By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
AUG. 13, 3024 | One of the most interesting and outspoken political operatives in Georgia is former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan of Cumming. We’ve never met him, but Geoff Duncan keeps coming up with positions that are distinctive, often original, and must certainly confuse some Republicans, and make other Republicans mad.
To put it mildly, he thinks outside the box.
And in the meantime, it makes you wonder what his future political plans could be.
First, some background: he and his wife, Brooke, have three boys. The couple met at Chattahoochee High School, and even attended Georgia Tech together. He was a scholarship athlete, a pitcher on the baseball team, who later was drafted by the Florida Marlins after his junior season. He spent six years working up to Class AAA before a shoulder injury ended his baseball career in 2001.
His online biography then says: “Geoff and his wife Brooke started a small marketing company out of their Forsyth County home with a focus on merging old-fashioned customer service with modern day technology. This unique combination afforded them the opportunity to work with several Fortune 500 companies across the country and their company grew with sales reps in several states. Four years after starting the company, Geoff and Brooke sold it to a larger Georgia based marketing company.”
Duncan. Credit: Jeremy Harwell – Harwell Photography
Today he’s an entrepreneur with a focus in the venture capital space. He served as CEO of Wellview Health, a health tech startup company based in Nashville, Tenn. In post-public office life, Duncan serves as a frequent commenter on the CNN network, and is a public speaker with The Harry Walker Agency.
Along the way, he got interested In Republican politics, winning a seat in the House of Representatives in 2012, where he served until 2017.
Then he did something, for a politician that was unusual: he resigned from the Georgia House in 2017 to focus to run for lieutenant governor. Few politicians resigned from one elected position to run for another. That’s distinctive, and to us, says much about the person we have never met.
Duncan won a three-way race for lieutenant governor, but just barely. Former Gwinnett Rep. and GOP Chairman David Shafer nearly won the Republican nomination, polled the most votes in the 2017 primary, 48.91 percent, or 268,221 votes. Duncan finished a distant second, with 26.65 percent, to Rick Jeffares 24.4 percent.
Then Duncan won the run-off primary, squeaking by with 280,465 votes, or 50.14 percent. Shafer gained 10,000 more run-off votes than in the first primary. But Duncan polled a whopping 135,308 more votes than he polled in the first primary. In the General Election, Duncan beat Sarah Riggs Amico by a 52-48 margin to become the lieutenant governor. He did not seek re-election in 2022.
Another surprising element: Duncan has been among the few Republicans who openly criticized Donald Trump’s false claim that the Georgia election was stolen. He and Gov. Brian Kemp also put out a joint statement maintaining that calling a joint session of the Georgia Legislature to appoint their own electors to the U.S. Electoral College would be unconstitutional.
Then later on, continuing to surprise people, Geoff Duncan authored an op-ed in the Atlanta newspaper with a headline: “Why I’m voting for Biden and other Republicans should, too.” He characterized Donald Trump as a “criminal defendant without a moral compass.”
Then, after President Joe Biden said he would not run again, Duncan endorsed Kamala Harris for president.
It’ll be interesting to watch what Geoff Duncan’s next political turn will take. He continues to surprise us.
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