Democratic Georgia Rep. Lucy McBath will move congressional districts in response to the state legislature’s newly-drawn map, setting up a primary fight with fellow Democratic Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux.
McBath, first elected in 2018, represents the state’s Sixth District, which currently includes the Atlanta suburbs of Cobb County, Fulton County and DeKalb County. The new map, approved Monday by the Georgia General Assembly, adds parts of Forsyth and Dawson counties, which are more Republican, to the Sixth District. It also moves parts of Fulton and Gwinnett counties to Bourdeaux’s Seventh District. (RELATED: New West Virginia House Map Sets Up Primary Fight Between Two GOP Incumbents)
McBath’s current district would become 25 points more Republican as a result of the new map, and Bourdeaux’s would become 20 points more Democratic, according to an analysis from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC). The new map creates nine Republican safe seats, and five Democratic safe seats.
As a result, McBath has chosen to run in the much more Democratic Seventh District, most likely against Bourdeaux in the party’s 2022 primary.
“I refuse to let Brian Kemp, the NRA and the Republican Party keep me from fighting,” McBath told AJC of her move. “They are not going to have the last word.”
Just in: U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath will run for Congress in a neighboring suburban district after Republicans redrew her congressional seat to be a GOP bastion. #gapol https://t.co/Rpqdh0Z86J
— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) November 22, 2021
A staunch opponent of gun rights, McBath first ran for Congress in 2018, upsetting incumbent Republican Karen Handel. She defeated Handel again in a 2o2o rematch. McBath sponsored the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, which passed the House in March, and has also endorsed red flag legislation and Center for Disease Control and Prevention studies on gun violence.
Before running for Congress, McBath was a spokeswoman for the anti-gun organization Moms Demand Action. A former flight attendant, she entered politics after her son was shot and killed in 2012.
Bourdeaux, a relative moderate, was first elected to Congress in 2020. A member of the Blue Dog Coalition, she was one of nine House Democrats who pledged not to support the Build Back Better Act until the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was signed into law. She also reportedly declined campaign donations from Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.