ATLANTA - Republican Rich McCormick seeks to hold on to suburban Atlanta’s 7th District for his party as Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux tries to win a district she lost by fewer than 500 votes to retiring GOP Rep. Rob Woodall in 2018.
McCormick, an emergency room physician, touts empowering business owners and individuals.
Republican physician and former Marine Rich McCormick.
Bourdeaux, a public policy professor, says government needs to do more to provide access to health care and solve people’s problems.
Carolyn Bourdeaux, a public policy professor at Georgia State University who was a former budget director for the Georgia state Senate.
Covering parts of Gwinnett and Forsyth counties, the 7th District is filled with mushrooming subdivisions, shopping centers and office parks, as well as knotty traffic jams and growing schools. But it’s also a fast-changing district, with the share of white non-Hispanic residents falling to less than 45%. The remainder is split between Black, Asian, Hispanic and mixed-race residents, according to Census Bureau estimates. That, combined with Republican weaknesses among college-educated women who used to be reliable GOP voters, means the territory has been transformed.
“There’s been a real shift to the Democrats since 2016,” said Kerwin Swint, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University. “Gwinnett County is a great example because of the increasing diversification.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.