Georgia Voters Pick a New Member of Congress in Special Runoff Election

Voters in Georgia's 13th Congressional District headed to the polls Tuesday to choose a new member of the U.S. House of Representatives. The election is a special runoff to fill the seat of Democratic Congressman David Scott, who died on April 22 at age 80. The district sits east and southeast of Atlanta and includes parts of six counties. Because two Democrats are running, the winner will be a Democrat no matter what.

The two candidates facing off are Everton Blair and Marcye Scott. Blair is the former chair of the Gwinnett County School Board. Marcye Scott is the daughter of the late Congressman David Scott. Both of them made it to the runoff by finishing first and second in a five-person special election held on July 28. In that earlier vote, Marcye Scott got about 46% of the vote, while Blair got about 38%.

The winner of Tuesday's runoff will only serve for a few months. That is because they are filling the rest of David Scott's current term, which ends in early January 2027. Neither Blair nor Marcye Scott is running for the full next term that starts after that. Instead, State Representative Jasmine Clark won the Democratic primary in May and will face Republican Jonathan Chavez in the November general election for that full term.

The 13th District is a heavily Democratic area. In the 2024 presidential election, Democrat Kamala Harris won about 71% of the vote in the district. Republican Donald Trump received about 28%. Even in Gwinnett County, where Trump did his best in the district, he still only got about 35% of the vote.

Gwinnett County is the biggest part of the district and has about 46% of all the district's voters. Blair did especially well there in the July 28 special election, winning 56% of the vote in that county. Marcye Scott won the other five counties in the district. She did best in DeKalb, Clayton, and Henry counties.

About 585,000 people were registered to vote in the district as of last Friday. However, only 20,510 people voted in the July 28 special election. Runoff elections almost always see fewer voters than the first round of voting. As of Friday, about 5,200 people had already cast early ballots for Tuesday's runoff.

Polls closed at 7 p.m. Eastern Time. In July, the Associated Press first reported results just five minutes after polls closed, and full results came in by about 10 p.m. that night. The AP will only declare a winner when it is clear that the person in second place has no way to catch up. If the final margin is 0.5% or less, the losing candidate can ask for a recount, though Georgia does not do recounts automatically.

This special election matters beyond just Georgia. Republicans hold a very slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and adding another Democrat makes that majority even smaller. As of Tuesday, there are 70 days left until the 2026 midterm elections, when control of Congress could shift again.