Former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s surprising third-place finish has scrambled the mayoral race and set up an unpredictable Nov. 30 runoff.
Council President Felicia Moore is seen as the clear front-runner after nearly doubling the vote total of Councilman Andre Dickens, who finished in second place.
But an exit poll conducted by 20-20 Insight, the left-leaning pollster recently hired by Dickens campaign, suggests a tight race. The poll pegged Dickens with a 46-39 edge over Moore with Reed out of the race.
Before you dismiss the exit poll as home-cooking - and you should always take such internal polls with the requisite grain of salt – keep in mind that the same firm’s survey of the mayoral contest in October was on target.
While other public polls showed Dickens locked in single-digits, the 20-20 Insight model projected the councilman would finish ahead of Reed with support in the mid-20s.
Dickens wound up with 23% of the vote, besting Reed by about 600 ballots.
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Speaking of Kasim Reed, the former mayor officially conceded this comeback bid for City Hall Thursday with a statement congratulating City Council President Felicia Moore and Councilman Andre Dickens.
“As the race moves forward to a runoff, I will continue to work on behalf of the city that I love to ensure that we remain that shining city on a hill,” he wrote. “Thank you, Atlanta.”
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One more mayor’s result of note: the City of Stone Mountain, which includes the world’s largest monument to the Confederacy, elected its first Black female mayor Tuesday.
Beverly Jones, a former Stone Mountain city councilmember, will be sworn into office in January.
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ALSO: It’s Atlanta Braves’ Day, y’all!
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UNDER THE GOLD DOME TODAY:
9:30 a.m. - The House gavels in;
10:00 a.m. - Senate session begins;
11:00 a.m. - Senate Reapportionment & Redistricting Committee meets;
1:00 p.m.- House Legislative & Congressional Reapportionment Committee meets.
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The redistricting special session is getting off to an extremely fast start, with the first vote on new maps possible as soon as today’s 11 a.m. hearing. More from the AJC’s Mark Niesse:
A new political map of the Georgia Senate drawn by the Republican majority was poised to clear its committee as soon as Friday, despite objections that it was being rushed just three days after proposed districts were made public.
Leaders of the Senate Redistricting Committee said they planned to move forward with the map after hearing two hours of public comments Thursday critical of a hasty process that continues to lean Republican in a politically split state.
The proposed map would shore up the Senate's Republican majority, solidifying GOP-held districts while also creating one additional Democratic-leaning district. There are currently 34 Republicans and 22 Democrats in the state Senate.
Meanwhile, the Georgia Senate last night made minor changes to the map to make a competitive seat in Atlanta’s northern suburbs slightly more conservative
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The proposal for Buckhead cityhood had its first official hearing Thursday before a state Senate committee.
Committee members heard testimony from pro-cityhood boosters, including Buckhead City Committee CEO Bill White, as well as from Buckhead interests who oppose cityhood.
The hearing packed a room across the street from the Capitol and featured a compilation of news clips of recent violent crimes in Buckhead, including one of White’s many appearances with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.
Skeptical Democratic senators raised questions about the future cost to taxpayers of covering hundreds of millions of dollars of Atlanta debt for sewer projects, including many in Buckhead.
State Sen. Michelle Au also pressed White on the unanswered question of where children in Buckhead would go to school, since they would not be eligible to attend their current APS schools as non-Atlanta residents.
Said White: “I can’t see it as metaphysically possible that APS will no longer want to continue serving our beautiful families and children and not take our $330 million every year.”
Spotted in the audience was state Rep. Betsy Holland, who represents Buckhead and opposes cityhood. All of the supporters of the idea, so far, live well outside of Buckhead.
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Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
Gov. Brian Kemp has a major decision to make during the election-year legislative session: embrace middle-of-the-road policies or tackle aggressive red-meat issues.
He’s already facing pressure to do the latter. From today’s print edition:
Conservative activists, buoyed by the GOP resurgence in Virginia, are pushing Kemp and other Republicans to take up more aggressive measures in next year's legislative session, such as bans on obscenities in school libraries and barring transgender women from participating in female school sports.
Cole Muzio of Frontline Policy Action has put those measures at the center of his conservative group's legislative agenda for 2022 and said that the “seismic victory" in Virginia would transform Republican politics in Georgia.
“These issues are unifying. Parents are fed up and frustrated," Muzio said. “Virginia has been the cautionary tale for Georgia for a long time. And now we're seeing Virginia bounce back for conservatives who listened to the concerns of parents and put students first."
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We already know that the conduct of the 2020 election will be a prime issue for 2022 candidates. The newest example-- Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller has written a letter to members of the panel appointed to investigate the Fulton County Board of Elections.
In his capacity of Senate leader, Miller outlined four items he said he wanted to see included in the Fulton investigation. Three of the requests relate to 200 ballots that were scanned twice before the county’s recount of votes following the November election, reported first by the AJC.
Miller’s final request asks for “a third-party examination of ballots to determine the level to which fraud occurred in the 2020 General Election voting process in Fulton County.”
Dozens of GBI investigations, state audits and private lawsuits have failed to find any systemic fraud in Georgia’s elections so far.
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Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
The cost of two nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle is now nearly double original projections, the Augusta Chronicle reports, and is expected to cost at least $28.5 billion.
That news came in an earnings statement for Atlanta-based Southern Co. The Chronicle also writes that Vogtle’s other owners now want Georgia Power to shoulder a larger portion of the cost overrun.
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U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff is hitting the road today to lands far away.
First, he’s off to Scotland to take part in the United Nations Climate Change Conference, where he’ll promote Democratic efforts to invest in green energy technology.
He’ll then travel to South Korea to meet with economic leaders and pitch companies on investing in Georgia. He’s also expected to promote Georgia’s growing electric vehicle manufacturing industry.
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U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson joined with four Democrats from Florida to introduce a bill that would allow cities and businesses to enforce public safety mandates, even over the objections of state leaders.
The bill would create a federal law that protects the ability of local governments, public agencies, and businesses to implement measures recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, such as social distancing, masks, vaccination, and testing.
Georgia and Florida, led by Republicans, have filed suit against President Joe Biden’s administration over the vaccination mandates for federal works.
Johnson, a Lithonia Democrat, will hold a virtual press conference this morning to talk about the proposal, along with Florida Democrats.
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An appeals court judge has upheld the conviction of Jenna Garland, a former spokeswoman for then-Mayor Kasim Reed. Garland was found guilty of violating the state’s open record laws, the AJC’s Wilborn Nobles reports.
The two misdemeanor counts relate to Garland’s role acting a spokeswoman for Reed, when in 2017, Garland told a fellow city employee to “be as unhelpful as possible” and to “drag this out as long as possible” after a media request related to water bills for Reed’s brother, Tracy.
Garland’s attorneys requested a new trial last year. But this week Chief Judge Brian Rickman confirmed the initial ruling.
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Since it’s Friday, we always like to send you into the weekend with a little light reading, including:
- Jamie Dupree’s Washington Insider column on Republican success in the post-Trump era;
- Patricia’s Wednesday Political Insider column on the boiling Republican angst over that potential Brian Kemp vs. David Perdue GOP primary for governor;
- A look ahead at Patricia’s Sunday column on the Democrats’ very bad week.
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And finally, for one more mayor’s result, Bobby Jenkins was elected mayor of Cuthbert Tuesday night with 66% of the vote.
Jenkins was featured in an AJC piece last March for an effort he and a neighbor started to use political organizing techniques, including going door-to-door in rural Randolph County, to help get people vaccinated against COVID-19.
That effort was successful, as was Mayor-elect Jenkins’ latest campaign.
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As always, Jolt readers are some of our favorite tipsters. Send your best scoop, gossip and insider info to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com and greg.bluestein@ajc.com.
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