4th Congressional District Primary Race 2002

I chose to do my paper on the democratic primary for the fourth congressional district race. The race was between the incumbent, Cynthia McKinney and the challenger, Denise Majette. Cynthia McKinney has been in office since 1992 and Denise Majette has been a Georgia State judge since 1992. I chose to do the race because it seemed to be very controversial and it was in my district. Cynthia McKinney was born in Atlanta, Georgia on March 17, 1955, and …

…that was mostly white. The Southern Democratic primary was watched across the country as a thermometer for race relations between blacks and whites and religious tensions between American Jews and Arabs. It ended in a way few would have predicted a year ago, with McKinney, a five term veteran whose effort was financed largely by Arab-Americans, losing overwhelming to Denise Majette, a political unknown who raised $1.1 million from Jews and conservative whites, including Republicans (Glanton, 2002).