At the same time, a pair of well-funded Democratic candidates, Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, are running competitive races for the state’s two Senate seats. Representative Lucy McBath, a Democrat, is favored to win re-election to her suburban Atlanta House seat against Karen Handel, whom she beat in 2018. The suburban Atlanta House seat of a retiring Republican is expected to flip to the Democrats.

Some Democrats even dream of capturing the state House.

All this is happening in a state exploding with diversity, whose new politics are defined by young voters, suburban women alienated by President Trump, and minorities energized by Stacey Abrams and her near miss bid in 2018 to become the country’s first African-American woman governor.

Georgia Democrats — stung in the past by premature talk of a Peach State realignment — are careful to temper their optimism. The Republican Party remains well-organized, popular and powerful here. Republicans hold every elected statewide office, control both chambers of the state Legislature, still command a majority among college-educated white voters, and maintain a dominance in rural counties.

Jason Carter, the grandson of President Jimmy Carter and a Democrat who was soundly defeated in the 2014 race for governor, joked, “Frankly, I think it would be impossible for Trump to win — and I haven’t been this confident since 2016,” when Hillary Clinton’s campaign dared to dream of a Georgia victory.

Source: New York Times

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