July 25, 2019

Meet the Pro-Refugee “Hipster Mayor” Running for Senate in Georgia

“Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and David Perdue are using fear to divide us.”

Ted Terry, mayor of Clarkston, GeorgiaAssociated Press

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The field of Georgia Democrats vying to unseat GOP Sen. David Perdue is getting interesting. On one end of the spectrum is Teresa Tomlinson, the former mayor of Columbus, Georgia, who told me that one of her assets is that she speaks “fluent Republican.” On the other is Ted Terry, the “hipster mayor” of the refugee hub of Clarkston, Georgia. Today, he released a campaign video meant to demonstrate his progressive bona fides.

Clarkston is “proud to be known worldwide as a modern-day Ellis Island for those seeking the American dream,” he says. “Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and David Perdue are using fear to divide us and advance a radical right-wing agenda that violates our values. Fear and division are the tools of cowards. We have to stand up for our values and fight for what’s right.”

 

Last year, when I profiled Terry for Mother Jones, he rattled off a long list of his accomplishments in Clarkston:

Terry, whom some call the “hipster mayor,” doesn’t fit the mold of a Georgia politician. He was a vociferous Bernie Sanders supporter and delegate and was recently featured on an episode of Queer Eye, wherein the fab five implored him to ditch his slogan T-shirts and shorts for a more mayoral look. (It didn’t stick: The last time I saw him, he was wearing a beige “Make America Green Again” tee.)

As mayor, Terry recruited a diverse group of millennials and refugees to run for the previously all-white city council. He annexed some of Clarkston’s surrounding neighborhoods, nearly doubling the city’s population and increasing the local tax base. His proudest accomplishments, though, are a slew of measures he says have made Clarkston “the most progressive city in the South.” With the council’s backing, he reduced the fine for possessing small amounts of marijuana from $1,000 to $75, declared Election Day a local holiday, and raised the minimum wage for city workers to $15 an hour.

In addition to Tomlinson and Terry, Stacey Abrams’ former running mate Sara Riggs Amico is expected to enter the race, as is Jon Ossoff, who in 2017 made an unsuccessful run to represent Georgia’s 6th congressional district.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate