Georgia PSC races open as Pridemore exits, candidates line up

Two seats are up for election at the Georgia Public Service Commission this year.

An election for District Three was held in 2025 and Democrat Peter Hubbard won with nearly 63% of the vote.

But, District Five has not seen an election since 2018 when Commissioner Tricia Pridemore ran for the first time after being appointed. She narrowly won that race with 50.3% of the vote.

Pridemore has announced that she won’t seek reelection for her seat, opening the field to several candidates. Pridemore is, instead, running for the U.S. House of Representatives in District 11 along with seven other qualified Republican candidates.

The PSC has “exclusive power” to decide the rates for services, including electricity, natural gas, and telecommunications, so these elections directly impact Georgia residents.

Three Republicans and three Democrats have qualified to run for District Five of the PSC. For District Three, Hubbard will be the Democratic candidate for the general election as no one challenged him in the primary. Two Republican candidates are competing to be his opponent, including former Commissioner Fitz Johnson, who Hubbard unseated in 2025.

Johnson is a U.S. Army veteran and served on the PSC from 2021-2025. Johnson was originally appointed to the position by Gov. Brian Kemp and did not face an election until 2025.

His opponent in the Republican primary is Brandon Lynn Martin. According to the Georgia Secretary of State’s (SOS) qualifying candidates page, Martin lives in DeKalb County.

Hubbard founded the nonprofit Georgia Center for Energy Solution in 2019 and spent years advocating for alternative long-term energy plans at the PSC before taking office. 

Here are the candidates for District Five in order that they appear on the SOS website.

Democrat Angelia Pressley spent her career working for large corporations, including Kroger, The Coca-Cola Company, and Cobb County government. She is currently a professor at Clark Atlanta University.

Democrat Craig Cupid is an attorney who received an electrical engineering degree from Georgia Tech and a law degree from Georgia State.

Democrat Shelia Edwards, a business owner, won the Democratic primary for PSC in 2022, but never had the opportunity to face off against Fitz Johnson. At the time, a lawsuit argued that how the PSC elections were conducted violated the Voting Rights Act. A judge agreed and suspended the two PSC elections that year.

Republican Bobby Mehan is also a business owner who lives in Haralson County.

Republican Carolyn Tatum Roddy is an attorney who lives in Cobb County

Republican Joshua Aaron Tolbert is an engineer with 15 years of experience in energy infrastructure and power generation. He has served in top positions for a nuclear energy company and has spoken at Public Service Commission meetings.

A libertarian is also running for District 5, but he will not be on the primary ballot. Thomas Michael Blooming, an engineer, qualified for the race and now needs to collect enough signatures to make it on the ballot in November.