State Rep. Houston Gaines became the first prominent Republican to enter the race for an open U.S. House seat in northeast Georgia, launching his campaign Thursday by highlighting his ties to the region and his support for President Donald Trump’s agenda.
The Athens legislator said he planned to campaign in the mold of U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, who captured the House seat in 2022 on a pro-Trump platform and then announced this week that he’s leaving it to run for U.S. Senate.
“President Trump has already delivered historic victories in his first six months,” Gaines said. “As he continues to be unfairly attacked by the left, he needs reinforcements in Washington. Just as I’ve taken on and defeated the far left time after time here in Georgia, I’m ready to do the same in D.C.”
Gaines, 30, is an early front-runner for the deeply conservative district that stretches from east Atlanta’s suburbs to the South Carolina state line. But other GOP contenders could join the fray, including former U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, who lost a comeback bid in 2022.
A prodigious fundraiser — Gaines amassed $900,000 in his legislative account — his announcement came coupled with endorsements from a trio of county sheriffs and dozens of state legislators and local officials.
A former student body president at the University of Georgia, Gaines traces his roots to the district back eight generations. His grandfather, Joseph Gaines, was a superior court judge in the area, and he is closely allied with Gov. Brian Kemp, whose Athens home is in his legislative district.
After losing a 2017 special election for the state House to Democrat Deborah Gonzalez, Gaines won a rematch the following year and has held the conservative-leaning seat ever since, capturing more than 60% of the vote in last year’s election.
Gaines, an executive at an engineering firm, quickly emerged as a power player in the Legislature, frequently clashing with Athens’ more liberal leaders.
He sponsored legislation giving the state new powers to remove district attorneys, prompted by criticism that Gonzalez mismanaged the prosecutor’s office after her election.
And he backed legislation cracking down on illegal immigration in Georgia after the murder of Laken Riley, a nursing student who was killed on UGA’s campus by a Venezuelan man who entered the U.S. illegally but was allowed to stay while pursuing his immigration case.
If Collins’ 2022 victory is any guide, the race could become an all-out GOP brawl. In that contest, Collins defeated a former Democrat endorsed by Trump in a GOP runoff before trouncing a Democrat in the general election.
This time, Democrat Lexy Doherty is waiting in the wings, hoping to make the race a referendum on Trump’s policies — no easy task in a district the former president carried comfortably. She aims to cast Gaines and other Republicans as political panderers.
“We need our government to work with us, not against us, to make a better life for us and our families,” she said. “And all we’ve gotten this year from extremists like Collins is chaos and corruption while the ultrarich take tighter control of Washington.”
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