ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Less than a month after filing the paperwork to begin a Georgia governor’s race exploratory committee, U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath is suspending her bid to become the nation’s first Black female governor.

McBath has suspended her bid after her husband was diagnosed with cancer.

“I would like to thank everyone who has stood with me and my family as we undergo this difficult time from the bottom of my heart,” McBath said. “Over the next few months, I will be focusing on my husband’s health, and I cannot make the decision to run for governor or not at this time.”

Incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp is constitutionally prohibited from seeking a third term next year, meaning Georgia’s governor’s race will be a wide-open affair in less than two years.

Republican Attorney General Chris Carr has already launched his own campaign, while Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger are widely rumored to be considering their own campaigns.

Forming an exploratory committee would have allowed McBath to hire staff and raise money for a potential gubernatorial campaign.

McBath has been repeatedly drawn into different congressional districts through court-ordered redistricting efforts stemming from the 2020 census. In 2018, McBath ousted incumbent Republican Karen Handel for the congressional seat once held by Newt Gingrich.

Handel won that seat in a 2017 special election that became the nation’s most expensive congressional race in U.S. history; Handel defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff, who used that campaign’s national exposure to help him win the election for the U.S. Senate in 2020.

McBath was then drawn into a district with fellow Democratic congresswoman Carolyn Bourdeaux, whom she ousted in a contested Democratic primary in 2020.

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