
The Democratic candidates in a Cobb Board of Education primary in the East Cobb area are fewer than 100 votes apart following Tuesday’s elections.
Micheal Garza leads Susan McCartney by 78 votes in Post 4 results that are final, but unofficial, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.
Post 4 includes the Kell, Lassiter and Sprayberry high school clusters.
A critic of the Cobb County School District’s leadership, Garza has 5,016 votes, or 50.39 percent. McCartney, a retired teacher at Shallowford Falls Elementary School, has 4,938 votes, or 49.61 percent.
That’s a margin of 0.78 percent. Under Georgia law, second-place candidates can call for a recount if the difference is 0.5 percent or less.
Garza told East Cobb News Wednesday afternoon that “our campaign is confident that we will be named the winner of the primary when the results are made official.”
He said it’s his understanding that “every vote, outside of any provisional votes, has been counted in the early vote, mail vote, and election day vote.”
On her campaign Facebook page, McCartney conceded Wednesday afternoon, saying that “I am incredibly proud of what we accomplished with a grassroots effort and absolutely no financial backing from any groups or PAC’s. We ran a race with a hundred dollars and only lost by less than one percent.”
The Cobb Board of Registration and Elections will meet next Tuesday to certify primary election results.
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Garza will face three-term incumbent David Chastain in November in a contest that will determine party control of a Cobb Board of Education that has been increasingly fractious in recent years.
Chastain, who was unopposed Tuesday, is the only Republican on the ballot in this year’s school board elections. Republicans hold a 4-3 majority, while Democrats control the Cobb Board of Commissioners and the county’s legislative delegation.
In the Post 6 school board race, Democratic incumbent Nichelle Davis easily won her primary over school district critic Jennifer Susko and has no Republican opposition. Post 2 Democratic incumbent Becky Sayler was unopposed in the primary and the general election.
In 2022, Chastain was re-elected following a bitter general election battle with Democrat Catherine Pozniak (he was later fined for campaign finance violations).
This year, Chastain has early support from prominent Cobb business and civic leaders, including John Loud of Loud Security Systems, a former Cobb Chamber of Commerce chairman who’s gotten involved recently in local Republican campaigns, and who is Chastain’s steering committee chairman.
Garza unsuccessfully ran twice against Republican State Rep. John Carson of Northeast Cobb in 2022 and 2024.
“The challenge for us was to impress upon voters the importance of a school board race and to hit enough voters in a short amount of time in a large post that spanned 27 precincts,” Garza said Wednesday.
He said his campaign had more than 100 volunteers who wrote 7,000 postcards and knocked on almost 3,000 doors during the primary, including high school students writing out notes on a digital learning day.
“You don’t win races like this alone, and I am humbled that so many people in the community have supported me over the years, including my school community,” said Garza, a PTA leader at Keheley Elementary School, where his daughter is a student, as well as the East Cobb County Council of PTAs.
McCartney pledged her support to Garza and said that “my commitment to our community and to public education remains as strong as ever. I ran because I care deeply about our students, our teachers, and the future of our schools, and that passion does not end tonight. This is not the last you will see of me.”
Related:
- Runoffs loom for Ga. Congress, Senate, governor’s primaries
- Cobb incumbents cruise; school board race too close to call
- Cobb Elections reports ‘election operations’ issues at polls
- East Cobb primary election-day voting guide
- Cobb Democrats speak out against non-partisan elections law
- East Cobb News explainer: How we cover politics and elections
- MORE: Visit the East Cobb News Politics & Elections Page
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