Marcus Flowers launches primary challenge against Georgia U.S. Rep. David Scott

Democrat Marcus Flowers launched his primary challenge against veteran U.S. Rep. David Scott on Tuesday with a flashy video that heralds his military service and pledges to voters that he’s “built for the fight.”

Flowers’ 90-second ad and his formal announcement make no mention of Scott, a 78-year-old Democrat who has announced plans to run for a 12th term in office. But it presented Flowers, 48, as an energetic political brawler eager to mix it up with the GOP.

“I spent a decade in multiple combat zones. I negotiated with Afghan and Iraqi warlords on behalf of the United States,” said Flowers. “So, yeah, I think can handle a few unruly Republicans in Congress.”

Flowers burst onto the Georgia political scene in 2022 by raising more than $16 million in a challenge to Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene shortly after she had been stripped of her committee assignments. Greene won the deep-red northwest Georgia seat by roughly two-thirds of the vote.

Now he is taking on a different challenge by trying to unseat Scott, who made history after the 2020 election when he became the first Black lawmaker to lead the powerful House Agriculture Committee.

They’re both competing for the overhauled 13th Congressional District, which shifts from a ring of territory in southwest metro Atlanta to a stretch of land on the city’s eastern edges. Flowers filed paperwork to seek the seat earlier this month.

Neither Flowers nor Scott lives in the solidly Democratic district, which includes all of Rockdale County and parts of Clayton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Henry and Newton counties. But Scott would retain his incumbency status.

Flowers recently reported roughly $620,000 in campaign cash in the bank at the end of his campaign. Since his defeat, he helped launch a super PAC called Mission Democracy that aims to help Democrats compete in difficult congressional races.

Scott, meanwhile, has sought to remind voters of his work in Congress bringing home federal funding – by his office’s count, roughly $1.5 billion for projects and services in the district over the last 22 years.

“I look forward to continuing my work,” he said in a statement.