Ray Smith launches Georgia State Senate campaign

redandblack.com · Feb 22, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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Community members gathered at Athentic Brewing Company near downtown Athens on Saturday, Feb. 21 for the campaign launch party of Ray Smith, a democratic candidate running for Georgia State Senate District 46.As a senator for District 46, Smith would represent Oconee County and parts of Clarke and Walton County. Smith, himself a resident of Oconee County, currently serves as the second vice chair of the Oconee County Democrats. Smith is also involved with Indivisible Georgia District 10 and the Unitarian Universalist Georgia Legislative Action Network. As the co-founder of the nonprofit organization Community Works Oconee, Smith encourages community action to solve local problems.Guests from as far away as Atlanta and Roswell attended the event to support Smith’s campaign.Jennifer Ratcliffe, a registered nurse from Roswell who met Smith through a local legislative action network, emphasized the importance of electing engaged politicians at the local and state levels.“[Smith] strikes me as being someone that's really smart,” Ratcliffe said. “He's very involved in politics, and he's a young person, and so it's important for me to support people that have all those qualities, because the impact of our involvement is much greater [at the local level] than if we try to be involved at the national level.”Smith’s campaign party allowed citizens to discuss the issues they felt were most important. Affordable housing was a key concern for attendees. Both Hudson Hale, a senior at Oconee County High School, and Jeremy Bohn, a factory finance manager for Eaton Corporation, are both feeling the pressure of rising housing costs.“I would love to see some housing changes as I get going into college,” Hale said. “I know that [in] four, six years, I'm gonna have to buy a house and I just can't afford it right now.”“The biggest [issue] I see now is affordable housing,” Bohn said. “To me, as a finance manager at a factory, I make a decent amount of money, but even then, it's really difficult to afford a home from a mortgage payment standpoint.”Various speakers addressed the crowd to introduce Smith, including Greg Davis, who works with Smith at the Unitarian Universalist Georgia Legislative Action Network.In his speech, Davis voiced opposition to Bill 443 — a Georgia Senate bill that proposes increasing the punishment for the obstruction of public passages — to emphasize the necessity of enacting new policies if Smith is elected.“It’s just extremely important that we elect Ray and get good legislation,” Davis said. “Nationwide, we have a big problem coming, and it's only begun, and we need our state to be prepared for it to the best of our ability.”After the introductions, Smith presented his campaign goals and outlined his most important policy stances.“I intend to carry the hopes and the fears of the people in this district, all of the people that I talk to, to the Capitol,” Smith said. “I intend to be the voice of those people, the voice that we've been lacking for decades.”Smith also spoke about overcoming challenges as a Democrat running for office in a red district and pointed to political shifts in Georgia last year, including Eric Gisler winning Georgia’s State House of Representatives District 121 seat and Democratic candidates flipping seats in the Public Service Commission election.“Everyone knows this is a deep red district, but this is a very important point: this district is flippable,” Smith said. “We can look to 2025 and the incredible electoral victories that we had over the entire year. Early on, there were early warning signs of this titanic shift in politics.”During the Q&A portion of his speech, Smith was asked about his stance on gun control.“I am a supporter of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. I think that now more than ever, it's important to remember why that amendment was in the Constitution in the first place, which is to defend ourselves from a tyrannical government,” Smith said. “However, I don't think that that right should be upheld at the expense of children's lives in schools. We have to have common sense gun legislation, red flag laws, universal background checks, closing loopholes for selling guns at gun shows. These kinds of things are the bare minimum protections that we need to have a functioning society.”When asked about the housing crisis, Smith focused on policies aimed at helping people now.“The things that we can do to help people today in terms of housing, we need more infill in neighborhoods, and one of the main restrictions for infill is zoning laws,” Smith said. “One thing that I can do at the state level is write legislation to repeal some of those restrictions to make it easier for cities to meet the housing demands of their local population.” Smith also addressed how he would work with Republicans in the State Senate.“If people are willing to work with me across the aisle on these things that I care about, the economic issues should not be partisan issues at all,” Smith said. “People are struggling, and if they're not willing to work with me, so be it. I'm going to be working on these issues, and it's going to be egg on their face. They're going to look bad for not supporting the common sense legislation that we need to protect Georgia families.”