Nick Alex, the Democratic candidate for Georgia’s 9th Congressional District, held a town hall at the Gainesville Civic Center Thursday night.
“I’ve got to win this district, we’ve got to win Congress back,” Alex said. “I think the idea of taking something back feels good, and it should. It’s not easy.”
The town hall kicked off at 6 p.m. and lasted until around 8 p.m. and saw roughly 100 people show up to voice their concerns and gameplan for what could be a monumental task.
Incumbent Republican Andrew Clyde first won the district in 2020, and although the district has seen its map change, the closest a Democrat has gotten to taking the 9th District was in 2024 when Tambrei Cash got 31% of the vote.
“They have a robotic congressman representing them right now,” Alex said. “He doesn’t talk to his constituents. I don’t think they have anybody fighting for them.”
Alex went public with his campaign in June, speaking to AccessWDUN at the “No Kings” protest. At the town hall, he broke down the three main pillars he’s running on as a self-proclaimed moderate Democrat.
The first issue was affordability.
“I’m going to fight for policies that will, first of all, take back the powers of Congress that they have given up,” Alex told the people who showed up.
Specifically, he was speaking about the power of the purse. In July, it was reported that Congress rescinded $9-billion in federal funds that the Trump administration wanted to eliminate that they had already approved.
The second issue was protecting critical services.
“We need to support veterans,” Alex told the crowd. “I’ve been on the road a lot, 2,700 miles … and everywhere I go, there’s a veteran or two who will talk to me and say what they’re doing in [Veterans Affairs] with these 80,000 person cuts out of their staff.”
Alex also spoke about the cuts to Medicare and Medicaid in Trump’s big tax and spending cut bill.
The last issue he spoke about was wanting to stop what he called Trump’s attacks on the judiciary, law firms, and universities.
When asked by AccessWDUN if he was more anti-Clyde or pro-problem solving, Alex said it was the latter.
“I want to state the difference, and I want to live up to that difference, because that’s the only way we’re going to get anything changed,” Alex said. “I can’t spend time making fun of Clyde, picking on Clyde … I don’t want to troll Andrew Clyde, I want to beat Andrew Clyde.”
Alex’s campaign site can be found at https://nickalex2026.com.
