The Georgia General Assembly finalized its congressional maps for the upcoming decade last Monday, making minor changes in many of the districts but dramatically shifting a suburban Atlanta district that would have supported Donald Trump in 2020 to one that would have supported Hillary Clinton.
Georgia's congressional delegation is expected to lose one of its Democrats and add a new Republican member because of the legislature's changes, which will affect a state that President Joe Biden won last fall.
Lucy McBath, a Democrat who was first elected in a suburban Atlanta district that fell out of favor with the Republican brand over the last decade, switched races and challenged a fellow Democrat in a neighboring district after seeing her district become deeply Republican under the new lines.
The Democrats are upset by the new map, which they say weakens minority strength in the state.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that conservative GOP Reps. Andrew Clyde and Marjorie Taylor Greene were critical of their party's mapmaking machinations.
In order to press their partisan advantage, state Republicans drew out of his 9th district seat and rearranged his 14th district to include liberal-leaning areas of Cobb County, a former GOP stronghold near Atlanta that has trended Democratic in recent years.
The law doesn't require members to live in the congressional districts they represent.
He said last week that he would run again in the 9th district, but he wasn't happy with the action taken by the legislature.
I believe this was a decision made by a few politicians in Atlanta. Being a hardcore conservative in Washington will come at a steep price. He wrote in a statement on Facebook that he had always paid that price in the name of freedom.
He said that he never anticipated the act of being drawn out of his own district by a Republican Lieutenant Governor and a Republican Speaker of the House.
The process that was used to choose a new speaker of the Georgia House didn't represent the wishes of the people of Georgia, according to the speaker.
The congresswoman was unhappy with the new lines and wasn't drawn out of her district.
The Georgia GOP's plan to draw up a new map will prove to be a waste of time in the future. She said that the people of Georgia were not true representatives.
Both seats remain heavily Republican and their reelection bids should be secure, despite the fact that both districts have been reshaped.
