Josh McLaurin | |
State Senate: | Georgia State |
District: | 14th |
Term Start: | January 9, 2023 |
Predecessor: | Bruce Thompson |
State House1: | Georgia |
District1: | 51st |
Term Start1: | January 14, 2019 |
Term End1: | January 9, 2023 |
Predecessor1: | Wendell Willard |
Successor1: | Esther Panitch |
Birth Name: | Joshua Ivan McLaurin |
Birth Date: | 17 January 1988 |
Birth Place: | Cobb County, Georgia, U.S. |
Party: | Democratic |
Education: | University of Georgia (AB, MPA) Yale University (JD) |
Joshua Ivan McLaurin (born January 17, 1988) is a member of the Georgia State Senate in the state of Georgia. McLaurin represents the 14th district in the state Senate, a seat once held by 39th president of the United States Jimmy Carter. Before his election to the state Senate, McLaurin served two terms in the Georgia House of Representatives.
McLaurin was born in Cobb County, Georgia, Georgia. He attended the University of Georgia for college. He then attended Yale Law School, where he briefly lived with author and future U.S. senator and 2024 Republican vice president nominee JD Vance.[1]
After winning the 2018 election for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives, McLaurin succeeded 17-year incumbent Wendell Willard.
In 2022, following Donald Trump's endorsement of JD Vance for that year's Senate election in Ohio, McLaurin shared private text messages Vance had sent him during the 2016 United States presidential campaign positing that Trump could become "America's Hitler". Vance went on to win the election, and, despite his past remarks, strongly aligned himself with Trump after taking office; Trump later selected Vance to be his running mate in the 2024 presidential election.[2]