Everyone is watching the Atlanta suburbs. They delivered one of the biggest electoral surprises of the 2020 election, turning Georgia blue for the first time in a presidential election since 1992. 

Now they’re at the center of two more major races: Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are running to unseat Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in the Jan. 5 runoff that will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate. 

Women have been critical to Democratic success in Georgia. Female activists are responsible for the vast majority of the grass-roots work, with Stacey Abrams leading efforts to register voters and combat suppression. Transgender activist Feroza Syed — who has been canvassing in the Atlanta suburbs — told me it’s because “women have the most to lose.” 

On Saturday, I virtually shadowed one of these women, Stacy Butler Efrat, as she went door-to-door at an apartment complex — tagging along on her phone screen through Google Hangout. (This is journalism during the coronavirus.) 

Here’s a window into her work.

Stacy Butler Efrat and her seven volunteers congregate in the LA Fitness parking lot at 10 o’clock on Saturday morning. While some version of the group convenes almost every weekend, today is especially high stakes. They’ll be knocking on 500 doors in East Cobb, a section of the Atlanta suburbs that both parties hope to claim in next month’s Senate runoffs. It’s the last weekend to register new voters before the election — and Efrat is determined to keep Georgia blue.

Hands tucked in coat pockets, away from the nippy December wind, the canvassers have come to collect their assignments — an apartment complex and a series of building numbers — printed on wallet-size slips of paper. Over four years and three elections, Efrat has built a 400-person canvassing operation with a unique approach: In suburbs dominated by single family homes, she heads straight for the apartment buildings. 

Cobb County, where Efrat lives, was once the center of tea party politics and the congressional home of former House speaker Newt Gingrich. But its demographics are changing quickly, with more people of color and recent immigrants moving into the area: Biden won Cobb County by 14 points, up from Hillary Clinton’s two-point win in 2016.

Many of the new voters are moving into “garden apartment” buildings, built in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, said Ellen Dunham-Jones, a professor of urban design at Georgia Tech who has studied the Atlanta suburbs. They have the cheapest rents around.

When she started canvassing in 2017, Efrat helped identify these complexes as an untapped gold mine for Democrats. With Cobb County newly competitive, Democrats had very little data on voters in the region, especially in apartment buildings where resident turnover is high. Volunteers could make a big difference in apartments, Efrat realized: Apartment renters are statistically less likely than homeowners to be registered to vote — and more likely to be Democrats. 

“We realized there was a major gap in voter outreach,” said Efrat. “We decided that since no one else was going door-to-door here, we would.”

ICYMI

Three need-to-know stories

01.

Former congresswoman Katie Hill (D-Calif.) won a temporary restraining order against her ex-husband on Tuesday. Hill accused him of choking and threatening her during years of abuse, as well as leaking nude photos and other information that led to her resignation.

02.

At least four people were stabbed in Washington, D.C., after thousands of maskless protesters gathered in support of President Trump. Wearing helmets and bulletproof vests, Proud Boys, a male-chauvinist organization with ties to white nationalism, roamed through downtown D.C. and faced off against counterprotesters.

03.

In a widely criticized Wall Street Journal op-ed, writer Joseph Epstein argued that Jill Biden, who is married to President-elect Joe Biden, should drop the “doctor” before her name because she is not a medical doctor. Biden has a doctorate in education, as well as two master’s degrees. Many women have called the piece, in which Epstein refers to Biden as “kiddo,” sexist and elitist.

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Good news

A story to make you smile

Tanja Babich’s 10-year-old daughter was struggling with one part of virtual school: wearing her glasses. So Babich, an Emmy Award-winning morning news anchor for ABC 7 Chicago, made her daughter a promise: Every day, for one week, she would wear her own glasses on live TV. The gesture, first reported by Chicago Tribune columnist Heidi Stevens, delighted Babich’s viewers. “I guess it’s a lead-by-example thing,” Babich told Washington Post reporter Marisa Iati. At home, her daughter watched a playback of her mom proudly wearing her specs in front of thousands of people. A slow smile crept across the girl’s face, Babich recalled. And now her daughter wears her glasses.

What’s the best advice you received this year?

We’d love to hear it

2020 has been an immensely challenging year. We want to hear the advice that carried you through. Send us the best bits of wisdom you received this year, and you may be featured in a future Lily story.

Until next time

But before we part, some recs

Lena Felton

Deputy editor, The Lily

What I’m eating:

Advent calendar chocolates. I haven’t spent December opening an advent calendar since I was a kid, but this is the first Christmas I’ll be celebrating without family, so these feel like a delight.

How I’m de-stressing:

At-home spa nights. I’ll light a candle, put on a face mask and paint my nails. The best manicure I’ve given myself was actually stick-on nail gels from ManiMe (an item from our gift guide!).

What the pandemic hasn’t paused:

My Rent the Runway subscription. Clothes have always been a way for me to express my more creative side, and I really enjoy the routine of borrowing new pieces each month — now, they’re just comfier.

🖤

Thanks for reading.