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In Georgia, one of the few states holding July elections, voters are heading to the polls for runoff elections on Tuesday.
Two Republicans — Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Secretary of State Brian Kemp — are facing off in a tight race to be the GOP nominee for governor (Republican Gov. Nathan Deal is term-limited out). Whoever wins Tuesday’s primary will face Democrat Stacey Abrams, who already won her primary in May. The governor’s race will be one of the most closely watched in the country; Abrams would make history as the first black woman governor if she wins in November.
Beyond the governor’s race, there are two congressional races worth watching: Georgia’s Sixth and Seventh Congressional Districts. The Sixth is the same district where Democrats poured millions into Jon Ossoff’s failed campaign against Republican Rep. Karen Handel last year, while the Seventh is another district where Democrats would like to flip the seat currently held by Rep. Rob Woodall.
Polls close at 7 pm Eastern. Vox has live results below, powered by Decision Desk.
Georgia governor: Republican Brian Kemp beats Casey Cagle, will run against Democrat Stacey Abrams in November
Update: Decision Desk has called the race for Brian Kemp.
It was a close race between Republican frontrunners, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Secretary of State Brian Kemp. Cagle was more than 10 points ahead of Kemp in an earlier May primary, but President Donald Trump recently endorsed Kemp via Twitter, which may have given him an edge.
Cagle and Kemp are both Georgia state officials, so it could be argued they’re both part of the state’s Republican establishment. But like in many other Republican races, the runoff become a race to see who was the most conservative and Trump-like.
Whoever wins will compete against Democrat Stacey Abrams, the former state House minority leader whose campaign has Democrats across the country excited. Abrams already won her May primary. If she prevails against Kemp in November, she could be elected the first black woman governor in America.
Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District: gun control activist Lucy McBath will challenge Rep. Karen Handel in the fall
Update: Decision Desk has called the race for Lucy McBath.
Two Democrats — gun control activist Lucy McBath and businessman Kevin Abel — faced off to see who would challenge incumbent Republican Rep. Karen Handel, who was elected to Congress in 2017. McBath won a close race on Tuesday night.
Coming on the heels of Trump’s election, Georgia’s Sixth was supposed to be Democrats’ great hope of flipping a conservative district last year, but it turned into a big, expensive failure. It’s still a conservative district that the Cook Political Report rates Lean Republican, but McBath thinks she has a shot at flipping it to blue.
McBath is making gun control a huge focus of her campaign; her son was shot and killed in 2012, which eventually spurred her to run for Congress. It could be a big test of whether the issue will win Democrats votes in a wealthy, educated suburban district. Abel, a white immigrant from South Africa, argued that McBath’s focus on gun control would lose her votes and said he was in a better position to appeal to voters and take on Handel. That theory will be tested in November.
Georgia’s Seventh Congressional District: a long-shot pickup opportunity for Democrats
Update: Decision Desk has called the race for Carolyn Bourdeaux.
Two Democrats — Georgia State professor Carolyn Bourdeaux and tutoring business founder David Kim — competed to be the nominee. Bourdeaux will run against Republican Rep. Rob Woodall, in office since 2011.
Georgia’s Seventh District is likely more of a long shot for Democrats; Cook rates it Likely Republican. Trump won this suburban district in 2016 by a little over 6 points, but Democrats view Woodall as a potential target (albeit a reach).
Besides her experience in higher education, Bourdeaux previously served as the director of Georgia’s Senate Budget and Evaluation Office, and is hitting Woodall particularly hard on health care and his vote supporting Obamacare repeal in the House.
Kim, a first-time candidate, said he wouldn’t support House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in her bid for House speaker if elected to Congress. He dumped more than half a million dollars of his own money into his campaign, while Bourdeaux won the endorsement of Emily’s List, a progressive group that works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights.
