The Fulton chair race was supposed to be a coronation. Robb Pitts has held the seat since 2017, racked up a long resume on the commission going back more than two decades, and walked into the primary as the establishment pick. He did not get out of it cleanly. SaportaReport's Maggie Lee laid out the numbers from the Fulton elections office: Ivory 64,188 votes, Pitts 56,026, Arrington 40,731. A first-place finish by Ivory was not what most political watchers had projected, and a Georgia gang panelist quoted in Fox 5 Atlanta's coverage credited heavy turnout from Black women voters in Fulton for moving the math.
The runoff is set for June 16. Pitts has been leaning on tenure, telling a College Park community meeting on May 14 about steering Fulton through a cyberattack and through the pandemic. Ivory, who previously served as a county commissioner and is closer to outside-the-courthouse activist circles, gets to spend a month telling voters why a second-place finish for an incumbent is itself the story. Either way, whoever wins runs the board that signs off on Grady, the airport, public health, and a county budget that touches every ITP neighborhood.
