Democrats worry a wave of early voters in runoffs for the governor’s office and U.S. Senate could flip a Gwinnett County-based state Senate district just as lawmakers prepare to convene for a special session.
Out of nearly 350,000 ballots cast statewide during early voting as of Friday morning, over 65% came from Republicans, who are outvoting Democrats by a 2-to-1 margin due to competitive GOP primary runoffs for the U.S. Senate and the governor’s mansion. In Gwinnett County, where Senate District 7 sits, about 19,000 ballots have been cast as of Friday morning, and like the rest of the state, about two-thirds came from Republican voters.
“There are headwinds. There is no denying that there are definite headwinds to close this gap,” said Democratic candidate Adrienne White, who is facing Republican Aizaz Shaikh in the special election runoff for the metro Atlanta Senate seat.
White received about 33% of the vote in a three-way race for the seat against Shaikh, who got nearly 34%, and Astrid Ross, a Democrat who got nearly 33% of the vote.
Shaikh did not respond to requests for comments Thursday.
Tuesday’s runoff will decide which candidate serves the remainder of former state Sen. Nabilah Parkes’ term after she stepped down to focus on her campaign for lieutenant governor. Parkes is in a runoff with state Sen. Josh McLaurin in that race, which is one of four down-ballot runoff contests on the Democratic ballot.
The winner of the special election to fill Parkes’ Senate seat will join the Legislature just as lawmakers are set to return to Atlanta next week to redraw the state’s political maps. If Shaikh wins, it would give Republicans another vote at a pivotal time.
Josh McKoon, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, said in an interview that while statewide Republican runoffs might be driving turnout, he believes that a win on Tuesday would challenge assumptions about shifting demographics in the north Atlanta suburbs, where Democrats have been able to flip seats that were previously held by Republicans.
Parkes flipped the seat in 2022 with nearly 53% of the vote and held on to it in 2024 with 55%.
“Democrats try to have this narrative that in multi-ethnic places, in places where the demography shifted, that Republicans can’t win, and my goodness, if we win on Tuesday in this Senate district, boy, does it totally upend that narrative that Democrats have been trying to spin,” McKoon said.
But the potential gain for Republicans in this special election may be short-lived, said University of Georgia political scientist Trey Hood, who said he believes Democrats could easily flip the seat back in the November general election. He said that Shaikh, if elected on Tuesday, may have a slight advantage in November as an incumbent, but not enough to keep the seat in Republicans’ hands.
“It’ll probably flip back to Democratic, I would suspect, given the way that just the sort of partisan composition of the district. I wouldn’t expect it to hold,” Hood said.
Despite a seeming uphill battle to keep the seat blue, White said she is not giving up. She said she is ramping up her campaigning efforts as well as getting help from high-profile Democrats in hopes of turning out voters.
“The numbers look insurmountable, but if I am really pulling from my ancestors, it says that justice really is kind of the root of everything. You don’t stop fighting, and I just want people to know I’m not done until 7 p.m. on election day,” White said.
As White and Shaikh battle it out in the special election, there is a parallel race unfolding to decide who will succeed Parkes longer term. Attorney Rahul Garabadu and state Rep. Ruwa Romman are competing for the Democratic nomination in a runoff Tuesday in that race, and the winner will face Shaikh in November.
This story is provided by WABE media partner the Georgia Recorder.
