State Sen. Renee Unterman announced Thursday that she would join the GOP primary to succeed retiring Republican Rep. Rob Woodall in Georgia’s 7th Congressional District, a competitive seat in the Atlanta suburbs. Unterman was the main Senate champion of the notorious law that banned abortion in Georgia after just six weeks, which is before many women even know that they're pregnant. Unterman’s proud support for this bill, which she called it the "culmination" of her more than 20 years in the legislature, could help her assuage social conservatives who might doubt her loyalty to the party she openly considered leaving as late as January.
Unterman had energetically but unsuccessfully opposed Brian Kemp during last year’s GOP primary for governor, and a spokesperson for Kemp infamously dubbed her "mentally unstable" during the race. Unterman said that she’d made up with the new governor, but at the start of the year, Kemp's allies stripped Unterman of her chairmanship of the powerful Senate Health and Human Services Committee. Unterman was furious, and she told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she was actually considering joining the Democrats.
Unterman mused at the time that she agreed with Team Blue "on a lot of social issues," which reporter Jim Galloway interpreted to mean health care and the environment. However, Unterman also declared, "I'm a gun-toter. I'm a hunter. I'm a fisherman.” Unterman also prophetically added, “I'm pro-life. I've carried every single abortion bill that's gone through the Senate." If Unterman was serious about possibly becoming a Democrat, though, she closed the door on that idea pretty fast. In early February, less than a month after she mused about switching parties, the 7th District Republican Party said that Unterman had met with them about running to succeed retiring Rep. Rob Woodall.
Unterman will face a competitive contest to win the GOP nod. A few other Republicans are already in, and the Unterman began attacking one of them, former Home Depot executive Lynne Homrich, well before this month. Homrich moved from the neighboring 6th District to this seat shortly before she announced in April, and Unterman quickly took to Twitter and dubbed her now-rival “that Buckhead lady” (Buckhead is an affluent Atlanta neighborhood that isn’t located in either the 6th or 7th District). Unterman has continued to attack Homrich as an outsider and suggested she “might need some directions” to communities in the 7th District.
If Unterman makes it through next year’s GOP primary, she’s in for a tough fight in November.
While Mitt Romney carried Georgia's 7th District by a 60-38 margin, Donald Trump won it just 51-45. Last year, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams, despite the taint of Republican voter suppression that marred her election, still managed to narrowly win the seat by a 50-49 margin. And while Unterman’s support for the six-week abortion ban may aid her in the primary, it may be a big liability in the general in this well-educated suburban seat.
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