Republican Kay Kirkpatrick defeated Democrat Christine Triebsch in a special election runoff Tuesday, taking the seat formerly held by Judson Hill, who gave it up to run for Congress in CD-6.
In a race that saw surprisingly high turnout Kirkpatrick won with 57% of the vote, tallying 18,602 total votes to Triebsch’s 14,046. The victory was not unsurprising, SD 32 is a heavily red district where Hill had run unopposed by a Democrat since 2008.
Triebsch took a plurality of votes in a crowded special election in April, with Kirkpatrick close behind in a race that featured eight total candidates, five Republican and three Democrat.
Kirkpatrick, a orthopedic surgeon for over 30 years and former president of Resurgens Orthopedics, ran on a platform of helping in the repeal and replacement of Obamacare as well as getting rid of the state income tax and replacing it with the Georgia Fair Tax. Her background in healthcare proved popular in a district that had long supported Tom Graves, the current Secretary of Health and Human Services who previously served as the Congressman for the district.
Republicans with their eye on the much ballyhooed CD-6 race between Karen Handel and Jon Ossoff must feel good about the result, as the state Senate district lies mostly within the Cobb County portion of the Congressional district. That race does not come to a conclusion until June 20th, so even with SD 32 wrapped up the campaigning will continue its fevered pitch in East Cobb for another month.
