Cobb County Commissioner Jerica Richardson said Tuesday she will stay in the race for a newly drawn, solidly Democratic west Atlanta congressional district — even if it puts her on a collision course with one of the state’s leading Democrats, according to reports from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Richardson’s decision sets up a potential primary battle against U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, who said last month she will switch to the 6th Congressional District after Republican legislators drew her out of her suburban seat for the second time in two years.

It was a surprising move by Richardson, a Democrat who previously told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution she wouldn’t run against a Democratic incumbent. But it may have been spurred by a court ruling this week that upheld a GOP-drawn Cobb map that ousted her from her commission seat.

“I certainly know what it means to be drawn out of an office and fight to get it back,” Richardson said.

“This race is about the people of the 6th District,” Richardson said. “I have decided that I’m going to keep surfacing the issues that voters care about because our voters deserve to know we are listening and creating ways to close the gap.”

She’s picking a tough fight against McBath, who became one of the nation’s most prominent gun control advocates after her teenage son was murdered in Florida. Backed by President Joe Biden, McBath has won three consecutive terms representing three different metro Atlanta territories.

Richardson first entered the race for the congressional district in September, back when it stretched from north Fulton County to rural North Georgia.

She had little hope of defeating Republican U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick in such solidly conservative territory, but her campaign was widely seen as a placeholder in case a federal judge ordered state lawmakers to draw a new Democratic-leaning district to give Black voters more power.

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones soon ordered legislators to do just that by creating a majority-Black district in west metro Atlanta. The Republican-controlled Legislature carved out a new 6th District across parts of Cobb, Douglas, Fayette and Fulton counties. But they also gutted McBath’s Gwinnett County-based seat.

After Jones upheld the new boundaries, McBath quickly announced she would switch to the newly created district — and touted a $1 million-plus war chest in a bid to scare away would-be rivals.

“I refuse to let the GOP bully me out of Congress,” the Marietta Democrat said. “The stakes are too high.”

Richardson, too, has been on the wrong end of the mapmaker’s pen. First elected in 2020 to the County Commission to represent an east Cobb district, Richardson became a target of Republican legislators who changed the political boundaries to preserve the two GOP seats on the board and draw Richardson out.

The Democratic-controlled commission responded by attempting to overrule the Legislature by amending its own map to protect Richardson. A county commissioner and residents challenged the new commission boundaries, and a judge this week sided with them.

In the statement, Richardson reconciled her promise not to challenge a Democratic incumbent by saying her campaign was “solely focused on delivering for the constituents of the 6th, many of whom are my current commission constituents.”

“In this campaign,” she said, “I am committed to what I am always committed to — which is the people of this district.”

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