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Representative David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, passed away in April of this year and, on July 28, a special election was held to fill the 13th Congressional District seat he occupied. Two Republicans and three Democrats were listed on the ballot.
The Associated Press called the race at 8:38 pm for Scott’s daughter, Marcye, who had worked with her congressman father in the district for more than two decades. Though she held a substantial lead, Scott did not manage to surpass the 50% threshold needed to win outright. She will face second-placed fellow Democrat Everton Blair in a runoff.
Scott was sitting at 47.5% when the race was called, with around 85% of the votes counted. A former Gwinnett County School Board chair, Blair had 36.1% but received the lion’s share of Gwinnett County votes.
The two Republican candidates, Caesar Gonzales and Fayth Park, trailed the two frontrunners with 8.5% and 4.7%, respectively. The third Democrat, Carlos Moore, finished last with 3.2% of the votes.
No Surprises in Blue Georgia District Special Election
The 13th Congressional District stretches around the east and south sides of Atlanta. Close to 50% of voters in the district reside in Gwinnett County. It’s a district so blue that there was never a chance Republicans would capture the vacant seat. Scott, who was 80 years old when he died, had served 12 terms in the US House of Representatives.
In 2024 Scott was reelected to the House with about 72% of the vote, while then-Vice President Kamala Harris carried the district with roughly 71% of the votes cast for president.
Democrats were not expecting any surprises, then, but they will be relieved, at least, to soon have someone back in the seat on Capitol Hill, given the Republicans’ currently paper-thin House majority. However, the November showdown for a full term representing the Georgia district was already decided. Democrat Jasmine Clark will face Republican Jonathan Chavez, so Scott will fill her father’s former seat only until January of 2027, when the 120th Congress convenes.
At one time a reliably red state, Georgia has been slipping away from Republicans over the past decade. It is now almost a purple state, having gone the way of North Carolina.
Georgia Not on Their Mind?
Some observers might suggest the situation can largely be attributed to the somewhat lackluster Republican leadership in Georgia. Governor Brian Kemp has never been on good terms with President Donald Trump and Georgia Republicans have often seemed more concerned with maintaining their own positions than with pushing back against the growing Democrat influence over the Peach State.
That would translate to a lack of enthusiasm among Republican Georgia voters – when turnout at the polls is everything. The data for the July 28 special election is not yet available as of this writing and, even though the Republican candidates were not going to prevail in this particular contest, the numbers will be interesting. Gonzales and Park, between them, had notched less than about 2,500 votes when the race was called – out of around 17,500 total votes cast by that point.
Are there really that few registered Republican voters in the 13th District, or did they just not show up? Inquiring minds want to know. And the Republican Party, if it doesn’t already have the answer to that question, should be asking it.
