Can Jeremy Hunt Unseat Georgia’s Last Rural Democrat?

In a nation increasingly polarized along rural–urban lines, Georgia’s second congressional district goes against the trend. Rural voters in the 2020 election broke for Republicans by overwhelming numbers: 1,302 of the 1,430 most rural counties in America were carried by Donald Trump. But out of the 127 that went for Joe Biden, three — Calhoun, Clay, and Macon — were in GA-2.

Nestled in the southwestern corner of Georgia, the second congressional district spans the western half of the state’s historic “black belt” (the term denotes a region of majority-black counties). It’s the only rural seat in the state that continues to send Democrats to Washington, D.C., and the one Republican ever to represent the district left office in 1875. But like so many rural communities across the country, GA-2 has been trending red in recent years, and the Peach State’s latest round of redistricting makes it slightly more advantageous for Republicans. The state’s new congressional map, introduced by the Republican legislature and signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp in the final days of 2021, prompted FiveThirtyEight to downgrade the district from D+6 to D+4. That two-point move to the right shifts GA-2 from the polling website’s “competitive Democrat” category to “highly competitive.”