Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia on Friday set a special congressional election for July 28 to fill the vacancy left by the death of Representative David Scott, a Democrat, last month.
The winner will serve out the remainder of Mr. Scott’s term, which ends early next year. The district — Georgia’s 13th — covers a swath of suburbs along Atlanta’s eastern flank and is seen as one of the safest seats for Democrats in the Republican-controlled state.
Mr. Scott had represented the district for more than two decades. And at 80, he had no intention of relinquishing the seat, filing for re-election a month before his death on April 22 despite growing calls for him to step aside because of his deteriorating health. Such concerns had improved his challengers’ prospects in the Democratic primary, which is scheduled for May 19.
Mr. Scott’s name will still appear on the primary ballot; early voting began on Monday.
With a special election nearly three months away, those who were running against Mr. Scott will have to quickly decide whether to mount parallel campaigns in hopes of both serving out the rest of his term and holding onto the seat next year.
The Democratic primary candidates include Jasmine Clark, a state representative; Everton Blair Jr., who serves on the school board in Gwinnett County; Emanuel Jones, a state senator; and Dr. Heavenly Kimes, a dentist better known as a longtime cast member of the Bravo reality series “Married to Medicine.”
Marcye Scott, the congressman’s daughter, has said that she intends to run in the special election. “I can tell you that I know everything about the 13th District, just like him,” Ms. Scott told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, adding that if she did not enter the race, “I think my father would come back to life and kick my butt.”
State Democratic Party officials had pressed Mr. Kemp, a Republican, to move swiftly to fill the vacancy, noting the narrow margins of power in the House of Representatives. Georgia’s delegation consists of nine Republicans, four Democrats and Mr. Scott’s vacant seat; all but one of the Democrats are based in the Atlanta metro region.
The call to set the election came just as Mr. Kemp said he would not summon lawmakers back to Atlanta to redraw the state’s congressional maps in time for the midterm elections in November.
The Supreme Court’s decision this week weakening the Voting Rights Act has opened the door for Republican officials across the South to try to reconfigure maps to strengthen their party’s standing. Doing so would come at the expense of districts that had been legally mandated to have a majority of Black residents and that traditionally voted for Democrats.
Mr. Kemp, who is term limited, had resisted a push from other Republicans, including candidates vying to succeed him as governor, to call a special legislative session to redraw those maps for the 2026 election cycle. Instead, Mr. Kemp said on Friday that his sights were set on creating new maps for 2028.
