Carter, 38, has the makings of a star. He is a young, dynamic speaker. He has the potential to catch fire and become an inspirational figure to younger Democrats and to black voters in Georgia. But his campaign got off to a rough start because the state Democratic Party had been in disarray for years until a new chairman was installed last fall. Democrats are just now starting to build out a network of organizers and field staffers. It's a big reason many think Carter's 2014 run will be a good building block toward a run in 2018, as Georgia’s demographics continue to become younger and less white.

Carter's vote on the gun bill complicates his hope for a surge of popularity among Georgia Democrats, and among the many unregistered Georgians whom Democrats would hope to recruit. The Rev. Raphael Warnock, of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, has been a leading voice against the gun law.

“Our politicians, tragically, are owned by the gun lobby,” Warnock said this week. “We will remind them in November that they work for the people.”

The vote also has riled national Democrats, whom Carter's campaign will depend on for funding. Carter himself alluded to this during his Monday appearance on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown.”

“I know a lot of national Democrats and others have been upset or angry about this, and I’ve heard from a lot of them,” Carter said.

But an official at the Democratic Governors Association downplayed any significant impact on Carter’s fundraising.

“He outraised Nathan Deal 5 to 1 in the first quarter of this year," the DGA official said in an email, asking not to be identified by name in order to speak frankly about campaign strategy. "It's had less than no impact. National donors (namely in DC and NYC) want him to win, and if he took every vote they wanted him to, he would most certainly lose.”

Neither Carter nor Deal could raise money directly during the legislative session, so their first quarter fundraising number was based on only 11 days at the end of March, after the session ended. Carter raised $416,000 to Deal’s $84,000, The Associated Press reported. But the governor has far more money on hand than Carter: $3.9 million to $1.6 million.