District 6 Race: Judson Hill Gets Marco Rubio Endorsement

EAST COBB, GA -- A candidate in Georgia's 6th District race garnered a high-powered endorsement from the Republican establishment Monday, Patch has learned.

Former state Sen. Judson Hill was endorsed by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a major shot in the arm for the Marietta resident.

The endorsement nod is an apparent returned favor for Hill, who threw his support behind Rubio in the heavily contested GOP race for the presidency last year.

Rubio's word figures to hold particular sway in the 6th District: He handily won the area during the Georgia GOP primary a year ago. In the presidential race, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump ran neck in neck in the 6th District, before he narrowly won it (by less than 2 percentage points).

“Judson Hill is the only conservative Republican in this race who can win – and he’s a proven leaderwho can help us get our nation back on the right track after eight years of the Obama administration,” Rubio said in a statement, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We have enough talkers up here in Washington. We need doers, and Judson Hill is a doer.”

Read more: Here are the candidates running for Georgia's 6th District

Georgia's 6th District includes the affluent northern Atlanta suburbs of Fulton and DeKalb and stretching to East Cobb. The area has voted Republican for more than two decades, but last year's win was by the skinniest of margins. Democrats see an opening in the area's young, college-educated populace, and are throwing major money into the race.

Hill is one of the more prominent candidates in a wide-open field for the 6th, which was vacated by Tom Price after he was tapped by Trump to the the nation's health secretary.

Eleven Republicans – David Abroms, Mohammad Ali Bhuiyan, Keith Grawert, Bob Gray, Karen Handel, Judson Hill, Amy Kremer, Bruce LeVell, William Llop, Dan Moody, and Kurt Wilson – are in the race.

Five Democrats – Ragin Edwards, Richard Keatley, Jon Ossoff, Rebecca Quigg, and Ron Slotin – think they can turn the district, while two Independents -- Alexander Hernandez and Andre Pollard -- also have their hats in the ring.

The special election will be April 18 followed by a June 20 runoff between the top two contenders.

Image via Craig Johnson / Public Domain