Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux’s allies at EMILY’s List are out with a survey from Public Policy Polling that gives her a 42-39 lead over Republican Rich McCormick. The poll, which was in the field from June 19-20 and sampled 589 voters, also finds Joe Biden leading Donald Trump 50-44 in a historically red district that has been briskly moving to the left in recent years. This seat in Atlanta’s northeastern suburbs went from 60-38 Romney to 51-45 Trump, and Democrat Stacey Abrams carried it 50-49 despite being hampered by the flawed 2018 election for governor.
Bourdeaux and McCormick each averted an August primary runoff by winning a majority of the vote in the June 9 primaries, but things remain ugly on the Republican side. State Sen. Renee Unterman, who lost to McCormick 55-17, used Tuesday’s legislative debate on hate-crimes legislation to talk about the anti-Semitism she’d faced during her career in politics, and she singled out a December encounter with McCormick.
Unterman said that, during a Christmas parade they were both participating in, McCormick pressured her to wear a Christmas sweater. “What he was doing to me was not a hate crime, but it was belittling me because of my religion and my faith,” Unterman said.
McCormick defended himself by telling the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that this had been a “friendly conversation,” and that he was just challenging Unterman to wear an “ugly sweater.” McCormick didn’t try to be at all friendly, though, when he continued, “Let’s not cheapen the debate on race by crying wolf like Renee regularly has done when things don’t go her way.” McCormick then actually concluded, “Some of my best support has been from the Jewish community to include Renee's former husband.”