POWDER SPRINGS, Ga. — Less than a 30-minute drive from Atlanta, Powder Springs embodies the changes reshaping Georgia politics. Shops and restaurants owned almost entirely by Black proprietors line its downtown center and are frequented by a growing population of young and racially diverse residents. The suburban city elected its first Black mayor in 2015, and the county where it sits, the former Republican stronghold of Cobb, voted for President Biden by 14 percentage points in 2020.
There is one other big change: Powder Springs, a majority Black city, may soon be represented in Congress by Marjorie Taylor Greene.
That development, the result of new district maps drawn by Georgia state legislators, was part of a Republican drive to blunt Democrats’ power. But for residents, the prospect of Powder Springs and another predominantly Black suburb, Austell, being represented by perhaps the most far-right Republican in Congress is raising questions that go beyond partisan politics. Some say they have little trust that Ms. Greene will pay them the same attention and respect that she gives to her white, Republican constituents and fear their voice in Congress won’t speak for them.
“It’s about having someone that’s going to take your phone calls, who’s going to work on your behalf, who’s going to care what happens to your children, who is going to care about making sure you get to your job,” said State Representative David Wilkerson, a Black Democrat who lives in and represents the communities now drawn into Ms. Greene’s congressional district. “That’s what people are looking for.”