Georgia 3rd District

South of Atlanta, Henry County is among the fastest growing areas in the United States, with a leap in population of 56% from 2000 to 2007. The county’s flourishing residential, commercial and industrial development took root near its seven Interstate 75 interchanges and has benefited from the proximity to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. West of Henry County is the old courthouse town of Fayetteville, whose Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House is thought to have inspired the columned architecture of Tara in author Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind. The town is now engulfed by suburban subdivisions spreading out from Atlanta. The city’s sprawl has reached Newnan and Carrollton, and spread farther south to Thomaston. In the old textile town of West Point in Troup County, along the Alabama border, South Korean automaker Kia is building a $1.2 billion plant that is expected to bring 4,500 jobs to the area. Production of up to 300,000 cars annually was scheduled to start in late 2009.

Much of this territory is within the 3rd Congressional District of Georgia. In the 2005 redistricting, it replaced the old 8th District. It includes roughly one-third of the small industrial city of Columbus (the rest is in the 2nd District, which also contains most of Fort Benning), but Fayette County is the largest population center. And the ring of five counties that are closest to Atlanta include roughly half of the district’s population. From 2000 to 2007, the district grew by 20%. This is conservative country, with young tradition-minded families and a large share of military families. People here are upwardly mobile, but aren’t necessarily at the upper end of the income scale. The ancestral politics of most of this area was Democratic, but that is as much a part of history now as Tara. This is one of the most heavily Republican congressional districts in Georgia. President Bush won 70% here in 2004, and Republican candidate John McCain won 65% in 2008.