One hour to decide Georgia? Governor’s race debate could help settle election

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — The question: Could a one-hour debate between Rick Jackson and Keisha Lance Bottoms — the Republican and Democrat candidates for Georgia governor, respectively —help decide the race?

The answer? It’s possible.

On Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, Atlanta News First will host a face-to-face debate between the two at 8 p.m. Televised on Gray Media stations across Georgia and livestreamed, the event is a modified town hall session where undecided voters can directly ask the candidates their most pressing questions.

MORE DETAILS: Atlanta News First to host gubernatorial town hall debate between Keisha Lance Bottoms, Rick Jackson

So far, Jackson, the billionaire owner of Jackson Healthcare who made a massive splash after entering the race relatively late, and Bottoms, former Atlanta mayor and senior adviser to then-President Joe Biden, have only exchanged jabs in attack ads.

One hour doesn’t seem like a long time, but the event will be the first time Georgians see the two spar face-to-face. And with razor-thin polling margins, what they say may be the deciding factor for uncertain voters, who will likely settle the race.

Tight poll results

Most polls conducted so far agree: While Jackson usually leads by a percentage point or two, the governor’s race is effectively tied, with a margin of error or undecided voters able to swing the results left or right.

An InsiderAdvantage poll conducted on Sept. 22-23, 2026, found Jackson and Bottoms were 48% to 46%, with 6% undecided. Before that, a YouGov poll conducted Sept. 15-18, 2026, said the Jackson-Bottoms split was 45% to 44%, with 9% undecided. And during a Sept. 14 poll, Rasmussen Reports recorded 48% for Jackson and 45% for Lance Bottoms, with 7% undecided.

The results are leaving some canvassers baffled. Matt Towery, a pollster with InsiderAdvantage, said he’s never seen anything like it.

“Usually a well-funded Republican Senate candidate is close (in terms of percentage of likely voters) to that for a well-funded gubernatorial candidate,” Towery said. “But if this trend holds, there will be a lot of ‘ticket splitting’ in a state not known for it.”

Ticket-splitting is when voters nominate candidates from different political parties on the same ballot. Polls don’t show the same thin split for the Senate race; the InsiderAdvantage poll, for example, found 50% support of Democrat Jon Ossoff for Senate, with 42% for Mike Collins and 8% undecided.

Atlanta News First is also hosting a debate between Ossoff and Collins on Oct. 8, 2026.

The results also depend on how many people show up at the polls. When the last governor’s race was held during the 2022 midterms, 51.9% of Georgians voted, according to Ballotpedia.

While it’s unclear how many people will vote this year, we do know the May primary election was especially active. More than 1 million people, a record-breaking number, voted in the 2026 primaries, compared to about 857,000 in the 2022 primaries.

Voters’ guide

If you haven’t registered to vote, your time is running out. Oct. 5 is the last day you can register to cast your ballot in this year’s general election.

Early voting starts on Oct. 13 and runs through Oct. 30, while Election Day is Nov. 3.

Check here to see Atlanta News First’s full voters’ guide, which explains the races on the ballot and tells you how you can vote.

How to watch the debates

The gubernatorial town hall debate and the Senate debate will air live on Atlanta News First and on Gray Media stations across Georgia. You can watch it on WANF (channel 46) in metro Atlanta and north Georgia; WTOC in Savannah; WPGA in Macon; WRDW in Augusta; WALB in Albany; and WTVM in Columbus. The debates will also be available to stream live and on demand. Simply download our station news app on your Roku, FireTV, AppleTV or your smart TV devices.

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