Two congressional races in the northern Atlanta suburbs this November could determine whether Democrats can solidify their majority in the U.S. House \u2014 or even add to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In their efforts to win Georgia\u2019s 6th and 7th congressional districts, Democrats are taking the fight to traditionally Republican territory. Both districts supported Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But disenchantment with Trump\u2019s presidency and shifting demographics in the region make the area much more competitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Atlanta<\/a> suburbs are ground zero for this suburban shift leftward, and there\u2019s nowhere it\u2019s more evident than in the Georgia 6th and 7th,\u201d said Jacob Rubashkin, a reporter and analyst with Inside Elections, a political forecasting firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mitt Romney won the districts easily in 2012 as the Republican presidential nominee, and former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich once represented the area in Congress, he noted. \u201cThese are places that are traditionally conservative, but they just really do not like Trump. That has been the engine that has powered Democratic success there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the margins were so tight in those races in 2018 that Republicans contend they have a good chance at winning the two contests, especially if GOP candidates perform well in the presidential and senatorial races at the top of the ticket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Voters in the marquee House races will choose among several familiar names. The 6th District race is a rematch from 2018, when Democratic gun control activist Lucy McBath ousted Republican Karen Handel by little more than 3,000 votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 7th District features a return of Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux, a public policy professor who nearly toppled U.S. Rep. Rob Woodall in 2018, losing by the smallest margin (419 votes) of any U.S. House race in the country. Bourdeaux confirmed she would run again in 2020, just minutes<\/a> after Woodall announced he would retire at the end of his term. The new Republican standard bearer is Rich McCormick, a former Marine pilot and current emergency room doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Voters can hear the candidates side by side during the Atlanta Press Club debates<\/a> Tuesday evening. The Handel-McBath matchup is set for 7 p.m.; Bourdeaux and McCormick will face each other at 7:30. You can watch the debates on the club\u2019s Facebook page, GPB.org or on GPB-TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Democrats have a clear fundraising advantage in both races, and national political handicappers give Democrats the slight edge in both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJoe Biden is running stronger than any Democrat [presidential candidate] in Georgia has in decades, and no matter who you are, that\u2019s just a tough environment to be running in as a Republican,\u201d said Rubashkin, the Inside Elections analyst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Georgia, of course, is drawing lots of outside attention as a potential presidential swing state where two U.S. Senate seats could be in play. On top of that, interest groups are advertising to encourage Georgia\u2019s current senators to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That means the House races will be \u201cnationalized\u201d in the issues they debate, and ticket splitting among voters will likely be rare, Rubashkin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDemocrats are laser focused on health care, and obviously, that can encompass COVID,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve gone from [Democrats saying] \u2018Republicans want to strip away protections for people with preexisting conditions\u2019 as the old message to \u2018Republicans want to strip away protections for people with preexisting conditions in the middle of a pandemic<\/em>\u2019 as the new message.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rematch for McBath\u2019s seat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n McBath became a prominent gun control activist after her son was killed at a Florida gas station by a man who complained he and his friends were playing their music too loudly in their car. She decided to run for Congress in 2018, after a shooter killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McBath became the first Black House member to represent the district, where the majority of residents are white but Black, Hispanic and Asian residents all make up more than a tenth of the population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In knocking off Handel, McBath gave Democrats the victory in the district that they had hoped for in a 2017 special election that drew national attention. The 2017 race pitted Handel against Democrat Jon Ossoff (now running for a U.S. Senate seat<\/a>) in what became the most expensive House race in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Handel is a well-known Republican official, who has served as Georgia secretary of state and ran unsuccessfully for governor and U.S. senator as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that McBath is campaigning as the incumbent, she touts the passage of legislation<\/a> she sponsored that helps veterans receiving disability benefits when they declare bankruptcy, and offers it as evidence of her ability to work across the aisle. U.S. Rep. Greg Steube, a Florida Republican, co-sponsored the measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McBath\u2019s campaign also highlights the four town hall meetings she held with her constituents last year \u2014 before COVID-19 hit \u2014 something that Handel promised as a member of Congress but never did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As in most competitive House districts, health care is a flashpoint between the two candidates as well. McBath, who had breast cancer twice, supports the Affordable Care Act and its prohibition against insurers denying people coverage for preexisting conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Handel voted for a Republican tax cut package that included a provision to undermine the legal basis of the ACA, which led to a legal battle that will come before the Supreme Court a week after the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Handel, whose sister was born without an esophagus, also was one of 81 cosponsors of legislation<\/a> that would also prevent insurance companies from denying people coverage for preexisting conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe stood up courageously when [Republicans] were doing a repeal to say: \u2018We can\u2019t do a repeal without a replace, and I\u2019m not OK with a repeal that leaves people with preexisting conditions stranded,\u2019\u201d said Brian Robinson, a spokesman for the Handel campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Democrats have hammered<\/a> Handel for defending Republican legislation, called the American Health Care Act, that cleared the House in 2017. Handel backed<\/a> the measure during her 2017 campaign, but the House passed it before she was elected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTheir message is indefensible. They cannot back it up with a straight face,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cThey\u2019re running this cookie-cutter ad message against Karen, the same one they run against every Republican in the country. But Karen is different. Her record is clear on these issues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robinson argued that McBath campaigned as a centrist but, once in office, often sided with the liberal wing of the Democratic caucus. McBath focused on gun control so much, she neglected other issues important to the district, including trade, education, health care and transportation, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robinson added that McBath was not visible in her district, and local leaders found it hard to contact her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, one of the rawest arguments between the two campaigns is over<\/a> ads<\/a> Handel has run with footage of McBath leading a march, where a participant not far behind her holds a sign that says \u201cSome KKK wear a hood, but most wear a uniform and a badge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Handel campaign says the footage shows McBath supports the broader movement to \u201cdefund the police.\u201d \u201cStanding up for law enforcement used to be a bipartisan issue. Sadly, today, it\u2019s not,\u201d Handel says in one of the spots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But McBath\u2019s campaign notes that the march was a unity march, which McBath was leading next to<\/a> the Roswell police chief. They note that Politifact rated<\/a> the ad\u2019s claims \u201cfalse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen you\u2019ve run for office over and over again for 20 years while never serving a full term in office or winning a re-election, you make some pretty desperate attacks,\u201d Jake Orvis, McBath\u2019s campaign manager said in an emailed statement to Georgia Recorder<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFrom supporting Trump over 98 percent of the time, defending Georgia\u2019s extreme abortion ban, to trying repeatedly to eliminate health care coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, Karen Handel is not fit to serve the people of Georgia\u2019s Sixth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Open seat draws spirited contest<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the other prominent House race, Bourdeaux is making another run for the seat that narrowly escaped her two years ago. To do so, she\u2019ll have to get past McCormick, a political newcomer who touts his military and medical experience along with his small-government philosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bourdeaux, the Democrat, is a public policy professor at Georgia State University who previously worked as the director of the nonpartisan budget agency for the Georgia state Senate. She has campaigned on fixing the Affordable Care Act after years of GOP efforts to undermine it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Republicans have never put forward legislation that makes any sense on (health care). They\u2019ve had four years to address these issues and they have not addressed it, and it is time to get the job done,\u201d Bourdeaux said at a recent virtual debate<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The race has repeatedly come back to health care, but McCormick\u2019s background as an emergency room doctor has added some unique wrinkles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bourdeaux\u2019s campaign has slammed McCormick for undermining efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The physician has repeatedly defended Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, another Republican, for their handling of the coronavirus outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n