DULUTH, Ga. (AP) — A young Georgia Democrat is raising big money from voters across the country by labeling a suburban Atlanta senate race as a chance to unseat a Republican election denier.
Although incumbent Shawn Still was one of 18 people indicted alongside Donald Trump in Georgia’s Fulton County in 2023, Still says first-time candidate Ashwin Ramaswami is wrong to label him as a partisan plotter.
The race won’t disrupt the comfortably gerrymandered 33-22 Republican majority in Georgia’s upper chamber. But as Democrats try to chip away suburban Atlanta Republican voters who are turned off by Trump and his crusade against the 2020 election results, the race will test whether they can replicate gains from statewide races in local elections.
While Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t put fighting election denial at the forefront of her campaign the way President Joe Biden did, Democrats are still positioning themselves as defenders of democracy against Republican attacks.
Still was one of three Trump electors indicted on felony charges in Fulton County, along with Trump, Rudy Giuliani and 14 other Trump associates. Prosecutors call the 16 Republicans who gathered in the Georgia Capitol in December 2020 “fake electors.”
The 25-year-old Ramaswami, who majored in computer science at Stanford University, was still in law school last year when he learned about Still’s role. The Democrat was working on a similar case case in Wisconsin, he said, and recognized the name of his hometown senator in testimony before the House Jan. 6 committee.
“There’s this pattern of Shawn Still really trying to undermine our votes, of Democrats and Republicans alike,” Ramaswami said.
Still says Ramaswami is falsely mischaracterizing him as an anti-democratic extremist.
“I think that’s all he has to run on. So he’s going to punch me in the face with that singular thing,” Still said. “There’s no merit to it.”
The district is drawn to be Republican, stretching across northern Atlanta suburbs in Fulton, Forsyth and Gwinnett counties. But two years ago, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock won the district over Trump-aligned Herschel Walker even as voters backed Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Still beat his Democratic opponent by 14 points. Ramaswami hopes to mimic Warnock’s win by swaying voters unsettled by Trump and believes he can connect to the district’s Indian population. The district’s population is more than 30% Asian, the highest share in Georgia.
Ramaswami’s campaign has raised more than $460,000, high for a legislative race, and has tapped many out-of-state donors. Still has raised just over $145,000, but Republican groups could potentially pump in more cash if they believe Still is threatened.
Still was the secretary of the 2020 Trump elector meeting, signing and filing documents that prosecutors say were bogus. He says he acted on the advice of party officials and lawyers to preserve Trump’s legal options as a lawsuit challenged Georgia’s election result.
“I would characterize my involvement as being a good soldier who did what he was told to do and was following the advice of attorneys who do this for a living,” said Still.
Still said said his involvement ended when he left the meeting.
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“I build swimming pools for a living,” he said. “I don’t think anyone really thought for half a second that I was some political mastermind plotting anything that led to what happened.”
To Ramaswami, Still’s willingness to go along with his colleague’s illegal behavior made him a “useful idiot for the Republican party.”
Ramaswami points to other actions Still took after the 2020 election, including a lawsuit he filed contesting results in Georgia’s Coffee County days before the electors met. Ramawsami also says Still didn’t take enough responsibility in his testimony before the Jan. 6 Committee.
If elected, the Democrat said he would pursue “common sense” solutions to issues including gun violence, health care, and abortion rights. One of his top priorities would be investment in education.
“We need as a community to look into investing in our future, not on relitigating the past,” Ramaswami said.
His cybersecurity internships under leaders from both parties would help him forge bipartisan relationships, Ramaswami said. He has interned in Republican Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s office and as an intern and part-time employee for the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, where he said he helped protect local election officials and small businesses from cyber attacks.
Still, 51, has been a reliable Republican vote during his first two-year term, but says he has engaged with Democrats and shown a “desire and willingness to work with both sides of the aisle.” He’s been restrained as a lawmaker, seldom coming to the microphone to score partisan points.
Still said his top achievement is a law that allows students to transfer into another public school district without permission from the one they’re leaving. That measure was tucked inside a bill where the headline achievement was creating a $6,500 voucher for private school tuition and home schooling. The first-term senator said he wants more time in office, in part to work on human trafficking issues.
Still said Ramaswami is “not remotely” qualified to be a state senator.
“He hasn’t lived in the district since he graduated high school. He has no life experience. He’s done nothing. His only jobs have been internships. He has accomplished nothing for himself by himself.”
Even with Still’s experience, conservative voters have reservations. Bisvas Pokala, who works in information technology, leans Republican. But Still’s indictment leaves him undecided, with Pokala saying he’s “very concerned about it.”
Pokala was staffing a booth in July at the Festival of India in suburban Duluth. Ramaswami made his way through, chatting with vendors and shoppers. Many recognized Ramaswami and waved.
Vendor Ram Raju is a Democrat but said many Indians in the business community lean Republican, and predicted Still isn’t controversial enough to alienate party loyalists.
But Ramaswami says he can help voters of all backgrounds see through Still.
“The fact that Shawn Still is now trying to portray himself as a moderate and really distance himself from what’s going on is evidence that it’s something he wants to stay away from, and it is something which the voters don’t approve of,” Ramaswami said.
But Still has forged many connections. Dilip Mehra, a festival vendor and Still supporter, remembers his appearance at an event his small business held.
“He said, ‘if you have any problem, if your community has any problem, if you want any help from us, please come to me,’” Mehra said. “He seemed like a very nice person.”
Charlotte Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Kramon on X: @charlottekramon
Amy reported from Atlanta.