An ex-prosecutor, Bailey captured about 48.7% of the vote in 2018 when he was defeated by Carr – the highest vote share of any statewide Democrat that cycle other than Stacey Abrams. Carr, a former economic development commissioner appointed to the job, won by roughly 100,000 votes.
Bailey, now a trial attorney, is the first high-profile Democrat in a wave of expected contenders to announce their bids for next year’s election, when every statewide office is up for grabs, along with the U.S. Senate seat recently won by Democrat Raphael Warnock.