A main theme of U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath’s campaign fundraising appeals points out that Republicans have twice used the redistricting process to try to draw her out of a seat in Congress.
And now, with a revised map in place and McBath announcing that she will run in a newly drawn Black-majority district on Atlanta’s western side, her campaign is touting a big haul for the final three months of 2023.
The campaign will report raising over $440,000 in the fourth quarter and ending 2023 with more than $1 million in cash on hand. Those numbers will be made official later this month when the final figures are submitted to the Federal Election Commission.
By announcing her totals early, McBath sends a signal to would-be rivals.
“I refuse to let the GOP bully me out of Congress,” the Marietta Democrat said in a statement. “The stakes are too high.”
U.S. District Judge Steve Jones in late December approved maps that the Republican-led General Assembly drew during a special session earlier in the month.
The new congressional map protects the GOP’s 9-5 advantage in the state’s U.S. House delegation by creating a new majority-Black district in west metro Atlanta. It also dismantles McBath’s existing Gwinnett County-based 7th District that was Democratic-leaning but not majority-Black.
Following the ruling, McBath said in a statement that her work in Congress was not finished, particularly on the issue of gun control. Her son, Jordan Davis, was fatally shot in 2012, and firearms safeguards have always been the core of her political platform.
She said she would run in the newly drawn 6th District, which includes portions of Cobb, Douglas, Fayette and Fulton counties.
Changing districts isn’t new for McBath. She first won a seat in Congress in 2018 in a suburban northwest Atlanta district that was redrawn by Republican lawmakers a year later to become a conservative bastion. Rather than run an uphill battle in that contest, she jumped to a neighboring Gwinnett-based district and defeated Democratic incumbent Carolyn Bourdeaux in the 2022 race.
It’s unclear if McBath will face formidable challengers in her new district. Cobb Commissioner Jerica Richardson, who announced a congressional bid before the maps were redrawn, has said she won’t compete against McBath.
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GEORGIA 3RD. The race to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson keeps growing. Former state Rep. Philip Singleton filed paperwork Thursday to run in the GOP primary for the 3rd Congressional District, adding his name to the crowded list.
Singleton was drawn out of his state legislative district two years ago by Georgia House Republicans and is now the top aide to U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Suwanee. He could tap McCormick’s fundraising apparatus in his bid for Congress. He also unsuccessfully challenged Ferguson, R-The Rock, in 2018.
Other announced contenders for the West Georgia seat include state Rep. David Jenkins, R-Grantville, and state Sen. Mike Dugan, R-Carrollton, who formally stepped down from office on Thursday.
Gov. Brian Kemp set a Feb. 13 special election for Dugan’s Carrollton-based Senate seat. Among the potential candidates for the office are former state Reps. Tim Bearden and Kevin Cooke.
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Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
PICKING A JONES PROSECUTOR. The New York Times reported Thursday on the still-pending task of choosing a prosecutor to investigate Lt. Gov. Burt Jones’ potential involvement in former President Donald Trump’s interference in the 2020 election.
Pete Skandalakis, the head of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, told the Times he still has not settled on an attorney to examine Jones’ possible role in the affair. The task fell to Skandalakis after Fulton County District Fani Willis was barred from including Jones in her case against Trump because of potential conflicts of interest related to the lieutenant governor.
One willing and interested prosecutor is Augusta District Attorney Jared T. Williams. The Augusta Chronicle reports Williams issued a statement Thursday that he learned this week he could be up for the job.
“I am honored by the confidence and trust that has led to my consideration to serve in this role. In my time as district attorney, our office has handled several conflict cases that resulted in convictions throughout the state,” Williams said.
Jones has called the Fulton County case against Trump an “abuse of power.”
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Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
LISTEN UP. As the countdown to the start of the 2024 state legislative session continues, the “Politically Georgia” radio show is previewing lawmakers’ return to the state Capitol.
A pair of Democratic legislators, state Sen. Harold Jones II of Augusta and state Rep. Sam Park of Lawrenceville, joined Thursday’s episode to talk about their caucuses’ priorities and what to expect under the Gold Dome starting Monday.
Today’s show features interviews with Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for the Secretary of State’s office, and U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Atlanta.
Catch “Politically Georgia” as it airs live at 10 a.m. every weekday on WABE 90.1 FM, at AJC.com and at WABE.org. And if you miss the show in real time, listen anytime at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. The podcast version posts at about 1 p.m. every weekday.
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Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
BACK AT IT. Members of the General Assembly’s Cobb County delegation have a 9 a.m. meeting on their calendars Monday, getting to work before the 2024 legislative session officially begins an hour later.
The Cobb meeting was called by delegation chair state Rep. Teri Anulewicz to discuss the county’s still-disputed school board maps, the Marietta Daily Journal reports.
With a judge’s Jan. 10 deadline looming, Anulewicz, D-Smyrna, will present her suggested board map, while GOP state Sen. Ed Setzler of Acworth will introduce his own. The Cobb map will ultimately need approval from lawmakers.
Setzler and Anulewicz have said the judge’s deadline next week is impossible to meet, but that’s just about all they agree on in the long and winding saga of the school board districts. U.S. District Court Judge Eleanor Ross ruled in 2022 the lines had been illegally gerrymandered by Republicans and should be redrawn.
Anulewicz told the Daily Journal that the school board “is the last frontier for Republicans in Cobb County.” Setzler responded, “I’ll leave the partisan politics up to Rep. Anulewicz.”
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Credit: Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Credit: Kenny Holston/The New York Times
TODAY IN WASHINGTON:
- President Joe Biden holds a campaign event in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, marking the three-year anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and outlining threats to democracy.
- The Senate and House are on holiday break until next week.
- U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, and Delegate Eleanor Norton Holmes, D-District of Columbia, hold a news conference to recognize the Jan. 6, 2021, anniversary.
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GEORGIA 2024. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is bringing his independent presidential campaign to Georgia. The anti-vaccine activist plans a campaign rally on Jan. 14 at the Tabernacle in Atlanta.
Kennedy, who has long promoted conspiracy theories about public health, has embarked on a nationwide campaign to gain access to the ballot in pivotal states, raising concerns that he could play the spoiler in the November race.
He announced this week that he gathered the 1,000 signatures needed to secure a spot in Utah, the first state to grant Kennedy access to the ballot.
But he faces a more complex and expensive fight to meet his stated goal of getting on ballots in all 50 states. Each state has its own election qualification rules.
In Georgia, independent presidential candidates must gather at least 7,500 signatures from registered voters who were eligible to vote in the last presidential election, according to the National Association of Secretaries of State.
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11 MILLION MILESTONE. The latest U.S. Census data update shows more than 11 million people now reside in Georgia, climbing by more than 100,000. Recent in-migration from California, Florida, North Carolina and Texas has pushed the state’s population past the new milestone.
Looking ahead to the 2024 elections, more than 7 million Georgians are registered to vote. The voter registration deadline for the March 12 presidential primary is Feb. 12.
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Credit: Courtesy photo
Credit: Courtesy photo
DOG OF THE DAY. Meet Debo Westmoreland, the once-precocious teenage-rescue who calls Sally and Mel Westmoreland his people.
Like the Westmorelands, who have retired from careers as a real estate agent and a judge, Debo has also retired from his earlier pursuits, which included stealing things that weren’t his and hiding them.
Now older and wiser, Debo is living the good life with his people, traveling between a coastal cottage, a mountain cabin, vet visits in Atlanta, and saying hello to the Westmorelands’ son, Atlanta City Councilman Matt Westmoreland.
Send us your dogs of any political persuasion and location, and cats on a cat-by-cat basis, to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, or DM us at @MurphyAJC.
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AS ALWAYS, Politically Georgia readers are some of our favorite tipsters. Send your best scoop, gossip and insider info to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com, and adam.vanbrimmer@ajc.com.
