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Maggie Goldman: Thank you. Hi, I am Maggie Goldman. I am proud to be endorsed by Mary Trump’s Transcend PAC. Mary and her team are committed to transforming our democracy, defeating extremism and authoritarianism and electing bold leaders with the courage and vision to transcend this moment. I am so thankful for receiving their help in this election to protect voters in Fulton County and help flip Congress blue. Now I am asking you directly today to chip in five, ten, or whatever you can afford to power her team’s grassroots work to defeat MAGA extremism in 2028. Please chip in today to Transcend PAC.
Check out and Donate to Maggie Goldman’s campaign HERE
Hello everybody. I am thrilled to be here with one of our Transcend champions, Maggie Goldman, who is a Democrat running for Fulton County Commission District number one.
Maggie Goldman: We are in crunch time, honestly.
Mary Trump: Right? We are two weeks away. But I hear you might have some news to break.
Maggie Goldman: I do. I am a numbers and data person, and I have all the backwards data from 2022 when I ran this race and lost by 394 votes out of 72,410, which is a quarter of a point. I have been able to track performance from 2022 and performance in early voting right now. In 2022, the difference between the Democratic to Republican vote was around 47, 48 percent. I was barely holding on. I think it got better toward the end because I did have 2,500 votes before election day, but that got wiped out on election day itself. Right now the district is trending 63, 64, 65 percent Democrats versus Republicans. You can tell from the data that there are fewer Republicans voting and there are more Democrats voting, which I think is the exact example of a wave. You get both of those at the same time.
Mary Trump: Wow. That is such phenomenal news. And I think that aligns with the trends. I think it is possible that is above average for the trend, but let me be clear: it is because you are a phenomenal candidate for this district. I am glad you talked about 2022 because I would love for you to give us a sense of the context here. Where did this start? Who is your opponent? And crucially, why is this position, this government position, so important, especially when we look ahead to 2028?
A lot of people, certainly outside of Fulton County and outside of Georgia, will not understand why such a local election can have such a massive impact on our democracy. But it does. That is why Ronda and I are dedicated to endorsing people like you all up and down the ballot because these local elections, over time, become increasingly important. So if you could take us back and tell us that story, that would be great.
Maggie Goldman: So interestingly, Bridget Thorn and I both were going to commission meetings in 2021 and 2022, and she would always go and launch into some sort of public comment about election conspiracies over and over again. So it was really no surprise that she ended up running. In fact, I think that the Republicans who were not election deniers really tried to cut her out of the district when they redid the lines in 2021 and 2022. But when they went to tech review, it said this district has to grow, not subtract and grow. So you have to make the district whole and then add on. She got put back in right before qualifying and she signed up right before qualifying.
If folks remember, this is the state where Donald Trump called Brad Raffensperger and asked him for 11,779 votes to bridge that gap so that he could win Georgia.
Mary Trump: That is an oddly specific number.
Maggie Goldman: Well, to be totally fair, the actual number difference was more like 12,000. I am actually friends with Ken Block, who is running as an independent in Rhode Island for governor, who was hired by Trump’s team to reanalyze the votes. He told me it is really more like 12,000 after you did all of the counting, but that is the one everybody remembers: 11,779. And so this is a state that has been a target of the Trump administration. Fulton County has been targeted. Brad Raffensperger actually will be a constituent of mine.
Bridget Thorn was essentially fired or not rehired as a poll worker for taking pictures of things during the elections process. She made an affidavit claiming there was fraud happening. We have refuted the points that she made, but she claims it has not been refuted. Rudy Giuliani came down in 2020 and held what was essentially a sham Senate hearing where they presented all of their fraud claims.
I have a picture of Bridget with Rudy Giuliani sitting right there at that hearing. She has been enmeshed in this from the beginning. One of the things that is a little harder to see is that a journalist friend of mine, George Tait, who wrote for The Guardian, unveiled a Telegram channel that she had been using to push election conspiracies through. And just for a little local flavor, as you may remember, there was that movie called “2000 Mules” where they were talking about all the alleged ballot stuffing.
Mary Trump: Is that Dinesh D’Souza?
Maggie Goldman: Yes, yes. They actually played that movie on a big screen in North Fulton at a movie theater, and she was promoting that movie as well. She does not miss an opportunity. Once she was elected after I lost, one of the main things that she did in 2025 was promote two election deniers to get on the Fulton County Elections Board. Dana Barrett and Mo Ivory, who is going to be the new Fulton County incoming chair, fought this in court. With seven members of the commission, you need four votes to get past anything. I do not care if you are buying pencils or appointing somebody to a board. Four votes. They could not get the four votes. So the GOP sued and said, “You must appoint these people.” The first court agreed, and then they held another vote and did not get four votes.
They went back when they were being held in contempt. There was a potential that Dana Barrett, Mo Ivory, and others could have been taken to jail that day. It was one of the options the court had for contempt. Instead, the court said a ten thousand dollar fine per day, which I guess in the appeals process was stayed or something. The point was they could have been taken to jail if the judge decided to do that.
There was kind of a quiet time while they waited for the appeal to unravel. Earlier this January in 2026, the appeals court sided with the commissioners that you cannot direct an elected body to vote in any certain way. The easiest way I try to explain this is every appointment needs to lead back to an elected person that you can hold accountable for that appointment. A party, the GOP party or even the Democrat party, those are not elected entities that you can hold accountable.
Mary Trump: Exactly.
Maggie Goldman: The Georgia Supreme Court held that vote and kept the same agreement. They are good with that. Then wrapped into that was the Fulton County elections raid. After 2020, the GOP has been trying what amounts to a five year lawsuit. They were trying to get access to the ballots from 2020 for five years, and that suit finally ended where they were not going to get them. The judge was actually in the middle of offering them some sort of a supervised opportunity. They were going to open up a building, bring them in there, they could look at them, but then they could not take them with you. They were in the middle of trying to negotiate that when the Trump administration pursued this FBI warrant to raid our Fulton County Elections Department.
Commissioner Bridget Thorn, a sitting commissioner, was approached about her testimony and in my opinion, should have recused herself from that. I think you can say to the FBI, “I am just not going to comment yes or no. I am not going to confirm or deny my affidavit. I am an elected official in this. I am not going to do it.” But she did talk to them and there are some theories that with a sitting commissioner on the affidavit, it might have been influential enough for the judge to decide to issue it. They just showed up in Fulton County and took 650 boxes of elections material.
What really gets me about this is one of the complaints that Bridget had initially around 2020 was that there were not enough partisan monitors to watch the counting and that there were issues with chain of custody. She claimed there was a suitcase of ballots under the table or whatever. I would really like to know: Bridget, where are the ballots now? Are you maintaining proper chain of custody? I have been an elections worker. They have these little plastic things you have to put on all the seals and you have to record everything. Are you keeping up with every single chain of custody requirement? Where can partisan Democratic vote counters go and watch the FBI?
Mary Trump: Yeah, exactly.
Maggie Goldman: Do not you think the federal government should be held to the same counting standards that the states are?
Mary Trump: It is an excellent question. And it also begs the question: is Bridget gunning to be in the same situation Rudy Giuliani was in when he lost that lawsuit to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss? It seems that in Georgia, these tactics do not play out well. I am curious about that because I am from a very blue state in New York. We go to vote, we just have to sign the voter registration. We do not have to show ID. We barely have to wait in line. So it seems so glaring from our perspective, but Georgia seems to hold. At least people of Georgia seem not to be buying this stuff. Are Georgians getting sick of the election fraud cries? Because you and I know that literally the number of actual election fraud cases is vanishingly slim. It has never, ever, ever influenced the outcome of an election.
Are people sick of it? Are people finally realizing that this is all they have got and that they do not have anything else to offer in terms of policy?
Maggie Goldman: There was actually a meet and greet from my opponent directly across the street from my house where I can see out of my dining room window. All they were doing was lamenting about how the Republicans do not have any policy and that the only thing they have is that they are not Democrats. People are definitely getting sick of it. When you say they are still counting ballots from 2020, people are like, “Are you kidding me?”
But I did want to make the point about the risk for 2028 with the raid. What people do not see about Bridget being in the affidavit is that Fulton County still fought the Trump administration in the lawsuit about the raid. They wanted to get the ballots back potentially. Bridget Thorn was allowed to be in executive session, potentially exposed to the legal strategy. If anything, being a part of the affidavit, if she should have recused herself or been forced not to be there, she is basically being Trump’s mole potentially where she can just tell them what we are doing.
We do not want to be in a situation in 2028 where there is another challenge in Fulton County and Bridget is still a sitting commissioner and any legal fights that we launch against the administration are going to be with her as a mole.
Mary Trump: Yeah, that is a fascinating point. And it is why we care so much about local downballot elections like yours, because it is not just at the state level. It is not just attorneys general and secretaries of state who are able to protect our elections. Is that message resonating? And then after that question, I want to wrap up by talking about what happens after you win. What are your priorities in terms of the election? Securing our elections, protecting our elections, keeping them free and fair, free from political interference and fair for all of our voters. Is that resonating with people? Do they understand what shenanigans have been happening?
Maggie Goldman: We have a big Asian population in Johns Creek, and we have heard that these voters are just done with negative attacks. They do not even look at them anymore. As soon as I say that Bridget is a MAGA Republican, they are like, “Next. I am voting for you. Do not even go any further.” But I would say that the bigger risk is the raid itself. Somebody had recently asked me about the raid and how it would impact other people. The ballots they took are not substantially going to change anything from 2020. But we think it was a practice for them to be able to go in and take other people’s ballots.
Pennsylvania counts a little slow. California is really slow. What is to stop them from claiming they have a right to ballots that have not been finished counting? This was really more, I think, of an exercise that could threaten any other state while we are counting votes.
As for what I would like to do as a commissioner, the way that Mo Ivory talks about elections as a priority is that we do have free and fair and secure elections. But we do have impediments from the state. They are reducing our ballot boxes. Instead of a drop box being outside the library where you can go whenever, it is only inside the building, inside the early voting location. You basically have to go during early voting to drop off a mail ballot. Especially with the mail being so slow, you do not really want to mail it. There are lots of impediments to the functioning of voting that we need to work on.
Structurally it is safe and we have good processes. But it is more like if and when an issue arises, we need to be ready to jump right on it. The current chair, Rob Pitts, who is leaving because Mo defeated him in the primary, took three weeks to file the first motion against the Trump administration with the ballots. We need to be ready with the right types of attorneys to get right on that.
Check out Maggies website HERE
Mary Trump: And I have to say, it is very heartening to know that there are people who are well aware of that and are planning ahead. Mo Ivory is a force of nature. You are very lucky to have her. I know you have her full support, which speaks very highly of you and your campaign. Being county commissioner is not just about elections, although obviously we live in times in which that is extraordinarily important. The numbers are looking really good, but you still have to vote. We are going to pretend that we are down by five and every vote is crucially important because the bigger the margin, the harder it is for them to steal.
Let us look past election day and really quickly, let me know what is your vision for how things need to change so that not only does the situation we are living in currently not happen again, but so that we can actually make a difference in people’s lives that we have been prevented from doing for many structural reasons?
Maggie Goldman: Fulton County is mostly all municipalized. We do not have any unincorporated areas where you might do everything a city does like police and fire and zoning and parks. We have kind of a limited scope for a county, but it is still an important one. The county funds our entire justice system, which is something that we firmly need.
If you remember, Fanny Willis was the one who had the case against Trump. Sean Still is one of the people running in my district that we are trying to unseat who was one of the fake electors. We have a jail that is unconstitutional and has a consent decree with the DOJ. It is not safe to be there right now. My background as a realtor is in tax assessments. The tax assessors department is under the county and we have actually grossly under appraised many commercial properties that is impeding the county and cities and schools from collecting dollars that we should be collecting because of the under appraisal.
That is actually something that should really benefit everybody because if we can collect those extra dollars, everybody will get a little bit more of a boost without raising any individual person’s homeowner’s taxes.
Mary Trump: And again, that is why it is so important to get this right at the local level because we build on that. It does not happen the other way around despite what Republicans want you to think. There is no trickle down benefits here. We need to build everything from scratch.
Maggie Goldman, it is such a pleasure to have you here. We are so honored that you are one of our Transcend Champions. We are extremely hopeful, not just about your winning the race because we are optimistic that you will, but about everything you plan to do going forward. We truly appreciate your being here and best of luck because we are less than two weeks out from the most important election of our lifetime. So if you want to leave us with one last message?
Maggie Goldman: Just because the numbers are looking good, we still need to press for everybody else on the ballot. We still need to get Keisha Lance Bottoms across the line. I have a bunch of state house and state Senate seats behind me that will benefit from my turnout. In fact, one of my friends who is canvassing right now just said she went to a voter who only knew about me and nobody else on the ballot. I do believe that there are going to be people looking for me at the bottom of the list and just checking some other people off.
Mary Trump: Reverse coattails.
Maggie Goldman: Yes, yes. We are looking for ways to make sure that people make it down the ballot and having a prominent person at the bottom of the ballot hopefully is going to help with that.
Mary Trump: That is a great problem to have. And everybody, if you have not registered, register. If you are registered, check your registration until such time as you vote because they are pulling out all the stops here. So again, Maggie, it is so wonderful to have you here. Go vote for Maggie Goldman for Fulton County commissioner.
Check out Maggies website HERE
WE ARE NOT INTIMIDATED!!
Get off your phone and GET OUT AND VOTE!!
WE ARE STRONGER TOGETHER and WE CAN DO THIS TOGETHER!