Political fight in Georgia suburbs as McBath jumps districts

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath isn't going away, even as Republicans try to draw district lines to pry back a slice of the American suburbs from congressional Democrats.

McBath, a Democrat who in 2018 wrested away Newt Gingrich's old suburban Atlanta U.S. House district from the GOP, is a torchbearer for the Democratic insurgency into once-prime Republican territory. Georgia's GOP-controlled General Assembly responded by drawing a much more Republican 6th Congressional District for McBath, a former flight attendant who rose to prominence as a gun control activist after her son was fatally shot at a Florida gas station in a dispute over loud music.

But even as the state House pushed through the new plan on a mostly party-line vote, McBath announced Monday that she was jumping to a different suburban Atlanta district, this one drawn to heavily favor Democrats. She's telling supporters that her mission is too important to step aside.

“I refuse to stand down. We must fight Republicans every step of the way, and now is not the time to lose a mother on a mission in Congress,” McBath said in a statement. “I made a promise to Jordan after he died. I promised that I would do everything in my power to prevent the tragedy that happened to my family from reaching any other."

One complication: Georgia's 7th Congressional District already has a Democratic incumbent, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux. She narrowly won the district in 2020, another example of a Democrat ending years of Republican control amid a diversifying population and suburban disaffection from a GOP dominated by Donald Trump.

Georgia's remap will be finalized once Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signs it. Democrats promise lawsuits, saying the lines violate federal law by discriminating against minority...