Nikema Williams, a state senator and chairwoman of the state party, easily secured enough votes Monday to take over the spot on the ticket. She will face President Donald Trump ally Angela Stanton-King in the general election, though Williams is already seen as a lock to win the heavily Democratic Atlanta-based district.
Lewis represented the area in Congress for more than three decades and was poised for another term after winning the June primary. The civil rights icon died on July 17 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 80.
Under Georgia law, party officials were required to choose a replacement nominee this week. An executive committee whittled down a list of 131 applicants to five finalists, which included Williams, State Rep. Park Cannon, Atlanta City Council member Andre Dickens, former president of Morehouse College Robert Franklin, and Georgia NAACP President James Woodall.
Williams, 41, is a veteran activist with deep roots in the Democratic Party.
Before becoming a state senator in 2017, she worked at Planned Parenthood as the vice president of public policy for the Southeast. She also currently serves as a political director at the National Domestic Workers Alliance.
In 2018, she made headlines for being one of 15 people arrested at the state Capitol during a voting rights demonstration. The protest demanded all the ballots be counted in the gubernatorial race between Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp. The contest, which Kemp won, was riddled with accusations of voter suppression.
Williams referenced her arrest during her campaign to replace Lewis on the ballot, telling officials over a Zoom call, “We need someone who is not afraid to put themselves on the line for their constituents in the same way that Congressman Lewis taught us to.”
Lewis helped organize the Freedom Rides and led the 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama, which helped galvanize national support for the Voting Rights Act.
In 2019, Williams was the first Black woman ever elected to lead the Georgia Democratic Party. She also plays a key role in the national Democratic establishment as a member of the Executive and Resolution Committees of the Democratic National Committee. She also was a delegate to the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Democratic National Conventions.
After Lewis passed away on Friday, Williams posted a tribute to him on Twitter.
“Congressman John Lewis was America’s greatest champion in the fight for justice and equality, and showed us all how to put the people first. His legacy of Good Trouble will ring on in generations to follow,” she wrote. “He was my hero and my friend, and I will miss him very much.”
