ATLANTA (CN) — Early voting kicked off in Georgia for the primary election that will ultimately affect the partisan balance of the U.S. House in 2025.
The current balance of power is tight with Republicans having a 217 to 213 majority, with five vacancies. But all 435 seats are up for election in November with 44 current representatives not running for re-election.
At least one Democrat and one Republican are contesting each of Georgia’s 14 congressional districts in the May 21 primary.
Georgia stands out because its House districts are so strongly gerrymandered according to Benjamin Taylor, an associate professor of political science at Kennesaw State University.
"Because the districts are so gerrymandered, you tend to see candidates in the primary run to the farthest ideological section of their party, whether conservative or Republican or liberal or Democrat," Taylor said. "The outcome of having relatively noncompetitive general elections is that the only incentive in those electoral contexts is to be the most ideological. There is no incentive to be moderate at all."
Even after a federal judge ordered Georgia's Republican-led General Assembly to create an additional political district with a majority of Black voters last year, the GOP was able to do so without sacrificing their majority control of the state's legislature and congressional delegation.
The General Assembly drew an additional majority-Black congressional district — Congressional District 6 — in portions of western Metro Atlanta. The majority of voters in the district are Democratic-leaning, making for a competitive race between its three Democratic candidates — Cobb County Commissioner Jerica Richardson, state Representative Mandisha A. Thomas and U.S. Representative of District 7, Lucy McBath.
McBath, who is running for a fourth term in Congress, represented a small percentage of residents in the newly redrawn 6th District when she served in an older iteration of it in 2019, but now must gain the support of new constituents to continue working in Washington. She gained notoriety for her gun control advocacy after her son who was shot to death in 2012 and for her role in lowering the cost of insulin.
"McBath has name recognition because she has already served in Congress so, people know her name even though the districts not her identical same district," Karen Owen, an associate professor of political science at the University of West Georgia, said. "However, these other candidates have been elected officials before in their communities, whether its running for county or state level, so they do already have a constituent base. They may just not have the funding or the resources available to share who they are and their positions to a broader audience than McBath can."
Owen, whose research has focused on women officeholders, noted that having three women on the ballot will also encourage more women in Georgia to be involved politically and participate in the election.
The winner of the primary for the 6th District is likely to prevail in November’s general election when she faces Republican Jeff Criswell, a political newcomer.
Like McBath, incumbent and fellow Democrat David Scott also faces challengers from his own party in a redrawn district.
Six people are gunning for the 13th District seat in Atlanta’s southern and eastern suburbs. They include former East Point City Council member Karen René, former South Fulton City Council member Mark Baker and attorney Brian Johnson. On the Republican side, Jonathan Chavez is running against Johsie Fletcher.
“Typically we think of incumbency as a big advantage in congressional elections, where here there's an interesting situation where you have two incumbents who are running in not entirely new, but pretty new districts," said Zachary Peskowitz, an associate professor of political science at Emory University. "So it'll be very interesting to see how they do with those new voters and whether or not the advantages of incumbency will play into that context where you have a lot of new voters,”
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