Analysis: With Tuesday’s runoff, the primaries have decided most of the races in metro Atlanta straight away

Now that Tuesday’s runoff election has decided the remaining elections from the May 21 general primary, Georgians no longer have to think about heading to the polls before the Nov. 5 general election.

Even though the November election will attract much higher turnout due to the presidential race at the top of the ballot, there will actually be fewer contested county and state races on the ballot for so that voters can decide.

Indeed, many counties lean so heavily toward Democratic or Republican that the opposing party often doesn’t bother to field a candidate. The same goes for House and Senate districts, as they have been so reshuffled in successive redistricting to favor one party’s candidates that very few of them are considered competitive in elections general. (Nonpartisan races, like judicial elections, are decided in primaries by counting Democratic, Republican, and nonpartisan primary ballots.)

All 56 Senate seats and 180 House of Representatives seats are up for re-election this year. But only five of those 236 legislative seats are considered competitive under current Georgia House and Senate district maps, according to Fair Districts GA, a redistricting advocacy group. According to Ballotpedia, of the 180 races for the House of Representatives, only half have both a Democratic and a Republican candidate. It’s even worse for state Senate elections. Out of 56 seats, 33 of them, or 59%, are uncontested.

In metro Atlanta, DeKalb and Fulton counties are heavily Democratic, so for countywide offices, the Democratic primary usually decides the race. The last primary election cycle was no exception.

For example, in the race for DeKalb CEO, Lorraine Cochran-Johnson defeated Larry Johnson in Tuesday’s primary runoff. This makes Cochran-Johnson DeKalb the CEO-elect, since she faces no Republican challenger in November.

In fact, the Democratic primary decided all seven county offices on the ballot in DeKalb.

For Fulton County, only one of the five countywide offices will be challenged in the November general election: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has a Republican challenger, Courtney Kramer. The other four positions were decided in the Democratic primary.

If we also consider the county-wide races for Atlanta’s other metro counties – Clayton, Cobb and Gwinnett – a clear pattern emerges: Almost everyone running for county office has an opponent in november.

All six of Clayton’s countywide offices listed on the ballot were chosen in the Democratic primary.

In Cobb, only the elections for sheriff and clerk of state court will be contested by Democratic and Republican candidates in November — out of seven possible countywide elections. The others were decided during the primaries.

Meanwhile, in Gwinnett, only three of six countywide races — for county commission chairman, sheriff and tax commissioner — will be contested in November.

That is, in the five metro Atlanta counties, less than 20 percent of the countywide offices that are up for election will be decided on November 5, which is the election in which most voters participate.