Voters in the northern part of Oconee County will be represented in Atlanta in January by someone not from neighboring Clarke County for the first time since Oconee County was split into two parts in House legislative redistricting in 2011.
Both Democrat Suzanna Karatassos and Republican Ward Black, on the ballot in tomorrow’s 120 House District race, are from Jackson County.
Republican Houston Gaines from Clarke County currently holds the seat, but he is running to represent the 10th Congressional District in tomorrow’s election.
The area that is the Northeast Precinct of Oconee County, stretching from Bogart and points north to Hodges Mill Road on the southeast, has been represented by Republicans Gaines, Regina Quick, and Doug McKillip, and Democrat Deborah Gonzalez, all from Clarke County, since 2011.
At present, 20.3 percent of Oconee County’s 34,600 registered voters are in the Oconee Northeast Precinct. The 120th House District consists of that precinct plus parts of Clarke, Barrow, and Jackson counties, with Clarke County the largest part in terms of number of voters.
In 2024 voting, 48.4 percent of the vote in the 120th House District came from Clarke County, with Jackson contributing 25.9 percent, Oconee contributing 17.5 percent, and Barrow contributing 8.3 percent.
While Gaines was frequently at odds with the Democratic Clarke County, he was a native son with strong name recognition in the county.
His absence on the ballot tomorrow raises the possibility that Democrat Karatassos could increase the Democratic numbers in Clarke County and make the race more competitive than it has been in recent years.
Recent Voting History
In the 2022 and 2024 elections, Gaines won handily, with 61.2 and 61.3 percent of the vote respectively.
Gaines carried all four of the counties in the district in both elections, with 54.5 percent of Clarke County vote in 2024 and 55.1 percent in 2022.
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In Oconee County, Gaines had 73.4 percent of the vote in 2024 and 74.5 percent in 2022. His figures in Barrow County were 71.2 percent in 2024 and 69.8 percent in 2020. In Jackson County, Gaines received 79.5 percent of the vote in 2024 and 80.9 percent in 2022.
Gaines ran against Democrats Andrew Ferguson in 2024 and Mokah Jasmine Johnson in 2022, both of whom also are from Clarke County.
Democrat Gonzalez won in a special election in 2017 after Quick stepped down.
In that election, what is now House District 120 was House District 117, which included more of Oconee County, Clarke County and Barrow County, but less of Jackson County.
The Athens Academy Precinct was moved in 2021 from then District 117th to what had been the 119th House District to form the new 121st House District.
That 2017 special election also was affected by high turnout in Clarke County due to inclusion on the ballot of a Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum.
A special election at the same time for then House District 119, which included most of Oconee County, also produced a victory for Democrat Jonathan Wallace. Both Gonzalez and Wallace lost in rematch elections in 2018.
Redistricting in 2021
The 2021 redistricting, which created the 120th House District from the 117th House District and the 121st House District from the 119th House District, involved the shift of the boundaries of both districts north.
That resulted in both districts becoming more Republican, with the 120th picking up a larger part of Jackson County to that end.
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| Karatassos 9/24/2026 |
Without that shift, Republican candidate Black would not be in a position to seek to represent Oconee County in the General Assembly in January.
Ward lives just south of Jefferson Road in Commerce. Jefferson Road is the northern boundary of the thumb of House District 120 jutting into Commerce and separating House District 120 from House District 31. That part of Jackson County was not in the old 117th House District.
Ward’s business, Solid Ground Services and Supply, is based in Commerce,
Karatassos lives off U.S. 441 just north of the Clarke County line. She works from her home as a social media content creator.
Her family is from Clarke County.
Early Voting
As of the end of the day on Monday (Nov. 2), 3,086 (43.9 percent) of the registered voters in Oconee Northeast Precinct had voted, lower than the 47.6 percent for the county as a whole.
Of the 3,086 votes cast in the Northeast Precinct, 2,867 were cast Advance In Person, with the remaining 219 cast Absentee By Mail.
In 2024, voters in Oconee Northeast Precinct cast 3,999 votes Advance In Person, 357 Absentee by Mail, and 1,137 on election day, for a total of 5,493.
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| Black 9/24/2026 |
So only heavy voting tomorrow will bring the current vote total of 3,086 in the Oconee Northeast Precinct to the 5,493 level of total votes from 2024.
Early voting data for the parts of Barrow, Clarke, and Jackson counties in House District 120 are not available because of the way those district lines are drawn in those counties.
Overall turnout as a percent of Active voters on Monday was 30.2 percent in Barrow County, 40.5 percent in Clarke County, and 37.1 percent in Jackson County.
For Oconee County as a whole, that figure was 50.0, and for the Northeast Precinct it was 46.7 percent.
In 2024, Election Day Voting made up 31.1 percent of the total vote in Barrow County, 20.4 percent in Clarke County, and 23.2 percent in Jackson County. In the Northeast Precinct of Oconee County, that figure was 20.7 percent.
Democrat Eric Gisler defeated Republican Mack “Dutch” Guest IV in a special election in the 121st House District in December not by running up turnout in Clarke County but by increasing the percent of votes he received in both Clarke and Oconee counties from what he had received in losing in 2024.
Karatassos will have to increase the percent of vote she receives over what Ferguson received in 2024 in Clarke County as well as in Oconee County to have any chance of being successful tomorrow.
In the end, it probably comes down to how well each of the Jackson County candidates has made the case for representation of Clarke and Oconee counties from the Jackson County address.
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