WOODSTOCK, Ga. — In a congressional race in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, Democrats have been spending the precious final days of the campaign making an urgent appeal: Do not vote for the “Democrat.”

After a dizzying sequence of events, the party has disavowed the candidate listed as its nominee for Georgia’s 11th House District: Katy L. Stamper, a lawyer who argues that the Republican incumbent is not conservative enough and has offered herself as a choice who would be.

The platform presented by Stamper, who refers to herself as an “independent candidate running on the Democratic ticket,” includes a call for the mass deportation of immigrants without legal status, whom she has described as “invading ungrateful hordes.” She wants to repeal the right to same-sex marriage. She supports free therapy for transgender people, but only because, as she says on her campaign website, “We should help them deal with their mental injuries without pretending reality is other than it is.”

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Democrats Scramble to Mobilize

As a result, Democrats have been scrambling to mobilize a write-in campaign, trying to direct support to another candidate — one with views that are not diametrically opposed to the party’s position on just about every issue.

Tracey Verhoeven, a relative newcomer to Georgia politics, has emerged as that candidate.

Her campaign, which began in August, has claimed TheRealDemocrat.com as the domain for its website. Yard signs — including one warning of a “Fake Democrat” — were printed in just the past few weeks. And volunteers have been handing out cards that voters can take with them to the polls explaining how to write in a candidate.

“What she did was not right,” Verhoeven said of Stamper, sitting at a brewery and barbecue spot in Woodstock, Georgia, that has served as her de facto campaign headquarters, “and I want to rectify it.”

The race is not widely regarded as competitive. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, the Republican incumbent seeking his sixth term, has won past elections with more than 60% of the vote, and does not appear to be sweating the challenge.

Still, Stamper’s place in the election has helped create a situation that is, quite simply, bizarre: Democrats in the district are hoping for a surge in turnout to boost Vice President Kamala Harris in a crucial swing state, while also wishing that in this one specific race that support will not trickle down the ballot.

And Loudermilk, 60, is in the rare position of fending off a challenge from the right in a general election.

Stamper, 66, disputed claims that she had misrepresented herself in the May primary, arguing that voters responded to her focus on issues like inflation and her desire to push the party in a more conservative direction. She criticized party leaders for failing to respect a victory she believed she earned fair and square.

“They mobilized against me because they dislike democracy, real democracy,” Stamper wrote in response to written questions.

The district encompasses a vast stretch of terrain, including suburbs remolded economically, racially and politically by explosive growth; idyllic lakeside communities; and rural sprawl. In the primary, which had very low turnout compared with past years, Stamper won with almost 57% of the just over 24,000 votes cast, outpacing Antonio Daza, the Democrat who lost to Loudermilk in the 2022 general election.

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Some Democrats believe that Republicans took advantage of the state’s open primary system and voted on the Democratic ticket. But an analysis prepared by Daza’s advisers also suggests that Stamper may simply have benefited from many voters knowing little about who was running. The consultants cited research, including from Northwestern University, that found Democratic voters were more likely to favor female candidates over male ones.

After the primary, Stamper expounded extensively on her vision for squeezing out immigrants: Twenty-five million people need to be deported, she said. She also called for stripping away the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit that helps immigrants without legal status with anything other than leaving the country.

The friction with Democrats intensified over the summer as her views became more widely known.

Amy Susanne Powers, who is involved in a group of liberal women in Cherokee County, introduced herself to Stamper at an event, and told her that she had a transgender child.

“I’m so sorry,” Stamper replied, according to Powers.

After that, Powers called Verhoeven with a plea: You need to run.

Verhoeven, who moved from California three years ago and owns rental properties, had some reluctance. She was recovering from a primary run this year for a state Senate seat that she lost by 171 votes. She was grieving the recent death of her mother. Her 7-year-old son kept her busy.

But she was easily persuaded.

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Powers, who has a business decorating short-term vacation rentals, became her political director. The first thing she did, Powers said, was open ChatGPT and type in: “How do you win a write-in campaign?”

The strategy has been to do everything possible to catch up: Days of door-knocking, text message blasts, TikTok videos and podcast interviews. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia’s largest newspaper, published a story about the campaign this month.

Verhoeven, 60, has tried to position herself as a moderate alternative. She supports abortion rights and finding a compromise to add some restrictions on gun access. She believes that border security needs to be strengthened, but also argues that more needs to be done to address the forces — particularly violence and the consequences of climate change — that are driving people toward the United States.

“I feel it, I see it — I want to make a difference,” Verhoeven said. “I have too many good ideas.”

She acknowledged the effort was a long shot. Her best hope, perhaps, is advancing to a runoff. Still, she said, at a recent event she ran into Jon Ossoff, one of Georgia’s Democratic senators. She told him she would see him in Washington.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Rick Rojas/Alyssa Schukar
c. 2024 The New York Times Company