ATLANTA – Ben Smith says he is looking for a new governor with scant ties to Atlanta who will be a change agent under the Gold Dome. 

Sound familiar? 

The Dalton resident said Donald Trump’s upset victory last November gives him hope that such a candidate will be on the ballot next year when Georgia voters go to the polls to replace a term-limited Gov. Nathan Deal. 

“He was an outsider,” Smith said of Trump earlier this month. “I’m not saying we need another Donald Trump, but we do need someone who can come in and shake things up.” 

Voter turnout in places such as Whitfield County surged in November and helped Trump offset losses in metro Atlanta and other urban areas of the state. 

The Republican lost the state’s four most populated counties and still won the state by about 5 points, thanks to strong support in rural counties. 

That has left some hopeful that rural Georgia, where support for the embattled president appears to remain strong, might play a more prominent role in picking the next occupant of the governor’s mansion. 

Some Republicans who have announced or who have said they are eyeing a run for governor seem ready to tap into lingering frustrations in the rural communities that buoyed Trump’s campaign. 

Meanwhile, the presumed Democratic frontrunner, Stacey Abrams, who has not officially announced her candidacy, has not held back when publicly challenging Trump’s policies. 

“At least in parts of metro Atlanta, to run as anti-Trump will be very effective,” said Charles S. Bullock III, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.

Democrats are already trying to harness anti-Trump fervor in the suburbs of Atlanta, where a special election is being held to replace former Congressman Tom Price, who is now serving as Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary.

Democrat and political newcomer Jon Ossoff faces former secretary of state Karen Handel in a June 20 runoff. Recent polls show a tight race. 

The 6^th Congressional District contest is viewed nationally as an early referendum on Trump, who has tweeted, recorded a robo-call and held a fundraiser on behalf of Handel.  

“It will be interesting to see whether the president – given his interest in Georgia politics – is going to throw support behind a particular candidate or not and how that may influence the governor’s race,” said Matt Williamson, who chairs the Walker County Republican Party in northwest Georgia.  

In Walker County, where Trump won in a landslide, voter turnout soared to 74 percent. That was up from 55 percent four years ago when Mitt Romney was on the ballot. 

Williamson explains the energy in areas like Walker County this way: 

“Donald Trump was the closest thing to a bomb that the American people could send to Washington,” he said, referring to the seething anger among voters who felt their interests had been ignored.  

Williamson said Trump’s influence could go a long way in Walker County and other rural corners of the state – in spite of the controversy that has marked Trump’s administration so far. 

“They hear all these complaints by people in the media and they think, ‘Well, the liberal media is criticizing him. He must be doing something right,’” Williamson said Wednesday.

“He really has not done anything so outrageous as to turn his base completely off,” he added. 

Trump likely won’t have to directly meddle in Georgia affairs to have a continued impact here. Jeff Newberry in Tifton, for one, said he is already looking for a governor who will be the state’s antidote to Trump. 

“I want someone who’s going to stand up to Trump and tell him, ‘No.’ Someone who’s going to call him out on the amateur nonsense he’s been doing,” the English and communications professor at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College said earlier this month. 

“When the federal government steps out of line, I’d like for our state governor to say, ‘No,’ to have the guts to stand up to him,” he added. 

It’s this kind of frustration that Democrats have been trying to seize far away from Tifton in metro Atlanta’s  6^th District, where Ossoff launched his campaign with an enticement to “Make Trump Furious.” 

“Suburban Republican voters in District 6 clearly are concerned by Donald Trump and his tendency to say things that are either blatantly untrue or just dumb,” said Kenneth Ellinger, a political science professor at Dalton State College.

“These concerns about Trump are compounded when he fires an FBI director who won’t pledge his loyalty to Trump and who was starting to pursue Russian meddling in the 2016 election too vigorously,” he added.  

That changes the farther away from Atlanta you travel. 

“On the other hand, my sense is that so-called ‘values voters’ —who are more likely to live in rural areas — will ironically be more tolerant of Trump’s ‘casual relationship with the truth’ because he is telling them what they want to hear on most social issues,” Ellinger said. 

But how Trump’s presidency might influence the 2018 elections in Georgia – including a potentially crowded Republican field for governor – will mostly depend on what the president does or doesn’t do in the next year or so, Bullock said. 

“Conceivably, if Trump’s popularity tanks in Georgia, then this may be a question of how soon you got off the train,” he said, referring to Republican support for Trump. “But that remains to be seen.” 

A Democratic win in Georgia’s 6^th Congressional District could also have implications for the governor’s race in a year where much is at stake due to a looming redistricting, Bullock said. 

“Democratic leaders are well aware that if they have any hope of taking back control of the State Legislature in the next decade, they have to elect a governor in 2018,” Bullock said.

If not, Democrats won’t have a seat at the table when new district lines are drawn, he said.

 “If (Ossoff) loses, then Georgia is still a red, red state,” Bullock said this week. “If he manages to win, even though that district is certainly not representative of what the whole state is like, that will encourage Democrats to make a bigger push for 2018.”

Jill Nolin covers the Georgia Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at jnolin@cnhi.com. Charles Oliver in Dalton and Stuart Taylor in Tifton contributed to this report.

———

Voters weigh in on Georgia’s next governor 

A handful of candidates have announced plans to run for governor in 2018. Others say they are still mulling it over. Here’s what voters across the state say they are looking for in Georgia’s next governor. 

Keisha Dewberry, manufacturing plant worker from Milledgeville:

“Governor really doesn’t matter to me, because they don’t do what they say they’re going to do, and Georgia is always losing a lot of jobs, so I really just focus on the President.”

“It’s important that we get more jobs in Georgia. We have too many jobs that are shutting down – here in town, we have three businesses gone with Rue21, Fun Factory, and J.C. Penney. Thirteen years ago, this town was booming with jobs, and now … it’s not.”

—

Daryl Tate, a Dalton Republican who says he hasn’t been too happy with Gov. Nathan Deal or the Republican leaders in the state Legislature.

“We haven’t had tax reform, but they give out all these tax breaks to yacht owners and to big business,” he said. “We don’t have any laws to protect our religious freedoms. Deal vetoed that.”

He says he’s going to be looking for a conservative candidate for governor who will press issues such as those.

“They are going to have to do more than say the right things. They all say they are for small government, then they all get down there and don’t vote that way,” he said. “I’m looking for someone who has shown he’ll walk the walk not just talk the talk.”

—

Gina Towner, a professor Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville and a self-described environmentalist:

“I have a lot of concerns with the federal administration and what they’re doing in that regard right now, but I would like to see more progressive steps taken here in the South to take care of our planet, and we have a long way to go. I’m a big recycler, and when I moved here six years ago I was really stunned at how far behind the recycling culture is here, so I’d like to see somebody who could make some moves in that direction. 

“A lot of the things we’ve been concerned about legislatively in the last couple years, Deal has actually been on our side on. He didn’t want to touch anything with ‘religious freedom,’ which I was pleased to see, and I’d like to see the next governor take a stand on those issues as well and not bow to pressure from the religious right.”

—

Angela Penn, Lowndes-Valdosta NAACP President: 

“Education is primary for me. He (the future governor) should be in favor of public schools at all times. I’m for charter schools as long as they’re public and not for profit. ‘Campus carry’ should be about the safety students. ‘College students with guns’— that statement is scary.”

Penn said she is looking for a candidate with experience. 

“The governorship should not be for on-the-job training. He should have some political experience and some legal knowledge and have a heart for the people of this state,” she said.

—

Jeff Newberry, English and communications professor at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton: 

“I want a governor who’s going to reinvest in Georgia higher education and is going to work hard to combat the attitude in the air that a college education isn’t ‘worth it. And I want someone who’s going to fight this whole nonsense about guns on campus. Someone who’s going to stand up and say to the gun lobby that schools, school zones, colleges and churches, those are not places for guns.”

Will Woolever in Milledgeville, Charles Oliver in Dalton, Stuart Taylor in Tifton, Daniel DeMersseman in Valdosta contributed to this report.