you are not focused and you are distracted from the issues that really matter.

So don't let him be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Vote for common sense government with bipartisan support.

The type of work I've tried to do for eight years.

Greg Dolezal well, thank you to Atlanta Press Club.

Josh, thank you for the robust debate.

You know, Josh and I are both state senators.

We sat in the same chamber and voted on the same bills.

So you don't need to imagine how either one of us would govern.

Just look at our records.

But I don't just have a record.

I have a plan.

My priorities are lower.

Taxes, safer communities and excellent schools.

I believe the next four years should be about one thing making Georgia the best place in America to raise a family, start a job, and build a future.

My name is Greg Dolezal and I'm asking for your vote for lieutenant governor not to turn Georgia into New York or California, but to build on what has been working, fix what doesn't, and most importantly, to keep Georgia Georgia.

Thank you and God bless this great state.

Thank you both.

Early voting begins Tuesday, October 13th and runs through Friday, October 30.

Election day is Tuesday, November 3.

We thank all of the candidates and our panel of journalists.

We'd also like to thank the Atlanta Press Club and Georgia Public Broadcasting for arranging today's debate.

I'm Karen Greer, thank you for joining us for the Atlanta Press Club.

Loudermilk-Young Debate Series.

Have a great day.