Georgia's Sixth District

Georgia's Sixth District

Geography

Georgia's Sixth Congressional District is located in the northwest area of Georgia and encompasses much of the northern suburbs of Atlanta, including the suburban city of Roswell. It includes part of Cobbs County, northern Fulton County, and the Dunwoody area of northern Dekalb County.

Demographics

Population: About 700,000 people live in Georgia's Sixth District.

Race/Ethnicity: Around 72% of the population is white, 13% is black, 12% is Hispanic, 9% is Asian, less than 1% is Native American.

Employment: More than half of the 400,000 workers in the Sixth District work in management, business, science, and arts occupations. The median income is $92,317.

Home and Education: 4.4% of families in the Sixth District are below the poverty line. Most adults above age 25 have at the very least some college experience. 94% of people above age 25 have a high school degree and 62% have a bachelor's degree or higher. Georgia's Sixth District has been recognized as one of the best-educated districts in the United States. 

Median Age: 37.8

Politics

Georgia's Sixth District has been reliably Republican for decades, which some have attributed to gerrymandering. After each decade's census is taken, redistricting occurs, and Georgia's Sixth had started to include more wealthy, well-educated Republicans than the urban poor it used to primarily represent.

Here is a representation of all the changes made to the Sixth District since 1981.

Interestingly, Georgia's Sixth District happened to experience the most expensive House race in history during the 2017 special election. More than $50 million was spent between candidates Karen Handel and Jon Ossoff. Karen Handel took the victory.

In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump gleaned a 1.5 percentage victory over Hillary Clinton.

The Republican hold of the Sixth District was broken in 2018 when Democrat Lucy McBath won the midterm election against Republican Karen Handel. Before McBath, there hadn't been a Democrat representing Georgia's Sixth District since 1979. The victory could be an anomaly or could be indicative of a newly changing electorate.