Feb. 25, 2026
Editor:
As incumbent Republicans around north Georgia re-think their careers, the tone of the two parties is changing in ways that might surprise you.
National attention is on Congressional District 14, which Marjorie Taylor Greene left open after a spat with President Trump. A special nonpartisan election on March 10 is so crowded with Republicans, a Democrat might make the runoff. He’s a cattle farmer and retired Army brigadier general who is campaigning for affordable healthcare and restoring markets for farmers.
Democrats closer to Pickens County are sounding similar themes.
For instance, the two leading Democratic candidates for District 11, which covers Pickens County, are looking to replace Congressman Barry Loundermilk after he decided not to run for re-election. He became the 29th Republican in Congress to skip out on the dreaded Trump mid-term election.
One of these Democrats is Barry Wolfert, a Realtor who plays guitar in a Beatles cover band. He has raised the most money, according to FEC filings, and his issues are affordable healthcare and affordable housing.
The other Democrat getting attention is Chris Harden, who grew up in a trailer in tiny Rossville, Ga. A lawyer and businessman, he says he’s for “restoring common sense and stability.”
Wolfert and Harden, the only two candidates who responded to their Ballotpedia surveys, are stressing the concerns of average families in Pickens County. They don’t match the caricature that one Republican candidate, Ellis Bachman, has on his campaign website, that “American Conservative Capitalism” must prevail “against the evil attack of Democrat Socialism & The Global Socialist Movement.”
The candidates who will do well here in 2026, if the traditional mountain spirit of independent thinking prevails, will be those who campaign “against the corruption and corrosion of Washington, D.C.,” and for the rule of law under our Constitution.
That’s on the campaign website of a Republican candidate, Chris Mora, a former chair of the Pickens County Republican Party and former Jasper Rotary president. To me, his position sounds like what I hear from local Democrats.
Another opening for a Democrat is the local state Senate seat (Dist. 51), including Pickens, since Republican state Sen. Steve Gooch has switched to running for lieutenant governor. The one Democrat running unopposed in his party’s primary is a tough-sounding, churchgoing “conservative” Army veteran named Gary St. Lawrence, who says this: “Georgia has been 100% controlled by Republicans since 2004 – Governor, Senate and House. Our state government is a shambles of corruption, redundancy, inefficiency and allegiance to corporations and rich donors, and no longer functionally serves the voters who aren’t rich or influential.”
If this isn’t what you imagine as your local Democratic Party, take another look.
Doug Cumming
Docs and musings 