Gun store owner Andrew Clyde appeared headed for a convincing win against his opponent Tuesday in the race for the vacant 9th Congressional District seat to keep Northeast Georgia in Republican control.
Clyde, who fended off more well-known Republicans in the June primary, was poised to claim the district seat currently held by U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, who declined to seek reelection so he could run for the U.S. Senate.
Clyde, who was running his first political campaign, was leading with nearly 80% of the vote just before midnight in Tuesday’s general election. He faced Democratic candidate Devin Pandy, an actor and U.S. Army veteran Devin Pandy, in a district stretching from Gainesville and Athens northeast to the South Carolina border.
Clyde’s campaign touted hallmark Republican positions including protections for gun ownership, opposition to abortion and reducing government spending. He has also called for dismantling the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in favor of a “FairTax” levy targeting consumption only.
A U.S. Navy veteran, Clyde gained political exposure in recent years by pushing Congress to pass legislation limiting the IRS’s powers for civil asset forfeiture after the agency seized nearly $1 million from his gun store.
Clyde credited the experience with inspiring him to run for office, saying in a debate last month that it “showed me there’s a very thin line between we the people running our government and our government running us.”
Clyde grew a small firearms business he launched in his Athens garage in 1991 into a nationwide company with two locations, following three combat deployments in Iraq and Kuwait.
Ahead of Tuesday’s victory, Clyde defeated several prominent state Republican contenders including three current state lawmakers to capture the nomination.
Among them were state Rep. Matt Gurtler, R-Tiger, who fell to Clyde in an August runoff. Gurtler’s reputation for frequently voting against GOP-backed bills prompted many state Republican leaders to support Clyde.
Last month, Clyde batted down attacks from Democratic nominee Pandy who slammed the gun-store owner for suing Athens-Clark County officials to keep his business open during the county’s shelter-in-place order in March.
Clyde also faced criticism for his positions on climate change, which he said last month he does not think exists beyond the normal four-season cycle each year.
“I will hold court with those scientists who don’t believe in man-made climate change,” Clyde said during an Oct. 12 debate with Pandy.
Clyde’s likely win maintained Republicans’ strong hold over North Georgia along with a victory for businesswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene in the neighboring 14th Congressional District stretching from Paulding and Haralson counties north through Rome, Calhoun and Dalton to the Tennessee line.
Greene gained national attention over past online videos in which she appeared to promote the anti-government conspiracy theory QAnon and dismiss the racial-justice underpinnings of the Black Lives Matter protest movement.
She defeated Republican opponent and neurosurgeon John Cowan in an August runoff and has been the presumed winner since her Democratic opponent dropped out of the race in September.