Cardboard Rich Comes to Cherokee County in Debate #3 of Georgia’s Only Congressional Debate Series

The GA-07 debate series rolled into Cherokee County this week, and once again, Rep. Rich McCormick didn’t show up. In his place: a cardboard cutout, standing silently at his own podium while Democratic nominee Tony Kozycki fielded questions on everything from Cherokee County road funding to the war in Iran.

This has become a pattern. Moderator Rebecca Odom-Woomer — co-host of The Kicker podcast and a self-described “next door neighbor from Forsyth County” — opened the night by explaining that she’d invited McCormick’s campaign to designate a Republican voter to co-moderate, in the interest of fairness. She emailed the congressman’s campaign directly. No response. It’s the same story going back to June, when Kozycki first started publicly challenging McCormick to debate in all six counties of the district.

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So Odom-Woomer did what she could: she collected questions from voters, researched McCormick’s actual voting record and public statements, and built in “rebuttal” questions representing the positions McCormick would likely take if he’d bothered to show up.

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 – Welcome, Pledge of Allegiance, & debate format explained
06:30 – Cherokee County growth & federal infrastructure funding
09:15 – Rebuttal: Federal spending, inflation, and debt
11:30 – Ending the war with Iran
14:40 – Rebuttal: Can the U.S. tolerate a nuclear Iran?
16:26 – Israel, Gaza, and the genocide question; AIPAC funding
22:22 – Data centers: who should pay for the water and power costs
25:46 – AI regulation and job displacement
29:07 – Affordable housing and corporate/private equity in the housing market
32:07 – Health care costs and coverage gaps
35:25 – Abortion access and federal policy
37:56 – Rebuttal: Georgia's medical exception for abortion
39:19 – Food safety and import inspections
42:34 – Rebuttal: Are federal agencies overregulated?
44:16 – Rule of law: DOJ independence and accountability
46:35 – McCormick's dual voter registration & financial transparency
49:39 – Rebuttal: The Stop the Swamp Act
52:14 – Immigration policy and border security
52:32 - Politically Georgia / AJC / Greg Bluestein
- Tony Kozycki on the fight for Georgia's 7th District:

56:59 – Voting rights and the SAVE Act
100:48 – What would you do on day one in Congress?
1:05:40 – Audience Q&A: fighting corruption and accountability
1:08:40 – Audience Q&A: election security and integrity in Georgia
1:11:29 – Audience Q&A: protecting the vote from federal interference
1:12:33 – Closing remarks

The audience Q&A ran long, with voters pressing Kozycki on election security and protecting Georgia’s vote from federal interference — questions he answered by expressing confidence in the state’s Republican-run election apparatus while acknowledging the deeper fear is voter suppression and apathy, not fraud.

Learn more and join our fight to bring back real representation to the Georgia’s 7th District.

Website: https://kozyckiforcongress.com/index.html
FB: https://www.facebook.com/KozyckiforCongress
IG: https://www.instagram.com/kozycki_for_congress/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KozyckiforCongress
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kozyckiforcongress
X: https://x.com/TonyKozycki
Substack: https://substack.com/@tonykozycki
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/tonykozyckiforcongress

The full debate series is available for viewing on YouTube, and Kozycki has appeared on Politically Georgia with Greg Bluestein to discuss the race in more depth.

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