A longtime voting rights advocate and former voter protection director for the Democratic Party of Georgia is challenging a Republican incumbent from Cobb County in the state House.

Sara Tindall Ghazal announced she is running for House District 45, which covers parts of East Cobb and Sandy Springs. The seat has been held by Republican Matt Dollar (R-Marietta), who was first sworn in in 2003.

Ghazal served most recently as the state party’s first full-time staffer in charge of voter protection efforts and said that voting rights inspired her to run for office.

“There are so many structural changes that I can see that really need to be made to make voting for accessible for everyone that I can’t make from the outside,” she said. “Elections are a threshold issue … if you can’t vote, then you don’t have a voice in all of these other issues.”

Some of those other issues include increased funding for public schools, common-sense gun safety and expanding Medicaid, she said.

Ghazal is one of many Democrats seeking to unseat at least 16 Republicans to regain control of the state House after the 2020 election, and the stakes are high – the House controls the redistricting process that occurs after the census and determines political maps for the next decade.

A conservative advocacy group GOPAC says it will spend $200,000 next year to boost Republican candidates on the ballot and hold on to their majority.

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