Thank You, District 157

Yesterday, voters across Appling, Evans, Jeff Davis, and Tattnall Counties chose their next representative in the Georgia House. That choice was Bradley Anderson, and I have congratulated him. I wish him well. Representing District 157 is a serious responsibility, and I hope he carries it with the care our communities deserve.

To everyone who voted for me: thank you. I know what it costs to put your name behind a first-time candidate, and I did not take a single one of those votes for granted.

To the people who built this

Campaigns like ours do not run on money. Ours ran on people.

It ran on volunteers who drove dirt-road routes in August heat to knock doors. On the neighbors who let us stake a sign in the front yard knowing exactly who would drive past and see it. On the folks who made phone calls after a full shift, who drove seniors to their precinct, who handed out water at the town hall in Glennville.

It ran on the people who invited me into their churches, their civic halls, their packing sheds, and their kitchens — and who told me the truth about what is actually hard right now. The power bill that keeps climbing. The fear that Evans Memorial might not always be there. The question of whether the family land holds together for one more generation.

Those conversations were the best part of all of this. They are not over.

To our election workers

To the county registrars, poll managers, and election officials across all four counties: thank you.

You worked long days under real scrutiny and you ran a clean, orderly election. People in Georgia argue about a great many things, but I want to say plainly that the folks administering elections in this district did their jobs with integrity. They deserve our respect and our thanks, and they rarely get either.

Counting continues in the days ahead as provisional and absentee ballots are processed and the counties move toward official certification. That process should be allowed to finish properly, as it always should.

What stays up

The voter guides we built during this campaign are staying online.

The explainers on the statewide ballot questions, the breakdown of what the homestead exemption actually does to your tax bill, the county-by-county polling information, the directory tracking data center development and what it means for your power rates — all of it remains available to anyone in this district who wants a plain-English answer.

We built those because people kept asking questions that nobody was answering locally. That need did not end when the polls closed. We will keep them accurate.

What comes next

I ran because I believed rural Southeast Georgia deserves a fair shake from the State Capitol, and that it should not take a crisis to get Atlanta’s attention. Losing an election does not change my mind about that.

I am not going anywhere. This is my home. I will keep showing up — at county commission meetings, at the hospital authority, at the civic clubs — and I will keep asking the questions that need asking, whether or not I have a title that obligates me to.

To the 157: thank you for letting me make the case. It was an honor to ask for your vote.

— Micah King