‘John Lewis is smiling’: Voters in civil rights icon’s district help put Biden over the top in Georgia

Joe Biden was among many at the US Capitol on Monday honoring the late Democratic Rep. John Lewis. A long-time Georgia lawmaker and icon of the civil rights movement, Rep. Lewis died July 17 at the age of 80. (July 27) AP Domestic

For Democrats, the late civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis’ legacy of stirring up “good trouble” continued early Friday as results from the 17-term congressman’s district helped push the lead in Georgia in former Vice President Joe Biden’s favor and against President Donald Trump, with whom Lewis’ feuded until his death in July. 

Trump was more than 372,000 votes ahead of Biden in Georgia at midnight Tuesday but has since seen his lead steadily dwindle, as the ballots — including the massive number of those mailed in — are counted.

Biden overtook Trump about 4:30 a.m. EST, and it was the results from Clayton County — part of which lies in Georgia’s 5th Congressional District, represented by Lewis for more than three decades — that put the Democratic nominee ahead. Biden now holds a lead of 917 votes, as the remaining ballots are counted. 

The president derided Lewis’ former district in January 2017, after the civil rights hero announced he would not attend Trump’s inauguration. Lewis, a staunch ally of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, had said he did not consider Trump a “legitimate president” because “the Russians participated in helping this man get elected.”

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Trump fired back on Twitter, saying Lewis should “spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart.” The president also described Georgia’s 5th District as “crime-infested.” 

A special counsel investigation revealed that the Kremlin did indeed try to help Trump win the 2016 election but uncovered no evidence the Trump campaign conspired in those efforts. 

Lewis remained a fierce critic of the president after he was sworn in, condemning tweets from Trump that Lewis said were clearly racist and refusing to attend the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum because Trump was going to be there. 

“Trump’s attendance and his hurtful policies are an insult to the people portrayed in this civil rights museum,” Lewis said in a statement at the time. 

Trump did not attend Lewis’ memorial service in July but said he was “saddened” by the news of Lewis’ death. But Trump also expressed reluctance to celebrate Lewis’ legacy as a civil rights leader who risked his life battling segregation. 

“I can’t say one way or the other. I find a lot of people impressive. I find many people not impressive, but no, he didn’t come to my inauguration,” Trump told Axios when asked if he was impressed by Lewis’ accomplishments. “He should’ve come. I think he made a big mistake.”

‘I know racism when I see it’: Rep. John Lewis on Trump tweets

More: Trump, in brief Twitter statement on John Lewis, says he’s ‘saddened’ by death of ‘civil rights hero’

Those who were awake watched anxiously as Clayton County’s final votes were counted early Friday. By then, Trump’s election night lead of hundreds of thousands of votes in Georgia had narrowed to just over 1,000. In an update from Clayton County at about 2:30 a.m. EST, Trump’s lead dropped to 665 votes; the final update from the heavily Democratic county gave Biden a narrow lead in the Peach State.

Just under 85% of the vote in Clayton County, which sits south of Atlanta, went for Biden. Two other counties lie in the 5th District: Fulton and DeKalb. In Fulton, Biden got about 72% of the vote; in DeKalb he got 83% of the vote. 

Many Democrats celebrated the fact that it was votes from a county in Lewis’ former district that put Biden ahead in the state, which had not gone for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992.

“John Lewis is smiling,” tweeted Rep. Ted Lieu, R-Calif. 

“How is this for poetic justice — it was John Lewis’ district that put @JoeBiden over the top of @realDonaldTrump in Georgia!” tweeted “Young Turks” host Cenk Uygur. 

“I love the idea that Clayton County could put Biden over in GA. That’s John Lewis’ district. He would do one of his trademark happy dances in heaven. Symmetry,” tweeted former Sen. Claire McKaskill, D-Mo., at about 11 p.m. on Thursday. 

“And they did!” she tweeted about six hours later. 

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