Democrat Jerica Richardson defeated Republican Fitz Johnson in the race to fill the seat of District 2 Commissioner Bob Ott on the Cobb County Board of Commissioners, and we’re going to examine from where in the district each candidate drew their strength.
This is the third in a series of articles taking a closer look at the dramatic results of the November 3 2020 election in Cobb County.
District 2 has been, until this election, a reliably Republican seat.
Along with District 4 Commissioner Lisa Cupid‘s defeat of incumbent Republican Chairman Mike Boyce, this election yielded the first majority Democratic Cobb BOC since the GOP gained control of the body in 1984 under Chairman Earl Smith.
The tally for Richardson was 53,776 or 50.49 percent of the vote. Johnson’s share of the vote was 52,724, or 49.51 percent of the total.
A good place to begin a closer look at the precinct level is this screenshot of the map showing the distribution of precincts Johnson won (in dark blue) and those Richardson won (in green).
As you can see, Richardson’s strength was in the southern part of the district including Smyrna, the two Marietta precincts in District 2, and all of Vinings except for Vinings 04.
Johnson’s strength was in East Cobb and Vinings 04.
Vinings 04 is one of a handful of precincts that delivered its votes to Joe Biden in the presidential race, but went with Republicans in local races.
We’ll be looking at Vinings 04 more closely in a later article. It’s an unusual precinct in that it’s a Republican-leaning precinct surrounded by Democratic-leaning precincts on the Cobb County side, but it’s adjacent to Republican-leaning Buckhead across the river in the City of Atlanta.
In the tables below I’ve linked to the map of each precinct, so by clicking on the name, you can get an idea of its boundaries and its placement on the larger map.
If you drill down into the precinct maps linked to below, you’ll find that Johnson did well in precincts running along Roswell Road, Sewell Mill Road, Post Tritt Road, Johnson Ferry Road … in fact along all the major corridors associated with East Cobb.
The corridors where Richardson was strong included South Cobb Drive, Atlanta Road, Oakdale Road, Concord Road, Cobb Parkway, Cumberland Parkway and the Cooper Lake Road area … in other words Smyrna, parts of Vinings and the Cumberland area.
Precincts won by Johnson
The following precincts were won by Fitz Johnson:
| Johnson | Richardson | |
| Chestnut Ridge 01 | 1639 | 985 |
| Dickerson 01 | 1381 | 942 |
| Dodgen 01 | 1051 | 674 |
| Eastside 01 | 1541 | 944 |
| Eastside 02 | 1952 | 1329 |
| Fullers Park 01 | 1623 | 1147 |
| Hightower 01 | 2075 | 1371 |
| Murdock 01 | 1941 | 1344 |
| Mt Bethel 01 | 2056 | 1286 |
| Mt Bethel 03 | 1494 | 1089 |
| Mt Bethel 04 | 1484 | 882 |
| Powers Ferry 01 | 1260 | 1104 |
| Roswell 01 | 2668 | 1776 |
| Roswell 02 | 1797 | 1217 |
| Shallowford Falls 01 | 1667 | 1102 |
| Sewell Mill 01 | 1502 | 1254 |
| Sewell Mill 03 | 836 | 583 |
| Sope Creek 01 | 1115 | 682 |
| Sope Creek 02 | 1924 | 1636 |
| Sope Creek 03 | 1385 | 859 |
| Timber Ridge 01 | 1204 | 807 |
| Vinings 04 | 1486 | 1115 |
| Willeo 01 | 1416 | 897 |
Precincts won by Richardson
| Johnson | Richardson | |
| Chattahoochee 01 | 1116 | 2669 |
| Dobbins 02 | 519 | 1074 |
| Marietta 6A | 256 | 928 |
| Marietta 7A | 14 | 133 |
| Nickajack 01 | 887 | 2538 |
| Oakdale 01 | 1328 | 1682 |
| Smyrna 1A | 612 | 1818 |
| Smyrna 2A | 658 | 1556 |
| Smyrna 3B | 688 | 819 |
| Smyrna 4A | 1955 | 2203 |
| Smyrna 6A | 2017 | 2467 |
| Smyrna 7A | 1343 | 2420 |
| Terrell Mill 01 | 1161 | 2310 |
| Vinings 01 | 819 | 1452 |
| Vinings 02 | 1638 | 2713 |
| Vinings 03 | 1216 | 1969 |
In the next installment in this series we’ll take a look at the race for Cobb County Sheriff, in which longtime incumbent Neil Warren was unseated by Democratic challenger Craig Owens.
