Democrat Eric Gisler has claimed an upset victory in a special election in a historically Republican Georgia state House district.
Gisler said he was the winner of the contest, in which he was leading Republican Mack “Dutch” Guest in the final unofficial returns.
A Democratic win in a district that backed US President Donald Trump by about twelve points last year lands ahead of next year’s midterms, when Georgia will host closely watched races for the Senate and the governor’s office.
CNN, Decision Desk HQ, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) all projected Gisler’s victory over Republican Mack “Dutch” Guest in the 121st House District, which includes parts of Oconee County and Athens.
Democrats have seen several electoral successes in 2025 as the party's voters have been eager to express dissatisfaction with Trump.
In Georgia in November, they romped to two blowouts in statewide special elections for the Public Service Commission, unseating two incumbent Republicans in campaigns driven by discontent over rising electricity costs.
Nationwide, Democrats won governor's races by broad margins in Virginia and New Jersey.
On Tuesday, a Democrat defeated a Trump-endorsed Republican in the race for Miami mayor, becoming the first from his party to win the post in nearly 30 years.
Democrats have also performed strongly in some races they lost, such as a Tennessee US House race last week and a Georgia state Senate race in September.
Close race
On Tuesday, voters in a second, heavily Republican district in Atlanta's northwest suburbs sent Republican Bill Fincher and Democrat Scott Sanders to a Jan. 6 runoff to fill a vacancy created when Rep. Mandi Ballinger died.
The GOP majority is down from 119 Republicans in 2015. It would be the first time the GOP holds fewer than 100 seats in the lower chamber since 2005, when they won control for the first time since Reconstruction.
The race between Gisler and Guest in House District 121 in the Athens area northeast of Atlanta was held to replace Republican Marcus Wiedower, who had been in the seat since 2018 but resigned in the middle of this term to focus on business interests.
Most of the district is in Oconee County, a Republican suburb of Athens, reaching into heavily Democratic Athens-Clarke County.
Republicans gerrymandered Athens-Clarke to include one strongly Democratic district, parceling out the rest of the county into three seats intended to be Republican.
Gisler ran against Wiedower in 2024, losing 61% to 39%. This year was Guest's first time running for office.
