Two Georgia Candidates Look to Surf Demographic Trends to Congress

The two candidates running for an open North Georgia Congressional seat each see an opportunity.

Rich McCormick, the frontrunner in a district drawn for a Republican, sees it in his party’s growing appeal to minorities and women, work he thinks he is cut out to do.

Democratic nominee Bob Christian, facing an uphill battle in a district stretching from Atlanta’s northern suburbs to the edge of Georgia’s northern mountains, sees his opportunity in the newcomers flooding the area since the pandemic began.

Bob Christian, the Democratic nominee for Georgia’s longtime Republican 6th Congressional District, thinks he can flip it. (Courtesy of Bob Christian)

District 6 was once a Republican stronghold in the suburbs. It launched Newt Gingrich on a path to becoming Speaker of the House, Johnny Isakson toward the U.S. Senate, and Tom Price to becoming Donald Trump’s secretary of health and human services.

But the district became more purple as the suburbs expanded and the proverbial “soccer moms”—suburban women—rejected Trump. Lucy McBath won the seat as a Democrat in 2018, defeating incumbent Karen Handel, and beat her again to get reelected in 2020.

The Republican-controlled redistricting process dropped some of its suburban areas and added more safely red ones further from Atlanta. It reaches north all the way to Amicalola, the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail in the foothills of the mountains.

Or are they indeed safely red?

Christian says around 75,000 people moved into the district during the pandemic. He notes that exurban Forsyth County north of Atlanta was the 7th fastest growing county in the nation last year and 3rd fastest growing in the previous 10 years.

“If even half of them lean blue, it’ll change the balance dramatically,” Christian told The Epoch Times. “Whether they bring their politics with them, that’s the key. We’re

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