The election played out just like Georgia Republicans intended when they redistricted the state last year.
With newly drawn districts, Republicans maintained power and held every seat in Congress and the state Senate, while losing only two seats in the state House.
The results of the election were effectively preordained because new Republican-drawn maps sorted voters into the uncompetitive districts, making them overwhelmingly Republican or heavily Democratic, with the outcome never in doubt.
Just 10 out of 236 seats in the General Assembly were decided by a margin of 10 percentage points or less. Of those, the parties split their wins — five for Republicans and five for Democrats.
Republican legislators knew what they were doing when they crafted new district boundaries, said Ken Lawler, chair of Fair Districts GA, an organization that advocates for more neutral maps.
“These people aren’t stupid. They have computers and sophisticated data,” Lawler said. “Absolutely, the maps tend to drive the outcomes. With more fair competition, the legislative chambers would be in play every election.”
Instead, while Georgia is a closely divided state in statewide elections, Republicans command outsize legislative majorities. Republican Donald Trump won this year’s election by 2.2 percentage points after Democrat Joe Biden had a 0.2 percentage point margin of victory in 2020.
Republicans will hold a 9-5 advantage in Congress, a 33-23 lead in the state Senate and a 100-80 majority in the state House.
Voters vs. maps
The election results matched predictions from when the General Assembly passed the new maps. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported the expected outcomes nearly a year ago.
Rather than praising the maps, Gov. Brian Kemp credited Republicans’ success to strong candidates and campaign spending in competitive districts. His leadership committee invested heavily in supporting the GOP’s candidates for the state House.
“When you have invoices that are half a million dollars, you’re doing a lot to help Statehouse candidates,” Kemp said during an election night watch party. He said he was “laser-focused on a lot of these really tough swing districts.”
A federal judge’s order that required the General Assembly to create more districts with a majority of Black voters didn’t translate to many victories for Democrats, who generally receive overwhelming support from Black voters.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
The court ordered a redistricting redo last year to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in elections. After the first round of redistricting in 2021, Republicans gained a seat in Congress that had been held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux, a pickup they maintained in this year’s election.
The judge mandated several additional majority-Black districts: five in the House, two in the Senate and one in Congress.
Republicans drew some of those new majority-Black districts in areas that were previously represented by white Democrats, minimizing the ability of Democrats to pick up seats.
In one of the closest races in Georgia, Republican challenger Sandy Donatucci defeated incumbent Democrat Farooq Mughal by just 80 votes for a state House seat representing northern Gwinnett County.
Redistricting made that district a toss-up by adding conservative-leaning neighborhoods to a region that was previously more Democratic.
Donatucci said she won because of door-to-door campaigning on the economy and public safety rather than redistricting.
“It really was the conversations with voters and just getting out there and talking to people,” said Donatucci, a real estate agent. “People say their vote doesn’t matter, but it does. Every single vote counts.”
But Mughal said the redistricting process was designed to make his campaign more challenging.
Republicans put two Democratic-leaning precincts in a different district and gave Mughal three new ones — two where most voters tend to back Democrats and one that was slightly Republican, he said.
“When we looked at the numbers, I said, ‘Let’s fight,’” said Mughal, the founder of a public policy consulting company who was the first Pakistani American elected to the General Assembly.
His reelection effort appears to have come up short. Mughal could still seek a recount.
Meanwhile, in a newly created district near Macon, Democrat Tangie Herring defeated Republican Noah Harbuck by just 276 votes.
That win for Democrats was mostly expected, she said.
“This district and the strength of my candidacy is supposed to lean mostly for African Americans,” said Herring, a teacher. “Even though this seat was drawn to increase more minority representation,” Herring said there was “still room for Republicans to take the seat.”
Majority party makes partisan maps
The Republican-controlled General Assembly followed court orders to increase the number of districts with a majority of Black voters while protecting most of the party’s representatives, said Andra Gillespie, an Emory University political science professor.
“You can redraw lines to increase Black representation, but it doesn’t necessarily increase the representation of the party to which most Blacks in the state belong,” Gillespie said. “It’s not surprising that partisans would draw lines in a way to meet the letter of the court mandate while still preserving their partisan advantage.”
Because of Georgia’s tremendous population growth, primarily among people of color in cities that tend to elect Democrats, Republicans weren’t able to completely avoid losses after Georgia added 1 million people in the decade before 2020.
But two fewer Republican seats in the House still leaves the GOP with a 20-vote cushion.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
In a Milledgeville-base race, Democrat Floyd Griffin defeated incumbent Republican Ken Vance by over 1,900 votes in one of the state’s new majority-Black districts.
After the maps were approved, Vance said some of his fellow representatives “were talking to me like it was a funeral.”
“I said, ‘Y’all, I ain’t dead. I’m going to do my best to try to win this thing,’ ” Vance said.
However, he knew his chances were slim, and the outcome of the election showed that he couldn’t compete with the way the map was shaped.
Another seat that flipped to a Democrat wasn’t because of redistricting. State Rep. Meisha Mainor lost reelection after she switched parties, from Democrat to Republican, in an Atlanta district that overwhelmingly elects Democrats.
As Georgia continues to grow before the next census in 2030, the political leanings of the state and the balance of power in the Capitol will keep changing, said Jason Shepherd, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University and former chair of the Cobb County Republican Party.
Republicans will try to preserve their majority until then, but it’s unclear how much populations and politics will shift in the coming years, he said.
“It doesn’t matter which party is in power — they’re going to draw districts in ways that benefit them,” Shepherd said. “Members of the Legislature get to kind of choose their own voters.”
State Rep. Derrick Jackson, a Democrat from Tyrone, said Georgia’s tide is turning from Republicans.
Democrats held just 62 House seats when Jackson was elected in 2016. They’ve now increased their numbers by 18 in the past eight years.
“To be honest, it did turn out the way the majority party expected,” Jackson said. “Redistricting slowed us down, but it didn’t stop us. You’re going to see Georgia getting bluer and bluer.”
— Staff writer Phoebe Quinton contributed to this article.
Few competitive races in Georgia
Most elections for the state House and Senate were decided by wide margins after the General Assembly redrew political districts last year.
Just 10 races out of 236 seats were decided by a margin of victory less than 10 percentage points.
Winning candidates and their margins of victory by percentage points:
Rep. Mack Jackson, D-Sandersville, 0.2
Sandy Donatucci, R-Dacula, 0.3
Tangie Herring, D-Macon, 1
Rep. Matt Reeves, R-Duluth, 2
Rep. Deborah Silcox, R-Sandy Springs, 3.8
Rep. Patty Marie Stinson, D-Butler, 6.5
Sen. Shawn Still, R-Norcross, 7.2
Rep. Jasmine Clark, D-Lilburn, 7.7
Floyd Griffin, D-Milledgeville, 8
Rep. Scott Hilton, R-Peachtree Corners, 9.7
