Editor’s note: Earlier this week, InsiderAdvantage looked at the diverse crowd of Republicans planning to run for the 7th Congressional seat. Today, we look at the Democrats who plan to enter the race.
Georgia’s 7th Congressional District is drawing a lot of attention. The last time the seat was open was in 2010 when current Republican Congressman Rob Woodall won the chance to represent Gwinnett and Forsyth — which hasn’t elected a Democrat since the mid-1990s. But Democrats want to change that.
In the 2016 election , Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux came within 500 votes of defeating Woodall. She’s running again, and Woodall has announced that he is not. But Bourdeaux won’t have an open path to the November 3, 2020 General Election. Although she is seen as the favorite in her party, she is facing a packed crowd in her own primary.
Bourdeaux, a professor of public policy at the Andrew Young School at Georgia State, ran in 2016 mainly on healthcare issues, calling it the “number one pocketbook issue for many people in the 7th District.”
She has been quoted as saying, “This is a system that is simply broken. Everybody deserves access to affordable quality health care. We need to bring down the cost of prescription drugs by leveraging the purchasing power of programs such as Medicare to negotiate in bulk prescription drug prices. We need to implement the Affordable Care Act the way it was intended including expanding Medicaid.”
Other Democrats announcing they will run:
Marqus Cole
“Like Bordeaux Cole says that he has heard many in the 7th District expressing concerns about health care — especially high premiums, out-of-pocket expenses and prescription costs. He was recently quoted as saying, “When I get to Washington I will fight for a health care system that is affordable, accessible and meets the needs of my neighbors.”
State Rep. Brenda Lopez Romero
Lopez Romero became the first Latina elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 2016, and is now seeking the 7th Congressional seat. She represents a Norcross-area district and has been described by many as a “rising star in the State Democrat party.”
She has expressed a goal of “working in a bipartisan fashion for sensible comprehensive immigration reform. She is also campaigning on affordable quality health care access and quality public education.
John Eaves
Another familiar name in the race is former Fulton County Commission chairman John Eaves. He was a late entry in the packed field for Atlanta mayor in 2017 and finished with just 1,200 votes. Eaves recently moved from Fulton to Gwinnett and announced his candidacy earlier this year. He sees traffic “as the greatest threat to our future,” and says he is “the only candidate in the race who has skin in the game, who has experience, who has been at the table developing a solution to the problem of traffic in Forsyth and Gwinnett County as well as the region …”
State Sen. Zahra Karinshak
Karinshak flipped a Gwinnett based Senate seat in 2018. She attended the U.S. Air Force Academy and served as an intelligence officer during the Gulf War, and later graduated from Emory Law School. She served as legal counsel to Gov. Roy Barnes amid the fight to change the Georgia state flag and has emerged as a leading opponent of anti-abortion legislation.
Nabilah Islam
Calling herself a political activist, Islam got her start on Andre Dickens’ campaign for Atlanta City Council and Jason Carter’s 2014 bid for governor. Reportedly, she raised money for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, and later worked for the Democratic National Committee. She describes herself as the daughter of working class immigrants, and says she has been “on the frontlines of progressive politics for nearly a decade.” She was recently quoted as saying, “We are better than Donald Trump. I know this with certainty. I know how great we are and how great we can be.”
Rashid Malik, who unsuccessfully challenged Woodall in 2016, recently filed paperwork to begin fundraising.
