What we learned from a Democratic win in an Athens House seat

Campaign organizers say Gisler was a well-qualified candidate and had a message that resonated with voters.

“We stuck to the fact that everything’s so expensive,” said Shellby Branch, chair of the Athens-Clarke County Democrats. “Health care in Georgia is horrific. There’s more uninsured folks in Georgia than the national average. People’s food is really expensive. Eric wanted to fight against corporate interest and to fight for the working class.”

Counting on Clarke

This 2025 campaign was the second go-around for Gisler, who ran against incumbent Republican Marcus Wiedower last November. Wiedower stepped down from the seat in October to focus on his real estate business, opening the seat for a special election.

In 2024, Gisler received 39% of the overall vote. He reached 26% among Oconee County voters and 65% among Clarke voters. This time, he was able to garner 82% of the vote in Clarke County while improving to 36% in Oconee County.

To maximize Clarke numbers, Gisler’s campaign focused on voters who frequently participate in elections — often called high propensity voters.

“With a special election, you want to get out your strong Democrats,” Branch said. “Literally just telling your supporters about the election is basically the biggest hurdle. So, this is less about persuasion and more informational.”

About two-thirds of voters were from Oconee County, which aligns with the makeup of registered voters in the district. Oconee had slightly higher turnout with 29% of voters casting a ballot compared to 24% in Clarke County, according to an analysis of voter data from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of the roughly 11,500 voters in Tuesday’s election.

Going into Election Day, Gisler’s campaign needed to see higher turnout in Clarke. While about two-thirds of Oconee County’s voters cast a ballot early, over half of Clarke County’s voters waited until Election Day to vote.

That was possible thanks to infrastructure advantages. On Election Day, Athens made 10 precincts available while Oconee had only three.

“That means that those locations were a lot more accessible for our Athens voters,” she said.

Older in a college town

Although Clarke County has a large population of young people, local campaigns don’t tend to rely on voters aged 18-29 to win because most students are registered in their home county, which is often elsewhere in the state.

Voters aged 18-29 make up 23% of registered voters in the district, but just 8% of voters in this election.

“Athens is home to the University of Georgia, which means that we have a lot of transient folks that move in and out pretty frequently,” Branch said. “That just makes it harder for us to reach younger people because they’re moving so frequently, so strong Democrats tend to be older folks because we have so much data on their voting history.”

Instead, most voters were white and over the age of 50.

White voters made up 86% of the vote and had the highest turnout, with almost one-third showing up to cast a ballot. Black voters made up a little more than 3% of the total vote.

Working together

Party changes and organizational coordination also contributed to Gisler’s success, organizers said.

Earlier this year, the Democratic Party of Georgia chose Charlie Bailey to serve as its new chair. Throughout his first year, he has focused on providing financial and organizing support to county parties, which has made a key difference.

“Being able to hop on a call with Chair Bailey and his staff, to be able to get out our volunteer opportunities to their newsletter, for them to come in and help with digital and commercial media, to get some surrogates and campaigns down here, helped us maintain our momentum,” Branch said.

Democratic candidates running other campaigns also spent time supporting Gisler’s run. That included former state Sen. Jason Esteves, who knocked on doors, and former DeKalb County chief executive Michael Thurmond, who had Gisler on his radio show. Both men are running for governor. Josh McLaurin, who is running for lieutenant governor, helped Gisler, too.

Ruwa Romman, who is also running for governor, said she lent her own campaign staff to Gisler in the final stretch.

“Our campaign, from staff to volunteers, leaned in to support Eric during this race,” she said. “This included both social media amplification, but also we did multiple joint canvasses with this campaign, and we amplified volunteer opportunities with his campaign to our list of over 1,000 volunteers.”

Athens-Clarke County Democrats worked with Oconee County Democrats, as well as the young Democrats at the University of Georgia, the local chapter of the activist group Indivisible and even the Democratic Socialists of America.

In total, Gisler’s campaign knocked on more than 11,000 doors. Caleb Lux, the president of Young Democrats at UGA and Athens-Clarke County, said his group knocked on more than 650 of those doors.

Sam Lau, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, said the organization reached 1,000 of its members who reside in the district.

“Everyone was able to set aside ideological differences that normally keep us from working as closely together, and we all jointly got out the vote for Eric,” Branch said.