Mack “Dutch” Guest IV, running as a Republican in the Dec. 9 House District 121 Special Election, opted to have his 15-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son introduce him at the Monday night meeting of the Oconee County Republican Party.
“My dad is a really nice person who cares about everyone,” Sarah Beth, a freshman at Oconee County High School, said. “Voting for my dad would really help the future,” she added.
“My dad, Dutch, he is the best dad I could ever ask for–a great guy,” Mack V, a fifth grader at Athens Academy, said. “He is very nice, but if he tries to stand up for something, he will. I believe that he will stand up for everyone’s needs.”
Guest followed by saying he is a local businessman who has been involved in the community through coaching a variety of sports and through the Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Touchdown Club.
“I’m not a career politician,” he said. “I’m a trucker. I’m a dad. And this is going to be a short stint in my life.”
In explaining his decision to enter the race shortly after Republican Marcus Wiedower announced his decision to step down for the 121st House District seat, Guest said “When the phone rings and your community needs you, it’s time to step up.”
Guest said he wants to focus on education and public safety if elected to the legislature, and that he would turn to fellow Republican, 120th House District Representative Houston Gaines, for advice on how to be successful in the legislature.
In response to questions, Guest said he is not interested in supporting gambling in the state and that he does not “like” the state income tax.
Single Republican Candidate
Wiedower announced on the morning of Oct. 28 that he was stepping down from the legislature, citing new demands of his job in real estate development.
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| Mack V And Sarah Beth Guest 11/17/2025 |
On Oct. 30, Gov. Brian Kemp called the special election, for which no primaries are held, for Dec. 9.
Guest qualified Nov. 7, the second day of qualifying, and declared as a Republican, and Eric Gisler also qualified on Nov. 7, declaring as a Democrat.
Only those two names appear on the ballot.
At the beginning of the meeting on Monday, held at Piedmont Oconee Health Campus on Jennings Mill Road and attended by more than 50 people, Oconee County Republican Party Chair Kathy Hurley said six Republicans had expressed an interest in running for the spot when Wiedower stepped down.
When Guest began his comments on Monday, he gave a shout out to Steven Strickland, who had publicly announced his intent to run to replace Wiedower but did not file to qualify. Strickland was in attendance at the meeting.
“You are a great Republican, a great man,” Guest said. “Thank you, Steven, I appreciate you.”
In a telephone conversation on Tuesday, Guest said “I had a lot of calls from friends and people in the area asking me to consider stepping up and running for this special election. I had to talk to my wife, Mary Beth, and our kids, and it took us several days to kind of think and pray about it, because we wanted to make sure it was what God wanted us to do.”
Turnout Update
Hurley, as well as both of Guest’s children, and Guest himself emphasized the importance of vote turnout for the Dec. 9 election.
Early voting is right now,” Guest had said at the end of his comments on Monday evening. “We have to get to the polls...Call your friends, text them, ask them to go vote...Let’s go win this thing.”
The 121st House District consists of the Central, South, and Dark Corner precincts in Oconee County and all or part of 10 precincts in Athens-Clarke County, with Oconee County accounting for 63.4 percent of the registered voters.
After two days of early voting on Tuesday, 554 Oconee County voters had cast a ballot, and 122 had cast a ballot in Clarke County.
Overall turnout in Oconee County now is at 2.1 percent, with turnout in the Central and South precincts at 2.3 percent and in Dark Corner at 0.9 percent.
In Oconee County, 27,045 voters are eligible to vote in the Central, South, and Dark Corner precincts combined.
The 121st House District cuts across precincts in Clarke County, and no count of voters in the 121st District is publicly available.
Clarke County, which is heavily Democratic, is carved into four House Districts and in the last session was represented by three Republicans and one Democrat.
Guest On Campaign
Guest told the Oconee County Republicans that he has lived in Oconee County for almost two decades now.”
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| Guest 11/18/2025 |
“My dad, Mack III, and I have a trucking, logistics, and warehousing business,” he said, referring to LAD Trucking, located in Watkinsville on Barnett Shoals Road abutting Wire Park.
“Learning to work especially with your father, you develop a certain little iron skin,” he said, “but you also learn to value everybody’s opinion.”
“Besides my wife and my family,” he said, “the next person I called was my dad to ask permission to enter this race.’
Guest said “We have a great team” at LAD and “that allows me to be here to do this.”
Guest said his two children “are pretty much everything for us. Oconee County, District 121, there’s a lot of families. A lot of young people. Lot of people my age. I’m 41. We need to have that representation in Atlanta.”
“There’s been a lot of calls wanting me to take a position on everything,” Guest said. “I’m learning.”
“One of my favorite things is obviously education. Public safety,” he said. “I’m honored to work with the Board of Commissioners in different counties and work with their needs.”
Gaines And Two Questions
Guest said that “Somebody asked me earlier, what are you going to do if you’re elected? What is the first thing you are going to do?”
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| Hurley 11/17/2025 |
“The first thing I’m going to do is get with Houston Gaines because I would have the honor to serve with him in his last session and learn from him,” Guest said. Gaines is running for the Republican Party nomination for the 10th Congressional District.
Guest took two questions, the first person said that “Marcus Wiedower carried a pretty big torch for gambling. Do you have any comment on how you feel about gambling?”
“I have no interest in that right now,” Guest responded. “I’m focused on lowering the income tax, making things better for my district. I don’t really want to deal with gambling right now.”
The second questioner said he has noticed that if a state lowers a tax, the local government will take over, “so your absolute tax liability remains the same. How do we address that here?”
“We have to figure out a balance,” Guest said.
If the state eliminates its income tax, as many Republicans are proposing, “we are going to have to make that up somewhere,” Guest said.
Guest said “there are corporate loopholes...that we can look at closely to make that up. But, at the end of the day, the goal will be to affect you guy’s pockets. We don’t like that income tax.”
Democratic Party Meeting
The Oconee County Democratic Party is meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday at the Oconee County Library in Wire Park.
Featured speakers are Lexy Doherty, running for U.S. House District 10, William Gaulden, running for State Senate District 46, and Suzanna Karatassos, running for House District 120.
All have declared for the May Party Primary in 2026.
The Oconee County Northeast Precinct is in the 120th House District, and all of Oconee County are in the U.S. Congressional District 10 and State Senate District 46.
Gisler is scheduled to speak to the Athens-Clarke County Democratic Party meeting that same night.
Other Speakers At Republican Party Meeting
Guest was the second of four speakers at the Oconee County Republican Party meeting on Monday (Nov. 17).
He spoke and answered questions for a little more than eight minutes in a meeting that ran right at 90 minutes.
He was preceded by State Senator Steve Gooch, running for the party nomination for Lieutenant Governor, and followed by KJ Allen Kendrick, running for the party nomination for House District 120, and Barbara Rivera Holmes, Georgia's Labor Commissioner, who is seeking re-election.
I will report on the comments of Gooch, Kendrick, and Rivera Holmes in a subsequent post.
The Oconee County Republican Party does not allow recording of its meetings.
Katie Vickery attended the meeting on Monday night and assisted me with the reporting and writing of this post.
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