Charlie Norwood - Congressional Campaigns

Congressional Campaigns

See also: United States House elections, 2004#Georgia and United States House elections, 2006 complete list#Georgia

In late 1993, Norwood sold his dental practice to run for Congress in the 1994 elections as a Republican in the Augusta-based 10th District. In that election, he routed freshman Democratic incumbent Don Johnson by a shocking 31-point margin—one of the largest margins of defeat of the 1994 election cycle. He became the first Republican to represent his northeastern Georgia district since Reconstruction.

Norwood was nearly defeated in 1996, winning by only four points. He easily turned back spirited challenges in 1998 and 2000. However, in the 2000s round of redistricting, the Democratic-controlled state legislature crafted a congressional map designed to elect seven Democrats and six Republicans; at the time Georgia's congressional delegation consisted of eight Republicans and five Democrats. In the process, the legislature renumbered Norwood's district as the 9th District and shifted most of Augusta—which had been the heart of the district and its predecessors for over a century—to the newly-created 12th District. To make up for the loss in population, Norwood's district picked up some more Republican territory in the North Georgia mountains. Norwood was reelected from this now heavily Republican district with 73 percent of the vote.

In 2004, Norwood received 74 percent of the vote against Democrat Bob Ellis. In 2006, his district was renumbered the 10th once again, and was pushed slightly to the west, absorbing Athens in the process. Athens was home to Democratic 12th District Congressman John Barrow, and Barrow was forced to move to Savannah rather than face certain defeat. Norwood was handily reelected, taking 68 percent of the vote against Democrat Terry Holley.