Runoff Day in Georgia: what to watch
Key races to be decided in runoffs
Some Georgia voters are returning to the polls Tuesday to make their final selections for which Democratic or Republican candidates they want to see on their November general election ballot.
It caps off a four-week sprint since May’s primary election, which saw none of the candidates in today’s contests earn more than 50 percent of the vote to clinch their party’s nomination outright.
Key congressional and state legislative contests are set to be decided. Some countywide races will be on the ballot as well, including the race to be the next chief executive of one of Georgia’s largest counties.
Republican voters in the state’s 3rd congressional district will decide whether political operative Brian Jack or former state Sen. Mike Dugan should replace retiring U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson. The winner is set to breeze through the general election in this solidly conservative district, which covers all or parts of 15 counties in west and central Georgia.
The neighboring 2nd district will also see a Republican runoff. Taylor County Republican Party chairman and convicted January 6 participant Chuck Hand will try to fend off Wayne Johnson for the right to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop of Albany. Jack and Johnson were last month’s first-place finishers in their respective contests.
Turning to state legislative races, voters in three state Senate districts are set to replace a trio of Democratic state senators with careers spanning two decades apiece. Businessman RaShaun Kemp and former state Rep. Ralph Long III are the last men standing for the Democratic nomination to succeed state Sen. Horacena Tate. Her departure likely marks the end of an era for the Tate family name: the senator’s late father, Horace, once represented this Atlanta-area district and was a “hidden hero” of the civil rights movement. A section of I-75 has since been renamed in the elder Tate’s honor.
Out in Stone Mountain, the Democratic runoff to replace Senate minority leader Gloria Butler features former state Rep. Randal Mangham and registered nurse Iris Hamilton. Hamilton enjoys the support of Butler and many of the outgoing leader’s Democratic Senate colleagues.
State Sen. Valencia Seay (D-Riverdale) is hoping that her successor isn’t named Valencia. Former state Rep. Valencia Stovall nearly clinched the nomination for this Clayton-based seat outright in May but now finds herself in a runoff with the retiring Sen. Seay’s chief of staff, Kenya Wicks.
Republicans will decide who will take on state Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes, a first-term Democrat from Gwinnett County.
An ongoing proxy war within House Democratic leadership is on display in a Macon-area runoff, where Democrats Tangie Herring and Juawn Jackson are vying for a new majority-Black seat.
Herring, a schoolteacher, initially sought to challenge House Minority Leader James Beverly, who she labeled ineffective. But she was drawn out of his district last year in a Republican-led overhaul of state and federal legislative boundaries. Now Beverly is one of her opponent’s most important backers.
— AJC, June 7, 2024
Some of Beverly’s allies are also supporting Jackson. Herring, on the other hand, has drawn support from Democratic state Reps. Shea Roberts and Stacey Evans, two members who have criticized their caucus’ handling of recent harassment allegations against the retiring leader.
Runoffs are set to replace Republican state Rep. Jodi Lott of Evans and Democratic state Rep. Pedro “Pete” Marín of Duluth, who are both leaving office. State Rep. Steve Sainz, a Republican from Camden County, is the only incumbent whose fate will be decided by a runoff Tuesday.
Some countywide races were sent to overtime. In DeKalb County, for instance, commissioners Larry Johnson and Lorraine Cochran-Johnson are now in a Democratic runoff to be the next chief executive officer of DeKalb County. With no Republican set to be on the ballot, tonight’s winner can expect to succeed CEO Michael Thurmond next January.
Democrats are nervously watching a runoff in Rockdale County, where a former Republican state lawmaker is running as a Democrat to lead the county commission in a deep blue pocket of the state.