Eric Gisler, elected in December to represent much of Oconee County in the Georgia House of Representatives, received a hero’s welcome when he appeared before Oconee County Democrats last month.
“You know, this is the first time that the representative from House District 121 has ever come to any of our meetings,” Party Chair Harold Thompson said in introducing Gisler, to laughs and a loud round of applause.
Gisler noted that Jonathan Wallace, who had won a special election as a Democrat in 2017, had been active in and also had spoken before Oconee County Democrats.
Gisler acknowledged, however, that Wallace represented Oconee County in what was then the 119th House District. The number of the similarly defined district that includes parts of Oconee and Clarke counties changed in redistricting in 2022.
Gisler told the group about his experiences in the first nine days of the legislative session, thanked the audience members for their support in the special election on Dec. 9, and outlined what he plans to do to get re-elected in November.
Party Chair Thompson and Ray Smith, Second Vice Chair of the party and technical specialist for the Gisler campaign, followed Gisler with their analysis of the campaign that resulted in Gisler defeating Republican Mack “Dutch” Guest IV by 198 votes in the Dec. 9 election.
“It was a full-court press to make this happen,” Thompson said. Volunteers knocked on 10,000 doors, including 3,000 in Oconee County, in five weeks of the campaign, Smith said.
Following the analysis, Smith announced that he has decided to build on that “momentum” and seek the party nomination in the May 19 primary for Georgia Senate District 46, which includes all of Oconee County and parts of Clarke, Walton, Gwinnett, and Barrow counties.
Gisler’s Report
“So, it has been kind of a whirlwind the last couple of weeks–the last month,” Gisler said after being introduced by Thompson at the Jan. 22 meeting. “I don't even know where to begin.”
“But it's great to come back here to Oconee County Democrats,” he said. “I mean, this is where I got involved for the first time. So this is fantastic.”
Gisler served as co-chair and then chair of the Oconee County Democratic Party from 2018 to 2022 and as treasurer until he was replaced in that position at the Jan. 22 meeting, held at the Oconee County Library in Wire Park. Thirty-two people attended, almost all in person.
Gisler said he know how to get to his office, which side of the building contains the Senate Chamber and which side is used by the House, “where the coffee machine is, where the bathroom is.”
“So I've pretty much got my bearings now,” he said.
“I’m learning an awful lot,” he said. “I probably met like 2,000 people in the last couple of weeks.”
“Everybody's very friendly,” he said. “Everybody's very cordial. The Republicans are your best friends too, right? Until you want to try to get something passed.”
“I haven't experienced this myself yet,” he continued, “but I've been warned many times that Democratic bills just don't move. And, and it is purely because the Republicans, who control the Chamber, don't want to give us any wins.”
Legislative Ideas
Gisler said he was working with a Republican to get a bill passed that is the result of an experience of “a constituent here in District 121 over in Clarke County.”
Gisler said “a young woman had a baby in December of 2024. The baby lived for 20 minutes, and she did not call her insurance company to put the baby on her insurance plan within the 30 days. So they didn't cover it.”
“They billed her for all the expenses related to her giving birth and losing a child within 20 minutes,” he said. “So this bill would automatically cover newborns on the parents’s insurance in the state of Georgia.”
“By the time it gets through, if it gets through, it may not have my name on it,” Gisler said. “But it's good policy and it needs to happen. So I'm okay with that.”
Gisler did introduce on Feb. 2 House Resolution 1200 “urging the Georgia Secretary of State to continue to protect private and protected information in Georgia’s voting registration list from an unwarranted request from the United States Department of Justice to produce unredacted copies of such voter registration.”
The resolution, which has been sent to the House Government Affairs Committee, has five co-sponsors, all Democrats.
Future Plans, 2026 Elections
Gisler held a Town Hall meeting in Oconee County just before the legislative session started in January, and he said at the Democratic Party meeting on Jan. 22 that he plans to hold such a meeting every month, with a second scheduled for 3 to 5 p.m. on Feb. 28 at the YWCO, 562 Research Drive, Athens.
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| Gisler With Crowd 1/22/2026 |
“It was important for me to do that in Athens because they haven't really had representation for a long time,” said Gisler, who lives in Oconee County, “and so I do want to make sure that we're over there.”
Republican Marcus Wiedower, who stepped down as the representative from the 121st House seat on October 28, resulting in the Dec. 9 special election, also lives in Oconee County.
In the Dec. 9 special election, 32.8 percent of the votes cast came from Clarke County, just down from the 33.2 percent from Clarke in the November 2024 election, when Gisler had challenged Wiedower for the 121st House seat.
Guest has announced that he will seek the Republican Party nomination to challenge Gisler in November. Gisler had said he planned to run for the seat in November even before Wiedower stepped down, and no one has indicated so far they will challenge him in the Democratic Party primary.
“I really feel like this is the year where the Democrats could take the State House,” Gisler said at the Jan. 22 meeting.
“It's going to be very difficult for me to keep this seat,” he said. “I’ll do everything I can to keep it, of course, and you guys are all going to help. So thank you.”
“But even if I end up losing,” he said, “we could still win the House. We're only 10 seats down right now. And this is not one of the biggest--most competitive--district in the state.”
Pitch To Voters
“I'm going to do everything I can to give everybody every reason they need to come out and vote for me next November,” Gisler continued.
“You guys have heard me say this before,” he said. “But there's a difference between a MAGA Republican and a traditional conservative.”
“I think that there are a lot of the people, even in Oconee County, who just vote conservative, vote Republican, because they've always voted Republican.”
“I don't think they're happy with what they're seeing, especially at the federal level, these days,” he said. “And I think that coming down even to the state level in a lot of ways.”
Gisler said it is important “to raise visibility of that and show that good stuff is not happening because of the blatant partisanship.”
I think the more people see that, the more they know about that, the more they're going to be willing to listen to somebody that's reasonable.”
Gisler received 35.5 percent of the vote in Oconee County in the Dec. 9 election and 82.3 percent in Clarke County. Across the District, he received 50.9 percent of the votes.
In 2024, Gisler received 26.0 percent of the vote in Oconee County and 64.7 percent in Clarke County, and 38.9 percent across the District.
The 121st House District includes Oconee Central, Oconee South, and Dark Corner precincts in Oconee County and all or parts of 10 precincts in Clarke County.
Election Analysis
Following Gisler’s comments, Thompson said he and Smith were “going to do a little, brief recap of the special election that got Eric elected.”
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| Thompson 1/22/2026 |
“You saw what happened, saw the end result,” he said, “but you might not have known kind of what went on behind the scenes to make all this happen.”
Thompson said that Gisler already had launched his campaign for the party nomination to run for the 121st House seat when Wiedower announced his campaign and he “quickly jumped on, ‘I'm going to run.’”
“And there was a special election announced” on Oct. 30, by Gov. Brian Kemp, Thompson said, “and within like a day or so, a subteam got set up to help manage his campaign.”
Included were volunteers from Oconee and Clarke counties, he said.
“We had help from the Georgia House Democratic caucus to help run a lot of the analytics on doing our canvassing,” Thompson added.
“We had our first meeting on a Wednesday night,” he said, and “by the weekend we were canvassing.”
“The lesson learned here is this is a gerrymandered district, a Republican gerrymandered district,” Thompson said, “and we made this happen.”
“It's not impossible. It's doable. And we have other candidates who are lined up to run this year in this area. They face similar challenge, but, like I said, this is doable. It just needs people's help, needs volunteers, needs donations.”
Suzanna Karatassos has announced her plans to run for House District 120, which includes the Oconee Northeast Precinct and parts of Clarke, Barrow and Jackson counties.
Smith’s Numbers
“We knocked on 10,000 doors in the district,” Smith said when Thompson passed the microphone to him, “including 3,000 in Oconee County.”
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| Smith 1/22/2026 |
In five weeks, he said, “We had over a 100,000 voter touches, whether that was text messages or mailers or postcards to voters or canvassing or phone calls...We had over 100,000 voter touches for a district with only 38,000 voters in it.”
“I was the number cruncher,” he said, “and I was watching very closely, and as we got closer to the end, I got more and more excited. I think we're going to do it. I think we're going to do it. And we won by 198 votes.”
“I predicted that we would win by 200 votes,” Smith said in response to a question from the audience.
“The point is,” he added, “there are no safe Republican districts. If we put the work in, we can flip any of the districts in Georgia.”
At the end of the discussion, Smith said, “So following on those coattails, I'm proud to announce...my candidacy for State Senate 46.”
“I think that even the difficult to win Republican districts are worth fighting for,” he said. “As Eric showed, we can win them. If we put the work in, if we put the money where our mouth is, we can flip these districts.”
William Golden, who appeared before the Oconee County Democrats in November, also is running for the party nomination for Senate District 46.
2026 Goal Setting
The Oconee County Democrats next turned to a listening or goal setting session for 2026, run by First Vice Chair Ann Hollifield.
Hollifield said at a similar session last year, the party had set as a goal electing Democrats.
“What do we want to be able to see that we accomplish this year?” she asked the group.
“Elect more Democrats,” was the first response.
Hollifield told the gathered Democrats that she is serving as media coordinator for Gisler and Smith.
(Hollifield is my wife. She sends me her press releases when she sends them to other outlets (and sometimes even after). She does not read my posts to this blog before I upload them (and sometimes not even after).)
(I consider myself to be an independent voter, but, in the nearly 29 years I have lived in Oconee County, I have voted in Republican primaries with only a few exceptions.)
Republican Party Meeting
The Oconee County Democratic Party is not holding a public meeting in February.
The Oconee County Republican Party had to cancel its January meeting because of the weather.
It’s February meeting will feature Ryan Hammock, running for re-election to the Oconee County Board of Education, and Amrey Harden, running for re-election to the Board of Commissioners.
Doug Mc Killip, running in the May 19 Party Primary for Senate District 46, David Clark, running for Lieutenant Governor, and Mesah Mainor, running for State School Superintendent, also are scheduled to speak.
The meeting is scheduled to be held at 6 p.m. at the Piedmont Oconee Health Campus, 1305 Jennings Mill Road.
The Oconee County Republican Party does not provide remote access or allow video or audio recording of its meetings.
Video
The video below of the entire Jan. 22 meeting of the Oconee County Democratic Party is on my Oconee County Observations Vimeo channel.
Thompson introduced Gisler at 26:22 in the video.
Thompson and Smith began their analysis of the Dec. 9 election at 41:12 in the video.
Hollifield began the goal setting discussion at 53:32 in the video
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