Georgia PSC – Ten candidates compete for Georgia Public Service Commission seats as early voting begins, with energy costs and data-center impacts at the center of debate.
Energy bills are already a political flashpoint in Georgia, and this year’s race for the state’s utility regulator is shaping up to turn that pressure into a direct fight over who pays when power demand spikes.
Ten candidates are competing for two seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission in the May 19 primary. Early voting is under way.
The commission oversees utilities including telecommunications. natural gas. and electricity. and it has final say on how Georgia Power. the state’s largest electric utility. sets its energy plans and rates.. That authority matters far beyond the day-to-day: generating electricity by burning fossil fuels is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. and commissioners’ decisions can influence both the cost of power and the state’s emissions trajectory.
Yet PSC elections have rarely drawn much attention.. Last year, that changed.. With voters frustrated by rising bills. they ousted two Republican incumbents and delivered Democrats control of the five-member commission for the first time in 20 years.. Now, with two more seats up for election, Republicans and Democrats are effectively competing for the future balance of power.
Across party lines. much of the debate centers on a shared concern: keeping energy bills in check and pushing the commission to better shield ordinary customers from the costs associated with powering data centers.. But candidates differ sharply on what the PSC should do, and whose interests should lead.
District 3: a bid to steer Georgia Power’s plans
District 3 includes Clayton, DeKalb, and Fulton counties. The seat was on last year’s ballot for a one-year term, and Democrat Peter Hubbard won then. He is running again as the incumbent.
Hubbard told Grist he wants reelection because he needs more time to enact changes such as expanding renewable energy and ensuring Georgia Power is getting the most out of existing resources before building expensive new ones.. A full six-year term. he said. would also put him in position to make what he called the “big. meaty decisions” in Georgia Power’s long-term resource plan and rate case.. Hubbard framed his approach as more active oversight rather than waiting to react to utility proposals.
“There’s just a baseline to acting as a shield to imprudent spending. But I also think that a proactive commissioner can find even lower-cost solutions than what otherwise would be provided,” Hubbard said.
His main opponent is Republican Fitz Johnson, who had been the District 3 incumbent last year and lost to Hubbard in 2025. Johnson is running again, telling a campaign event that he has “got some unfinished business.”
While many candidates in the race say the commission should do more to prevent data centers from driving up costs for everyday customers, Johnson argued the PSC has already done its job. At the same event, he said the commission has “100 percent, without doubt” protected ratepayers.
“When it comes to the data centers and the large loads, we put the ratepayers first,” Johnson said. “We said we’re not going to put any burden on our ratepayers.”
During his time on the commission. Johnson voted for the current rate freeze and for contract terms designed to ensure data centers pay for their own infrastructure. though critics say those protections do not go far enough.. He also supported Georgia Power bill increases that became a focus of last year’s election and backed the utility’s multibillion-dollar expansion aimed at meeting rising demand driven mostly by data centers.
Another Republican, Brandon Martin, is seeking his party’s nomination against Johnson.. Martin did not respond to requests for an interview.. His campaign website says he is a graduate of Georgia Tech and works as a purchasing manager in a “multi-billion dollar industry.” It emphasizes reliable energy for Georgia’s growing economy and calls for electricity generation that is “flexible and as U.S.-centric as possible” given uncertain global fuel markets. though it does not lay out specifics.
District 5: renewables, rate pressure, and grid reliability
District 5 stretches across west Georgia from the Tennessee border down to nearly Columbus.. Republican Tricia Pridemore has held the seat since 2018 but is running for U.S.. Congress rather than seeking reelection.. The field to replace her includes three Democrats, three Republicans, and a Libertarian.
All three Democrats tied their campaigns to the idea that Democratic control of the commission would strengthen support for renewable energy programs.
Craig Cupid. an electrical engineer and lawyer who is running in District 5. said additional commissioners can change how utilities are reviewed.. “Two commissioners can demand better analysis.. Three can stop the rubber-stamping of utility requests,” Cupid said.. He added that after his parents immigrated from Trinidad and Tobago to Augusta. he grew up in a working-class family where “every penny counted. ” and he said he understands how rate increases can hit lower-income households.. He described his technical background as useful for acting as a “watchdog against monopoly utilities.”
Democrat Shelia Edwards said she was drawn to the PSC after experiencing what she described as punishing energy costs.. She told Grist that in 2022 she received a power bill of nearly $500.. Edwards said she could pay it. but called it “painful. ” and asked what families facing housing. food. and medicine costs are supposed to do instead.
That experience led her into politics. Edwards won the party’s District 3 primary in 2022 and was preparing to face Fitz Johnson in the general election when the race was canceled because of a voting-rights lawsuit. She is now running again, this time in District 5.
The third Democrat on the ballot. Angelia Pressley. said she is running because she believes the PSC has dismissed public concerns about both environmental impacts and costs.. “The public has to have more voice,” Pressley said.. “There has to be more balance at the commission between business concerns and public concerns.”
Pressley said she would host listening sessions around Georgia if elected and use them to gather public input and educate residents about what the commission does.
Republican candidates largely stressed reliability. They said they support affordable clean energy as part of Georgia Power’s overall generation mix but would not impose a renewable mandate.
Bobby Mehan. a Republican whose career has included health care records technology and who now works as a mediator. said his work has taught him to be open-minded and to take what he described as an “all-the-above approach” as a way to innovate the energy grid.. In an April debate hosted by the Atlanta Press Club. Mehan pledged he would not vote for new rate hikes and challenged opponents to do the same.
“I’m willing to put my neck out there and say, ‘six years, not a single rate increase from Bobby Mehan,’” Mehan said.
When pressed on the feasibility of that promise, Mehan clarified he meant he personally would not vote for rate hikes.
Carolyn Roddy. a regulatory lawyer. has worked for the Federal Communications Commission and on a rural electric service program in the first Trump administration.. She said her experience would help restrain utility costs.. “The Georgia Public Service Commission can do a better job of what they’re doing,” Roddy told Grist.. She argued that rate hikes are difficult to justify when family budgets are already strained.
Roddy said the commission should question and guide utilities but should not function as either an impediment or a “rubber stamp.”
Joshua Tolbert, another Republican candidate, said he brings an engineering perspective that he believes is missing from the commission.. He argued that without technical expertise. commissioners may be less able to challenge utilities’ proposals. even though he said such pushback is essential.. Tolbert said Georgia Power is a monopoly and that the commission must provide the “consequences and feedback” that would come from competition in a free market.
Libertarian Thomas Blooming’s path to November is different. The Libertarian party does not have a primary, so Blooming’s route depends on collecting signatures to appear on the ballot, although the party can collect those signatures for its slate of candidates.
Blooming. an electrical engineer who has worked on data centers for Google and Facebook. now works for Utility Innovation Group. a company that builds microgrids with a focus on decarbonization and resilience.. He told Grist he is not against data centers, but said problems arise when the grid cannot support them.
He said one option to serve data-center demand is more nuclear power. Blooming also emphasized what he described as the risks of relying too heavily on any single source of energy. Too much natural gas, he warned, could raise costs, while overreliance on renewables could make the grid less reliable.
“You have to protect the ratepayers, but you also have to make decisions that keep Georgia Power healthy,” Blooming said. “It doesn’t do anyone any good to just absolutely lock down on Georgia Power and then they’re not able to provide the power that they should.”
Rahul Bali contributed to this report.
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