The race is an uncomfortable development for Democrats, who would prefer to celebrate their progress in Georgia.
Reps. Lucy McBath and Carolyn Bourdeaux turned two longtime Republican congressional districts in the northern Atlanta suburbs by running against then-President Donald Trump and his divisive policies.
But as they battle to keep their seats in the House of Representatives this year, they’re pitted against each other.
After new congressional cards approved by the Republican-controlled state legislature made McBath’s district more conservative, she decided to contest Bourdeaux’s seat. This means that two colleagues from the same party will be up against each other ahead of the Georgia primary on May 24.
The race is an uncomfortable development for Democrats, who would prefer to celebrate their advances in Georgia, culminating in Joe Biden becoming his party’s first presidential candidate to take over the state in 28 years. Rather than build on that success, which was fueled in part by support in the Atlanta suburbs, the primary pits two of the party’s rising stars against one another.
Bourdeaux, who has referred to McBath as a “sister” and has previously fought alongside her, said in a recent interview that she was “quite shocked” by the main challenge.
“If the shoe was on the other foot, it wouldn’t have crossed my mind in a million years to go to the sixth[district]and run against them,” Bourdeaux said, lamenting that McBath was expending resources on them im about to defeat primaries that could target Republicans instead.
McBath said her push to stay in Congress was “about my job of honoring my son,” not her main opponent. Their 17-year-old son, Jordan Davis, was shot dead at a Florida gas station in 2012 by a white man who was enraged by the loud music the black teen and his friends were playing in their car, spurring McBath to become a gun safety activist.
“To keep that promise to my son, my family, and my community, I just refused to let Brian Kemp and the NRA gun lobby and the Republican Party decide who represents our communities in Georgia,” McBath said in an interview the state’s Republican governor and new maps drawn by lawmakers based on the 2020 census.
She added, “A lot of people have said to me, ‘I think you’re making the right decision. It’s obviously a difficult decision, but I think it’s the right decision.’”
The competition is one of five major incumbent-to-incumbent main races taking place across the country this summer. These include Democratic Representatives Andy Levin and Haley Stevens in suburban Detroit; Republican Representatives David McKinley and Alex Mooney in the northern half of West Virginia; and fellow congressmen from Illinois from both parties — Republicans Mary Miller and Rodney Davis, and Democrats Marie Newman and Sean Casten.
For some of these candidates, trying to depose a colleague is just a political reality that accompanies the decennial redistribution process. In Michigan, Levin and Stevens said they still considered each other friends, although they are now fighting for a new seat to be drawn by an independent commission.
“When something unfortunate like this happens, it’s nothing personal to me,” said Levin, who opted to forego participating in a redrawn battlefield district in favor of challenging Stevens in a safe Democratic district instead.
Stevens said that during a recent vote in the House, she pulled Levin aside to discuss a bill they were working on. She later said it hit her: “‘Holy smokers. I’m in this elementary school with him, and no matter what happens, we’re not going to be colleagues.’”
The Georgia race is particularly corrosive because it will slow down one of two burgeoning, promising political careers.
McBath won a House seat in 2018 from a suburban district held for two decades by former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The former Delta flight attendant is known nationally as a staunch advocate of gun safety.
That same year, Bourdeaux came within a few hundred votes to overthrow a Republican in the adjacent district before eventually winning the seat in 2020. A former public policy professor and Georgia Senate budget director, Bourdeaux has worked on transportation and infrastructure issues. She was among a small group of House Democrats who last year pushed for the passage of a bipartisan infrastructure bill before reaching agreement on a larger Democratic social policy package.
The redrawn borough of Bourdeaux includes affluent suburbs in Gwinnett County that have become increasingly diverse in recent years. It has large Black, Hispanic, and Asian populations. A section of the Buford Highway that runs through the area has become a major draw for its multitude of ethnic restaurants.
The district is heavily Democratic, so the primary election winner is expected to prevail in the general election.
The two have remained fairly even in the money race. By the end of last year, McBath had raised just over $3 million, compared to Bourdeaux’s nearly $2.4 million.
Bourdeaux has been endorsed by some top Gwinnett County Democratic leaders, while Everytown for Gun Safety, where McBath once worked, has run ads on her behalf. Protect Our Future, a new Democratic super-PAC backed by a cryptocurrency billionaire, has also vowed to spend big to boost McBath, prompting calls from Bourdeaux’s campaign that her opponent was seeking funding from the group should “reject”.
Jovanny Emery Sierra, a 27-year-old technologist at a Duluth medical company, voted for Bourdeaux in the 2020 general election but is now volunteering for McBath. He said he was alienated from Bourdeaux, who appeared to be prioritizing infrastructure legislation rather than a larger White House-backed social spending and public works bill known as Build Back Better, which eventually collapsed.
“It just felt like a slap in the face,” he said.
Others living in the district say they are concerned McBath or Bourdeaux would be left without a congressional seat.
“We have two great, caring people who are Democrats, but by doing that gerrymandering of the state legislature, they just cut them up and watered down the democratic process,” said Jim Shealey, 72. Shealey said he hadn’t made up his mind who he was to vote in May.
Still, Julie Pierce, 65, said McBath’s decision to challenge Bourdeaux “leaves me squeamish.”
Pierce said she always thought highly of McBath, but she takes a much tougher view of Bourdeaux on the campaign trail.
“If you want to parachute because you yelled loudly, parachute and meet me,” Pierce said of McBath. “Don’t take me for granted.”
Additional coverage from The Associated Press.
