Vernon Jones, former state representative, Dekalb County CEO, and 2022 gubernatorial candidate has made it official - he's running for Congress in Georgia's 10th District, after bowing out of the governor's race in recent days.
Jones represented portions of Dekalb and Rockdale Counties in the Georgia House until last year, and his campaign finance reports list an address in Lithonia, which is in the 4th Congressional District. But, unlike the case for state house and senate districts, there's no law requiring members of the US House to live in the districts they represent.
That means that instead of running in the 4th district, a heavily Democratic area represented by a long-serving incumbent, Jones, a Republican, can run in the much more conservative 10th, which is an open seat. But despite the GOP-friendliness of the district, Jones won't necessarily have an easy road to Congress. He faces over a dozen Republicans already in the race, including a former Congressman, Paul Broun.
The 10th district, redrawn by the General Assembly as part of redistricting late last year, is centered around Athens, but stretches from Jackson, Madison, and Elbert counties in the north to Jasper, Putnam, and Hancock counties in the south.
