Atlanta suburbs make Georgia a 2020 battleground
In the last decade, the 7th District has become more racially diverse, higher educated and wealthier — all characteristics that trend Democratic.
That change has been led by Gwinnett County, which makes up the bulk of the district. Known as a “majority minority” area, Gwinnett’s non-Hispanic white population is only 35.4% and about a quarter of residents are foreign-born, according to 2019 Census estimates.
Gentrification and growing immigrant enclaves in the suburbs have pushed more people of color out of the city and into inner-ring communities like Gwinnett, according to Emory political scientist Andra Gillespie. It’s a phenomenon occurring in suburban areas around Atlanta and across the county, she said.
The growing non-white electorate in the state has contributed to Georgia’s shift toward battleground status. Trump beat Clinton by a 5% margin in 2016, but recent polling averages show that Biden has a chance at winning Georgia.
“Democrats in Georgia see it as a matter of when, and not if, they end up with a statewide election,” Gillespie said.
Bourdeaux is a public policy professor at Georgia State University who directed the state’s Senate Budget and Evaluation Office during the Great Recession. She’s made universal affordable health care a focus of her platform and positioned herself as an experienced leader who can work across the aisle.
McCormick is an emergency room doctor and military veteran running on small government conservatism. “Rich still works the night shift in ER while he’s running for Congress. This is a guy who has a servant’s heart,” said campaign spokesperson John Simpson.
Bourdeaux’s opponents have painted her as an out-of-touch “career bureaucrat” while McCormick’s opponents have criticized his response to the coronavirus pandemic and tried to align him with Trump.
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“Far more alarming is that Rich — an ER doctor — refuses to wear a mask at crowded events, aims to take health care away from millions, and routinely downplays a pandemic that has already taken the lives of 220,000 Americans.”
The president endorsed McCormick, a fact that the candidate touts in his campaign’s Twitter bio, but McCormick has increasingly distanced himself from the president in a district where Trump elicits mixed feelings even among some Republicans.
“Rich doesn’t speak with the president on a regular basis by any means,” Simpson said. “Rich’s position is the president can defend himself.”
Throughout his reelection campaign, Trump has claimed he’ll protect America’s suburbs from what he characterizes as “crime and chaos in Democratic-run cities.” Critics say his “law and order” rhetoric is racially charged fear mongering.
McCormick has also embraced a “law and order” approach, which may appeal to some voters in majority-white Forsyth County. “When you see what’s going on in the Democratically controlled cities in this country … we’re reminding voters that’s what the Democratic party is certainly standing for,” said Forsyth Republican chairman Patrick Bell.
But voters who exemplify a changing version of suburbia may be turned off by the GOP’s approach.
“What he’s not thinking about is we live in the suburbs. This is Gwinnett County,” said Lawrenceville resident Pamela Martinez, 68, who identifies as Black and describes her multiracial family as the “United Nations.” “He doesn’t really understand that because he doesn’t really deal with diversity.”
