Cobb County Democrats could celebrate early on Tuesday night, when the initial vote tally was announced in a special election for two hotly contested county commission seats.
Just after polls closed at 7 p.m. for the specially called District 2 and 4 elections, the two Democratic candidates, Erick Allen for the District 2 seat and Monique Sheffield, the District 4 incumbent, already held commanding leads. At around 7:20 p.m., Allen had pulled ahead in the District 2 race against Republican challenger Alicia Adams by 2,592 votes (61.8%) to 1,603 (38.2%). Sheffield similarly held a lead of 1,693 votes (77.6%) against Republican Matthew Hardwick, with 488 votes (22.4%).
Those margins didn’t change much by the time all precincts had reported their votes, around 9:45 p.m. The final tally for Allen’s win in District 2 was 5,403 votes (58.6%) to 3.820 votes (41.4%) for Adams. Sheffield retained her seat with 7,215 votes (64.5%) to Hardwick’s 2,564 votes (35.5%).
Allen and Sheffield’s wins give Democrats a 3–2 majority on the five-seat county commission. The April 29 special election for the two county commission seats was prompted after the Republican-controlled state legislature redrew the commission’s voting district maps in 2023 during a contentious redistricting battle that began in 2022.
In response, the Democratic-controlled Cobb County Commission cited “home rule” powers and rejected the legislature’s map that placed a Democratic commissioner inside a majority Republican voting district. Adams, the Republican contender for the District 2 seat, in turn sued the county commission. Last July, a Cobb Superior Court judge ultimately ruled in favor of the legislature’s redrawn voting district map, which triggered the special election.
The newly constituted Cobb County Commission will be faced with tackling housing and transportation challenges in Georgia’s third most populous county. Last year, a referendum to add 1% to the county sales tax in order to fund mass-transit expansions was rejected by voters.
Additional reporting by Claire Becknell.
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