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Eric Gisler flipped a Georgia House seat from red to blue.
Eric Gisler won a special election on Tuesday by about 200 votes.
In a stunning special election upset that extends losses by Republicans around the United States in 2024 elections, Democrat Eric Gisler flipped a Georgia state House seat that President Donald Trump carried by 12 points, winning by fewer than 200 votes in a race that LGBTQ+ advocates are calling a decisive rebuke of far-right politics in a rapidly shifting suburban district.
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The victory in House District 121, which spans parts of Barrow, Jackson, and Madison counties along the outer edge east of metro Atlanta and the Interstate 85 corridor, marks one of the most dramatic legislative reversals in Georgia’s recent political history. Just last year, an anti-LGBTQ+ Republican incumbent won the seat with 61 percent of the vote, the Associated Press reports. For Democrats, flipping it required an aggressive turnout operation and a candidate who framed equality not as a niche issue but as a core civic value.
Gisler embraced that argument from the center of his campaign.
The Human Rights Campaign treated the special election as a proving ground for its strategy that voters are increasingly rejecting far-right culture-war politics in favor of stability and fairness. The group endorsed Gisler and ran a targeted mobilization effort that included volunteer canvassing, text banks, and digital advocacy. An HRC spokesperson said those efforts reached roughly 1,000 members in the district and another 7,000 identified “Equality Voters.”
“HRC’s well-timed support secured the votes we needed to win this election and flip this seat,” Gisler said in a statement to The Advocate, adding that “full equality for all under the law is a common sense value and I’m proud to have the support of the LGBTQ+ community.”
Bentley Hudgins, HRC’s Georgia state director, said voters sent an unmistakable message.
“By electing Eric Gisler to represent State House District 121, Georgia voters sent a strong, resounding message that far-right cruelty and chaos are not welcome in our home,” Hudgins said in a statement to The Advocate. “Our neighbors voted for full equality under the law, for health care, for fair pay, for affordable groceries, and for the preservation of our country.”
The flip carries added weight as state legislatures across the South continue to debate measures targeting LGBTQ+ people, particularly transgender youth. Georgia has been a frequent battleground in those fights, making the outcome of this race a closely watched test of whether such policies still motivate voters or increasingly repel them. In Virginia, where Republicans leaned heavily on anti-trans ads during this year’s gubernatorial campaign, Democratic Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger proved that those attacks are not successful when candidates stay focused on issues that affect most Americans, such as affordability.
Related: Inside the fight against Trump in red states: It 'isn't just about Pride. It's about power'
Gisler is expected to be sworn in later this month, joining a Democratic caucus that remains in the minority but has steadily narrowed the GOP’s margin through races like this one.
For LGBTQ+ advocates, the result offers more than symbolic vindication. It is a data point they argue cannot be ignored: in a district that once favored Trump by double digits, equality messaging did not just survive — it won.
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