Ever since she was a small child, state Rep. Tanya Miller (D-Atlanta) says she has been focused on protecting people. She grew up in a union household and originally had ambitions to be a union steward—the person who stands up to corporations and demands better conditions for workers. She later decided to become a lawyer instead, but her mission to fight for the vulnerable in their struggles against the powerful hasn’t changed.
Today, she’s campaigning for her largest role yet: attorney general of Georgia. The office is often called the state’s “top cop,” and while Miller—who chairs the Democratic caucus in the state House—has extensive experience prosecuting violent crime, her campaign has focused on a different issue: the cost of living.
The seat is open because two-term Republican Attorney General Chris Carr chose not to seek reelection, running instead for governor in a primary race he lost to billionaire healthcare executive Rick Jackson. Miller will face Republican state Sen. Brian Strickland in the Nov. 3 general election.
Throughout her campaign, Miller has accused Carr and Republicans in Georgia of being “asleep at the wheel” on consumer protection—most tragically, she said, in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
“When people are in their time of true, desperate need, businesses are not allowed to then go in and take advantage of them—whether it’s the price of water, the price of a hotel room, or critical supplies to deal with the aftermath of the storm,” she said.
“There were hundreds of complaints about that happening, and we saw very little enforcement action, in my opinion,” Miller said.
Her response to Hurricane Helene is part of a broader consumer-protection platform. Her proposals include cracking down on unfair and exploitative lending practices, challenging monopolistic practices among grocery chains that she says drive up food prices, and investigating price-fixing among landlords.
Many of those issues have taken on particular weight in Georgia, where the cost of groceries and housing has skyrocketed in recent years. While much of that has been driven by post-pandemic inflation, tariffs, and the war in Iran, corporations have settled federal cases alleging they were fixing prices on rental units and grocery items, like eggs. Such illegal practices can drive up prices for consumers.
“I think it’s the attorney general’s job to step in as the people’s lawyer and to make sure […] that any business dealing with citizens is dealing with them in a way that is fair,” she said.
It’s a distinct pitch from her opponent’s. Strickland has built his campaign around cracking down on gangs and illegal immigration, as well as a focus on culture-war issues.
“It’s not just about crime or corruption anymore—it’s DEI mandates in schools, gender ideology in girls’ sports, and prosecutors who refuse to enforce the law,” he said when he announced his campaign.
He has also promised to pursue local governments he views as insufficiently cooperative with federal immigration enforcement, saying people held on immigration detainers should be deported.
Strickland has racked up a long list of endorsements, including from President Donald Trump, who in July pledged his “complete and total endorsement.”
The result is a race that offers Georgia voters two fundamentally different ideas of what the attorney general’s office should be for. Miller is betting that voters are equally anxious about their grocery bills as they are about violent crime. Strickland is betting that immigration enforcement and cultural fights still carry more weight at the ballot box.
Which argument wins will signal whether Georgia’s electorate is realigning around kitchen-table economics or whether the state’s political fights remain anchored to the crime and culture-war battles that have defined recent campaigns. Both candidates will find out where the electorate stands on Nov. 3.
