ATLANTA – Georgia Democrats prepared Monday to choose a replacement for Representative John Lewis on the November ballot, reaching a decision less than 72 hours after the civil rights leader turned 17 and the congressman died. .
On Monday morning, party officials announced a list of five finalists selected from a group of dozens who submitted applications over the weekend. The final candidates will speak in the afternoon during a virtual meeting of the party’s executive committee, which will choose a candidate. Whichever candidate is chosen will surely win the general election, given Democrats’ tight grip on the district, which covers a strip of Atlanta and the adjacent suburbs.
Finalists are Park Cannon, a state representative who became the youngest member of the General Assembly when she was sworn in at age 24 in 2016; Andre Dickens, who serves on the Atlanta City Council; Robert M. Franklin Jr., a theology scholar who served as president of Morehouse College, a prestigious historically black institution in Atlanta; Nikema Williams, a state senator who also chairs the state Democratic Party; and James Woodall, president of the Georgia NAACP and, at age 26, one of the organization’s youngest leaders.
The choice fell to the party leadership because Georgia’s primary election was held last month. The position is likely to remain vacant until the winner of the November election opens in January.
The process is overseen by a committee that includes some of the state’s most prominent Democrats, including Keisha Lance Bottoms, the mayor of Atlanta who catapulted herself to national fame in recent months after her response to the unrest in the city and clashes with Governor Brian Kemp. coronavirus precautions, and Stacey Abrams, who narrowly lost his 2018 run for governor to Mr. Kemp.
Still, some in the party, including Tharon Johnson, a longtime aide to Mr. Lewis, are asking the committee to appoint a place holder to resign the seat by swearing in, giving way to a special election in 2021.
After calling applicants on Saturday, 131 people wrote to the Georgia Democratic Party to say they wanted to represent the district, which covers parts of Atlanta and leaks into suburban DeKalb and Clayton counties.
Being the Democratic candidate in Georgia’s Fifth District equals a ticket to Congress: Lewis won with at least 70 percent of the vote in all but one of his reelection offers; Hillary Clinton won with 85 percent of the vote against President Trump in the district during the 2016 presidential race.
The candidate will face what is considered a remote possibility from Republican candidate Angela Stanton-King, a television personality who was pardoned by President Trump in February for his conviction for his role in a ring of stolen vehicles.
“We, as Georgians, are grateful for his leadership in the past decades, and we honor his life’s work in advocating for justice and equality,” Stanton-King said of Lewis in a statement released Saturday. “His courage and public service undoubtedly shaped our generation, and will continue to shape future generations.”
Mr. Lewis’s death Friday at the age of 80 has plunged much of Atlanta into mourning, a reflection of his unique role in the city as one of the last surviving leaders of the civil rights movement of the decade. 1960. Lewis, who came to Atlanta in 1963 to become chair of the Nonviolent Student Coordination Committee, was elected to Congress in 1986.
A crowd of hundreds gathered on the streets Sunday around a 65-foot mural of Mr. Lewis next to a downtown building for a candlelight vigil that gave way to the line dance before the end of the night.
Rick Rojas reported from Atlanta and Reid J. Epstein from Timber Ridge, Virginia.
