Sandy Springs voters will decide two local tax referenda, a U.S. Senate race and a governor's race on a single ballot Nov. 3.
The Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (TSPLOST) renewal alone carries roughly $129 million in road, sidewalk and congestion projects for the city, according to Patch. A separate Fulton County education sales tax (ESPLOST) would raise up to $2.1 billion countywide for schools, according to the county's call for election. Neither tax would increase the existing sales-tax rate.
Those referenda share the ballot with a lopsided Senate contest. U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff holds a roughly 10-to-1 fundraising advantage over Republican challenger U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Sources differ on the exact totals for the January 2025 through June 2026 reporting period. The North Atlanta Star cited $77.3 million in Ossoff receipts and about $6.5 million for Collins, while Fulton Neighbor reported $68 million and just under $5 million. Either way, the gap is enormous.
An August InsiderAdvantage poll of 800 likely voters showed Ossoff leading 50% to 43%, with a margin of error of 3.46%, as Raw Story reported Monday, Sept. 7. The RealClearPolitics polling average put Ossoff ahead by 7.5 points, according to a Cobb Courier analysis published Sunday, Sept. 6.
"There's a general concern that Collins isn't the right candidate or running the right campaign to defeat Ossoff," Nathan Gonzales of Inside Elections told the Wall Street Journal in a report Raw Story cited Monday, Sept. 7.
2022 vote showed ticket-splitting pattern
A North Atlanta Star analysis published Monday, Sept. 7 examined whether suburban voters might again treat the Senate race differently from the rest of their ballot. In 2022, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp won 72.35% of the Forsyth County vote while Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker drew just 64.81% in the same county on the same day. Fulton County showed a similar gap: Kemp received 30.52% while Walker received 24.57%.
Statewide, Walker received 48.49% and was forced into a runoff against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, while Kemp won outright with 53.41%.
The Star cautioned that countywide Fulton numbers are an imperfect substitute for communities like Sandy Springs, Roswell and Alpharetta. Precinct-level returns would be needed to isolate the ticket-splitting pattern in those cities.
What's on the ballot
The governor's race adds another variable. Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, former mayor of Atlanta, faces Republican Rick Jackson. No Libertarian candidate will appear on the Senate ballot this cycle; the Georgia Libertarian Party, including Senate hopeful Allen Buckley, fell well short of the roughly 72,000 petition signatures required for statewide ballot access.
The Fulton County Board of Commissioners approved intergovernmental agreements Aug. 5 to conduct both the TSPLOST and ESPLOST special elections alongside the general election.
The city's TSPLOST page notes the 0.75% sales tax was first approved in 2016 and renewed in 2021. The renewal would extend the tax, not raise it.
The voter registration deadline is Oct. 5. Early in-person voting begins Oct. 13. The last day to request an absentee ballot is Oct. 23.
