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The City Council elections this year are perhaps most interesting because there's not much interest.
In other words, voter turnout on Tuesday is expected to be especially low. As of mid-morning Thursday, for example, a mere 282 people had voted early and only 31 absentee ballots submitted. The primary reason for the lack of interest is the mayoral race, which is uncontested for the first time in recent memory. The mayors race is always the big-ticket item and the one race that all city voters can cast ballots for, regardless of district.
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In district 5, a total of 355 votes were cast in 2017 – 254 for incumbent Boo Mullins and 101 for challenger Harry Keim. Here in 2021, it wouldn't be surprising if the vote total ended up being somewhere in the low to mid 200s. This is good news for the challenger in this year's District 5 election – Jessica McQuain. For challengers in a municipal election, the lower the vote total the better, and their chances improve.
McQuain's candidacy is interesting because she's the first openly gay candidate to run for City Council, as well as perhaps the most "progressive" to ever run. During her candidate interview with Baldwin 2k, which can be heard in the Youtube clip directly below, McQuain gets into a number of issues and cornerns.
The six City Council districts are definitely gerrymandered, and the goal of the gerrymandering is to ensure three African-American council members and three white council members, with the idea that the city of Milledgeville's population is roughly 49 percent white and 45 percent African-American, according to the most recently available Census data.
District 5 is one of the "African-American districts," which makes Mullins the prohibitive favorite and McQuain an underdog. Numerous white candidates have run in District 5 against Mullins in the past, but none have ever gotten more than 30 percent.
District 5 includes everything north of Montgomery Street (think in terms of the Georgia College library) and south of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive between Columbia and Jefferson streets, as well as many of the homes south of Carrington Woods and east of North Columbia Street (think in terms of the neighborhood across the street from the old Northside Piggly Wiggly shopping center). Also included is parts of Carrington Woods and most of the homes off the homes off of Dunlap Road prior to getting to Carrington Woods (Leo Court, etc.)
Mullins, meanwhile, is running on his experience and tenure, making multiple references to his "21 years on the council" in the clip immediately below. Mullins also says that the current makeup of the City Council has "an excellent working relationship" and the ability to get things done.
