WASHINGTON (AP) — Six candidates in Georgia’s 13th Congressional District will compete in a special election on Tuesday to replace the late Democratic U.S. Rep. David Scott, who died in April.
The contest in the heavily Democratic district could have an immediate impact on the balance of power in the U.S. House, where Republicans cling to a thin majority.
Under Georgia law, the four Democrats and two Republicans running to succeed Scott will appear on the same ballot, and any of them could secure the seat outright by winning a majority of the special election vote. Otherwise, the top two vote-getters regardless of party will advance to an Aug. 25 special runoff election.
The winner will serve out the remaining few months of Scott’s current term.
Among the Democrats vying for the seat are former Gwinnett County School Board Chair Everton Blair and Marcye Scott, daughter of the late congressman. Democrats Tony Brown and Carlos Moore and Republicans Caesar Gonzales and Fayth Park are also on the ballot.
Blair is the only candidate in the field who also ran for the full-term seat set to begin in January 2027. He placed third in the May 19 Democratic primary with about 12% of the vote. State Rep. Jasmine Clark won the primary with 56% of the vote and will face Republican Jonathan Chavez in November. Chavez, who ran unopposed for the GOP nomination, challenged David Scott in the 2024 general election and received about 28% of the vote.
Clark did not file to compete in the special election. Doing so would have required her to resign from her seat in the state Legislature just as Republican Gov. Brian Kemp was calling for a special session to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries in time for the 2028 elections. The state constitution bars state officeholders from seeking a different office with a start date more than 30 days before the end of the officeholder’s current term. The special session did convene, but Republican leaders opted not to take up redistricting.
In recent years, congressman Scott had faced questions over his age and health. At the time of his death at age 80, he was facing a tough primary challenge from Clark and others as he sought a 13th term.
Georgia’s 13th Congressional District is east and southeast of Atlanta and includes parts of six heavily Democratic counties: Clayton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Henry, Newton and Rockdale. Of the six, the district’s portion of Gwinnett County has the lion’s share of voters, about 46% of the district electorate in the 2024 general election. The district includes only a small sliver of DeKalb County, which plays a much bigger role in the 4th and 5th Congressional Districts.
Scott won his 2024 reelection bid with about 72% of the vote. That night, Democratic then-Vice President Kamala Harris received about 71% in the district, compared with about 28% for Republican Donald Trump, in the presidential election. Trump had his best performance in the district in Gwinnett County, although that still only amounted to about 35% of the vote.
Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:
Polls close at 7 p.m. ET.
The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in the special election for the 13th Congressional District.
Any voter registered in the 13th Congressional District may participate in the special election.
As of July 21, there were about 584,000 registered voters in the 13th Congressional District. Georgia voters do not register by party.
About 358,000 votes were cast in the 2024 U.S. House general election in the 13th District. Turnout in special elections tends to be significantly lower than in regularly scheduled November general elections.
About 78% of the total vote in the 13th District general election in 2024 was cast early in person or by mail.
As of Friday, nearly 8,700 ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election, with the largest share coming from Gwinnett County, followed by Clayton County.
All six counties in the 13th Congressional District tend to release most or all of their results from early in-person and mail voting in the first vote update of the night, usually before any in-person Election Day results are released.
In the 2024 general election, the AP first reported results in the 13th District U.S. House race at 7:10 p.m. ET, or 10 minutes after polls closed. About half of the total vote had been counted by 9:31 p.m. ET. The last vote update of the night was at 2:21 a.m. ET, with about 99.9% of total votes counted.
The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.
There is no automatic recount provision in Georgia, but a losing candidate may request a recount if the margin is less than or equal to 0.5% of the total vote. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
As of Tuesday, there will be 28 days until the Aug. 25 special runoff election, if needed, and 98 days until the 2026 midterm elections on Nov. 3.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.
The sign for the office of the 13th Congressional District of Georgia in the Cannon House Office Building is photographed July 20, 2026, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Tallulah Brown Van Zee)
LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) — France’s interior minister said Monday that a monster wildfire has stopped growing after forcing 220,000 people out of their homes in the country’s southwest but cautioned that it isn’t yet beaten.
“It hasn’t progressed during the night,” the minister, Laurent Nuñez, said. “We have to remain very concentrated, very determined, to go at any moment.”
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron held a crisis meeting Monday focusing on monster, uncontrolled wildfires that have forced more than 250,000 people to flee their homes, amid a first glimmer of hope that the spread of the largest blaze may have slowed.
In the Gironde region of southwest France, where flames have burned an area four times the size of Paris, the prefecture said the situation overnight had remained “globally stable" — a change from previous days where the giant blaze raging since last week edged closer to the wine region city of Bordeaux.
In the adjacent southwestern Landes region, where hundreds of firefighters have been making progress against another virulent but smaller fire, the prefecture said some rain fell overnight and described the conditions as “favorable" for firefighting but also cautioned that they could change.
No new evacuations were announced. But with France about to enter its peak August tourist season, Gironde authorities took more steps to keep vacationers away, banning holiday camps for children and for people with disabilities.
The region has evacuated a staggering 220,000 people from fire-hit towns and villages and other localities between the giant blaze and Bordeaux. A further 36,000 people were forced to flee in the Landes, but some have since been allowed to return home.
With thousands of firefighters on the ground and rotations of water- and retardant-dropping aircraft in the air, the massive firefighting effort was engaged in a race against time, battling to make progress before a forecast surge in temperatures from Tuesday that could make fighting flames more difficult.
Crews using earth movers tore up strips of forest and scrubland to create barren spaces, intended to stop fires from spreading. Farmers were keeping fire crews supplied with water, transporting it to them in tanks. Around a dozen countries have provided planes, helicopters, firefighters and other assistance to both France and Spain, which is also fighting unprecedented blazes. All told, fires in both countries have forced more than 330,000 people to flee.
Macron didn't immediately comment after the government crisis meeting he presided over. In a weekend post on X, he pledged long-term support for fire-hit communities, saying: “We will rebuild, we will repair and we will be present for as long as necessary.”
In Spain, wildfires have burned out of control around Madrid and in the Valencia region. Authorities evacuated 76,000 people and confined 30,000 others to their homes.
In both Spain and France, the exceptional scale of the fires — fueled by heat waves that hit especially hard and early this year, making forests and scrubland tinder-dry — are driving calls for stronger action against climate change.
“What we are experiencing is not a series of isolated incidents. It is the consequence of a climate emergency that is making wildfires even more violent, heat waves more frequent," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said.
A fire raging in hilly, rural terrain in Ávila, west of Madrid, has become Spain’s largest on record, scorching 50,000 hectares (193 square miles), the government said. That's five times the size of Barcelona.
Fires have burned 153,000 hectares (590 square miles) this year in Spain — six times the area scorched by blazes in the first half of 2025, said Sara Aagesen, the ecology minister.
The minister said that another heat wave forecast from Tuesday — which would be Spain’s fourth so far this year — could ratchet up the fire danger.
Evacuees are fretting about what they’ll find when they’re allowed to return to fire-hit regions.
“It looked like the apocalypse. You couldn’t see anything. Everything was covered in ash,” said Rocío Domínguez, who evacuated with her dog, Simba, from Chapinería, west of Madrid.
“We don’t know when we get to the town, if we’ll have half the house burned down or we’ll have it intact or we won’t have a house,” she said. “All the clothes, all the memories, everything.”
A wildfire driven by strong winds broke out on Sunday afternoon near Peschici, in Italy’s southern Puglia region, burning pine forest and scrub and forcing the evacuation of about 300 tourists from beaches and campgrounds, authorities said.
The Coast Guard evacuated tourists by sea to nearby Vieste, where authorities opened temporary shelters.
Three Canadair water-bombing planes and fire crews on the ground continued Monday to battle the blaze, which revived memories of devastating wildfires that hit the same coastal area in 2007.
Leicester reported from Paris. Associated Press writers Joseph Wilson in Barcelona and Giada Zampano in Rome contributed.
A De Havilland Canada DHC-8-400 Dash 8 operated by the French civil defense agency drops fire retardant as wildfires rage near Marcheprime, outside Bordeaux, France, Monday, July 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
Firefighters battle a wildfire in San Martin de Valdeiglesias, west of Madrid, Spain, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
A firefighter gestures next to burning trees as a wildfire rages near Marcheprime, outside, Bordeaux, France, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
Firefighters battle a wildfire near Marcheprime, outside, Bordeaux, France, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
Firefighters battle a wildfire near Marcheprime, outside, Bordeaux, France, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
A woman caresses her pet dog at an emergency shelter set up in the Bordeaux Exhibition Centre in Bordeaux, France, for those that had to leave their homes outside town due to the raging wildfires, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Caroline Blumberg)
A fire engine drives through smoke of a wildfire raging near Marcheprime, outside, Bordeaux, France, Sunday, July 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
