GA-06:After her historic win turned a longtime GOP stronghold blue, Cobb Democrat launches House bid [View all]
Cobb County Commissioner Jerica Richardson has announced that she'll seek the Democratic nomination to face Republican Rep. Rich McCormick in a conservative Georgia constituency that civil rights advocates hope will soon look considerably different.
The current version of the 6th District is a predominantly white seat that supported Donald Trump 57-42, but June's Supreme Court decision striking down Alabama's congressional map could also result in the Peach State needing to draw another majority-Black constituency in the Atlanta area. The federal trial over the Republican-drawn map began Tuesday, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitutional writes that it's set to last for a total of two weeks.
Richardson herself is no stranger to the impact of GOP gerrymandering, though, as her county is currently trying to fight off the legislature's attempt to draw her out of her current job a few years after she won a historic victory that helped transform the local government in a community that was a populous Republican stronghold for decades. The area was so red that in 1994, a local state representative ominously joked to the New York Times, "If Bill Clinton came into the district, he probably would not see the light of day again."
Republicans, who carried the county in every presidential election from 1980 through 2012, secured a majority on the five-member County Commission in 1984 as Ronald Reagan won the county in a 77-23 landslide, and they went into the 2020 election with a 4-1 edge. But Hillary Clinton's 48-46 victory in 2016, as well as Cobb County Democrat Lucy McBath's upset win over GOP Rep. Karen Handel two years later in the old 6th, provided early signs that local Republicans were in trouble as the area became more diverse and highly educated suburbanites revolted against the Trump-era party.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/8/2192197/-After-her-historic-win-turned-a-longtime-GOP-stronghold-blue-Georgia-Democrat-launches-House-bid
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