The Cobb District Attorney’s race: a look at the precinct results

Democrat Flynn Broady defeated incumbent Republican District Attorney Joyette Holmes in the November 3 2020 general election.

This is the fifth of our series looking at the election results in Cobb at the precinct level. To read the previous articles visit our precinct results series page.

Of all the countywide races won by Democrats in the blue sweep of the county, the race between Broady and Holmes had the narrowest margin of victory. With Broady at 51.34 percent and Holmes at 48.66 percent, the margin of victory was 2.68 percent.

For comparison, the margin of victory in the race for Clerk of Superior Court was 4.12 percent, in the race for chairmanship of the Board of Commissioners 6.3 percent, and for Sheriff a whopping 10.48 percent.

Here is a screenshot of the distribution of precincts won by Broady or Holmes taken from the Cobb County election results web page (Holmes precincts are coded in green, Broady’s precincts in dark blue):

Note in the southern portion of the county, that in addition to Vinings 04 (the only consistently Republican-leaning precinct that far south in the county), Holmes picked up usually Democratic-leaning precinct Mableton 04.

Mableton 04 is one of the most evenly matched Cobb precincts between Democrats and Republicans, but the Broady-Holmes race was the only contest in the November 3 election where the Republican won the precinct.

So what accounts for the relative popularity of Joyette Holmes, who like Warren, is part of the Cobb County criminal justice system?

Holmes had built relationships with many Democratic activists, and received endorsements from some prominent Democratic activists and political figures, including incoming Cobb Board of Education member Leroy Tre’ Hutchins, Powder Springs City Councilwoman Doris Dawkins, and former Democratic State Representative Alisha Thomas Morgan.

She also built good will with her work on record expungement for people who had been accused of felonies but not convicted.

She had also, however, come under criticism from some Democratic criminal justice reform activists for what they viewed as her inadequate handling of the investigation into the death of Kevil Wingo in the Cobb County Adult Detention Center.

Despite her defeat by Flynn Broady, she managed to break the 50 percent mark for margin of victory in one precinct she won, Marietta 4A, won a Democratic-leaning Mableton precinct, and did not get beaten as badly in the solidly Democratic precincts as incumbent Republican Sheriff Neil Warren did, which kept her overall margin of defeat narrower than Warren’s.

The narrowest margins of victory were both on the northern edge of the county, adjacent to Cherokee County: Wade Green 02, where Holmes eked out a 0.40 margin of victory, and Bells Ferry 03, where she won by a margin of 0.43 percent.

The widest margins of victory were Broady’s wins in heavily Democratic South Cobb precincts Bryant 01 and Bryant 02, by 76.62 and 73.82 percentage points.

So both the widest and narrowest margins of victory were on opposite north-south edges of the county.

Here is the complete list of precinct outcomes. To see the map of any precinct, click on the name.

Precinct	Broady	Holmes	Winner in Precinct	Margin of Victory
Acworth 1A	1862	2059	Holmes	5.02
Acworth 1B	1561	2018	Holmes	12.77
Acworth 1C	2090	1316	Broady	22.72
Addison 01	902	1014	Holmes	5.85
Austell 1A	2498	754	Broady	53.63
Bells Ferry 02	1016	1220	Holmes	9.12
Bells Ferry 03	817	824	Holmes	0.43
Bells Ferry 04	1107	1535	Holmes	16.20
Big Shanty 01	677	899	Holmes	14.09
Big Shanty 02	1103	1329	Holmes	9.29
Baker 01	1845	1448	Broady	12.06
Birney 01	1066	702	Broady	20.59
Birney 02	1759	1107	Broady	22.75
Bryant 01	1292	171	Broady	76.62
Bryant 02	2643	398	Broady	73.82
Blackwell 01	992	1014	Holmes	1.10
Chattahoochee 01	2630	1190	Broady	37.70
Cheatham Hill 02	905	1559	Holmes	26.54
Cheatham Hill 03	1428	1818	Holmes	12.01
Chalker 01	2299	1493	Broady	21.26
Clarkdale 01	723	511	Broady	17.18
Clarkdale 02	2436	1154	Broady	35.71
Cooper 01	2446	819	Broady	49.83
Chestnut Ridge 01	991	1635	Holmes	24.52
Dickerson 01	960	1372	Holmes	17.67
Dobbins 01	983	396	Broady	42.57
Dobbins 02	1659	732	Broady	38.77
Dowell 01	1214	1253	Holmes	1.58
Dodgen 01	682	1052	Holmes	21.34
Durham 01	1000	2450	Holmes	42.03
Davis 01	724	944	Holmes	13.19
Eastside 01	953	1540	Holmes	23.55
Eastside 02	1288	2010	Holmes	21.89
Elizabeth 01	1601	829	Broady	31.77
Elizabeth 02	771	1080	Holmes	16.69
Elizabeth 03	864	1354	Holmes	22.09
Elizabeth 04	1166	853	Broady	15.50
Elizabeth 05	968	1266	Holmes	13.34
East Piedmont 01	1003	839	Broady	8.90
Fair Oaks 02	2387	1069	Broady	38.14
Fair Oaks 04	1743	891	Broady	32.35
Fullers Park 01	1134	1641	Holmes	18.27
Ford 01	721	1796	Holmes	42.71
Frey 01	658	1340	Holmes	34.13
Garrison Mill 01	944	1352	Holmes	17.77
Gritters 01	1267	1685	Holmes	14.16
Harmony-Leland 01	3522	947	Broady	57.62
Harrison 01	720	1762	Holmes	41.98
Hightower 01	1377	2108	Holmes	20.98
Hayes 01	1068	2149	Holmes	33.60
Kennesaw 1A	816	805	Broady	0.68
Kennesaw 2A	1261	1421	Holmes	5.97
Kennesaw 3A	2486	1732	Broady	17.88
Kennesaw 4A	1280	1369	Holmes	3.36
Kennesaw 5A	2225	2169	Broady	1.27
Kell 01	636	902	Holmes	17.30
Kemp 01	473	1097	Holmes	39.75
Kemp 02	1197	1957	Holmes	24.10
Kemp 03	879	2312	Holmes	44.91
Lassiter 01	1110	1839	Holmes	24.72
Lindley 01	2654	1054	Broady	43.15
Lost Mountain 01	1103	1853	Holmes	25.37
Lost Mountain 02	1004	2488	Holmes	42.50
Lost Mountain 03	1480	2822	Holmes	31.19
Lost Mountain 04	688	1411	Holmes	34.44
Mableton 01	2272	1228	Broady	29.83
Mableton 02	1317	612	Broady	36.55
Mableton 03	1142	989	Broady	7.18
Mableton 04	609	645	Holmes	2.87
Mabry 01	438	929	Holmes	35.92
Macland 01	2008	905	Broady	37.86
Murdock 01	1330	1971	Holmes	19.42
McEachern 01	1502	1146	Broady	13.44
McCleskey 01	553	862	Holmes	21.84
McClure 01	844	1724	Holmes	34.27
Marietta 1A	1504	836	Broady	28.55
Marietta 2A	618	1099	Holmes	28.01
Marietta 2B	1689	1364	Broady	10.65
Marietta 3A	1450	1715	Holmes	8.37
Marietta 3B	1036	304	Broady	54.63
Marietta 4A	401	1261	Holmes	51.74
Marietta 4B	687	822	Holmes	8.95
Marietta 4C	790	1464	Holmes	29.90
Marietta 5A	1292	748	Broady	26.67
Marietta 5B	1143	483	Broady	40.59
Marietta 6A	1102	435	Broady	43.40
Marietta 6B	1129	1125	Broady	0.18
Marietta 7A	1382	432	Broady	52.37
Mars Hill 01	703	2010	Holmes	48.18
Mars Hill 02	882	1195	Holmes	15.07
Mt Bethel 01	1315	2059	Holmes	22.05
Mt Bethel 03	1108	1495	Holmes	14.87
Mt Bethel 04	901	1490	Holmes	24.63
North Cobb 01	837	817	Broady	1.21
Nickajack 01	2473	982	Broady	43.15
Norton Park 01	1803	1312	Broady	15.76
Nicholson 01	763	1050	Holmes	15.83
Oakdale 01	1595	1417	Broady	5.91
Oregon 01	497	831	Holmes	25.15
Oregon 02	2599	1192	Broady	37.11
Oregon 03	2131	969	Broady	37.48
Oregon 04	2135	1034	Broady	34.74
Oregon 05	1620	1411	Broady	6.90
Pebblebrook 01	2516	748	Broady	54.17
Powers Ferry 01	1174	1316	Holmes	5.70
Pine Mountain 01	902	1905	Holmes	35.73
Pine Mountain 02	685	1911	Holmes	47.23
Post Oak 01	1036	1874	Holmes	28.80
Pope 01	1010	1499	Holmes	19.49
Palmer 01	787	1211	Holmes	21.22
Powders Springs 1A	2397	1163	Broady	34.66
Powders Springs 2A	1684	565	Broady	49.76
Powders Springs 3A	1850	824	Broady	38.37
Pitner 01	897	1189	Holmes	14.00
Rocky Mount 01	1037	1589	Holmes	21.02
Riverside 01	951	158	Broady	71.51
Roswell 01	1793	2681	Holmes	19.85
Roswell 02	1201	1842	Holmes	21.06
Sandy Plains 01	1071	1224	Holmes	6.67
Shallowford Falls 01	1117	1669	Holmes	19.81
Simpson 01	604	866	Holmes	17.82
Sewell Mill 01	1263	1512	Holmes	8.97
Sewell Mill 03	1651	1416	Broady	7.66
Smyrna 1A	1777	681	Broady	44.59
Smyrna 2A	2558	1069	Broady	41.05
Smyrna 3A	1899	1226	Broady	21.54
Smyrna 3B	1016	879	Broady	7.23
Smyrna 4A	2342	2304	Broady	0.82
Smyrna 5A	1775	1029	Broady	26.60
Smyrna 6A	2383	2122	Broady	5.79
Smyrna 7A	3293	1838	Broady	28.36
Sope Creek 01	699	1107	Holmes	22.59
Sope Creek 02	1630	1966	Holmes	9.34
Sope Creek 03	906	1356	Holmes	19.89
Sweetwater 01	1322	962	Broady	15.76
Sweetwater 02	1441	493	Broady	49.02
Terrell Mill 01	2256	1233	Broady	29.32
Timber Ridge 01	820	1197	Holmes	18.69
Vaughan 01	778	1743	Holmes	38.28
Vinings 01	1409	878	Broady	23.22
Vinings 02	2614	1754	Broady	19.69
Vinings 03	1928	1271	Broady	20.54
Vinings 04	1095	1516	Holmes	16.12
Wade Green 02	1729	1743	Holmes	0.40
Willeo 01	900	1421	Holmes	22.45
Total:	197553	187241