A few weeks before Georgia’s primary, a leaflet landed in the mailboxes of some Gwinnett County residents. Democratic state Rep. Beth Moore, the mailer said, “joined with Republicans to put our elections at risk.”
Moore, who was running for an open state Senate seat, and her supporters attacked the mailers as misleading. But on May 24, voters in state Senate District 7 selected Nabilah Islam instead of Moore as the party’s nominee.
Islam, whose campaign sent the mailers, said Moore’s vote with the GOP speaks for itself. A self-proclaimed “progressive” and organizer, Islam campaigned on themes of voting rights, expanding Medicaid and racial justice.
She could be one of the new faces who helps shape Georgia’s Democratic Party.
“People want someone who is going to fight for them, not someone who is going to vote with Republicans hoping they get some crumbs back,” Islam said.
As Georgia’s Democratic Party stakes out its identity after high-profile wins in 2020, a battle is playing out between the liberal and moderate wings of the party. And, in some closely watched primary contests last month, liberals won the day.
Nowhere was that more apparent than in fast-growing Gwinnett County, where Lucy McBath’s defeat of Carolyn Bourdeaux in the 7th Congressional District was seen as a liberal triumph over centrism. McBath and Bourdeaux, both currently members of the U.S. House, squared off in a contest for political survival after the Republican-led state Legislature redrew political maps. McBath is not a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus but she landed to the left of Bourdeaux on key issues, and the race took on the trappings of a proxy battle for competing visions of the party.
Bourdeaux had flipped the 7th District from the GOP in 2020. But she faced a backlash after pushing, with other centrists in the House, to uncouple President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill from the rest of the Build Back Better plan, a move critics said helped doom the larger proposal that would have funded things such as child tax credits and initiatives to curb greenhouse gases.
The stance may have also helped doom her reelection chances. McBath won with 63% of the vote.
Islam called McBath’s election “a mandate.”
“The voters in Gwinnett County said resoundingly they want progressive representation,” she said.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
The results in Gwinnett — and in some other Democratic matchups — seem to bolster the Stacey Abrams blueprint from 2018. For years, Georgia Democrats had put forward moderate “Republican-lite” candidates, believing that was the only way to win over suburban voters and reclaim power. Abrams turned that model on its head and ran as a liberal who energized her party’s base. She supported gun control, for instance, and she crushed her centrist primary opponent, Stacey Evans, then lost narrowly to Republican Brian Kemp in the race for governor.
So, is the key to Democrats’ success in Georgia embracing a left-of-center ideology?
It’s not that simple, some Democratic strategists said
Chris Huttman, who worked for Islam and other Democrats this cycle, said geography matters. What works in Atlanta may not work in the suburbs or more rural parts of the state. He also noted that Islam campaigned heavily on her biography — the child of Bangladeshi immigrants and a product of Gwinnett County schools — to signal what kind of elected official she would be,
“Ideology matters, but so does a personal story,” Huttman said.
Republicans said they welcome a move by Democrats to the left because it boosts their own election prospects.
Garrison Douglas, Georgia spokesman for the Republican National Committee, pointed to the election this week in California as evidence that liberals were pushing too far. In San Francisco, a haven of the left, voters recalled a liberal district attorney who was seen as soft on crime.
“Georgia Democrats are out of step with the concerns of everyday Georgians, who care about inflation and care about crime,” Douglas said.
Credit: Shannon McCaffrey
Credit: Shannon McCaffrey
Ruwa Romman said that doesn’t tell the whole story,
Romman won the Democratic primary for a state House seat in a district that covers portions of Duluth, Norcross and Peachtree Corners. If she’s elected in November, she said she would be the first Muslim woman to serve in the Georgia House.
She said as she campaigned people were enthusiastic about proposals to hike the minimum wage, close the wealth gap and expand Medicaid. She said when you put a label on something, like liberal, you can scare people off.
“But when you talk to them one on one, they respond in a really positive way,” she said. “I tried to meet people where they are and not forget where I came from.”
It’s worth noting that many of the Democrats who won in Gwinnett are people of color, said Brenda Lopez Romero, the county’s Democratic Party chairwoman. The famously diverse county’s residents are electing people who look like them
Ten years ago, Gwinnett was solidly Republican. In the 2020 presidential election, more than 241,000 Gwinnett residents cast ballots for Biden, the second-largest pool of Democratic votes in the state, trailing only Fulton County. Biden won Gwinnett with more than 58% of the vote.
That was no accident. Lopez Romero said Democrats in the county have been working overtime to crank up turnout.
Gwinnett’s liberal leanings, are due, in part, to its youth, Lopez Romero said. Census data shows the average age in the county is below the state’s. She also credited the rise of second-generation Americans who she said tend to be more liberal than their immigrant parents.
Luisa Gonzales is one of them. As she ate pupusas with friends at Plaza Las Americas on Pleasant Hill Road in Lilburn, Gonzales, who recently turned 18, said she is excited to vote for the first time in November.
Her mother, who immigrated from Honduras before Gonzales was born, cares more about cultural issues, such as abortion, she said.
“I am going to vote for the Democrats because I think they are more for the people, you know,” she said.
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