Three seats on the Cobb County Board of Education are up Nov. 3, and Democratic organizers say they intend to flip the board's 4-3 Republican majority, a shift that would hand control of Georgia's second-largest school district to Democrats for the first time in more than a decade.

The race with the most direct East Cobb stakes is Post 4, where three-term Republican incumbent and board vice chairman David Chastain faces Democrat Micheal Garza. Chastain's district covers the Wheeler and Walton high school attendance zones. In 2022, Chastain held his seat by roughly 2,000 votes over Democrat Catherine Pozniak. The margin was narrow for a countywide incumbent.

Garza won a tight Democratic primary on May 19, edging Susan McCartney by fewer than 100 votes, according to East Cobb News.

In Post 6, first-term Democratic incumbent Nichelle Davis faces Republican Jennifer Susko. Post 2 is also on the ballot, though candidates for that seat were not confirmed in public filings reviewed for this article.

Organizing ramps up after Trump visit

President Trump's July 22 visit to Wheeler High School energized both sides. At the board's July 23 meeting, Superintendent Chris Ragsdale defended hosting the president, and about half the packed audience walked out in protest after a video recap of the visit was played, according to Fox 5 Atlanta.

Board member John Cristadoro, who represents the Wheeler and Walton zones, said in a Facebook post in July: "Regardless of which side of the aisle you're on, it's a big deal to have a sitting president choose our school for this."

Garza publicly accused the board of avoiding questions about who would pay for the event and why it was promoted through official school communications, according to a July 19 post cited by USA Today.

Cobb County Democratic Committee Chairwoman Essence Johnson accused the district of being "full of right-wing leadership that needs to be purged," naming Chastain, Cristadoro and Ragsdale. The committee posted on Facebook that it would hold a special meeting Saturday, Aug. 15, from 9 a.m. to noon, framed as a kickoff to flip the board.

Accountability groups add pressure

Watching the Funds-Cobb, a self-described bipartisan watchdog group, has pushed for transparency reforms including written superintendent evaluations and live-streamed public comment. The group lobbied for Georgia SB 472, signed into law in 2026, which caps superintendent contracts at three years. Founder Heather Tolley-Bauer wrote in March that the board "oversee[s] nearly $2 billion of our tax dollars every year" and said state laws had been "full of loopholes big enough for Cobb to drive a school bus through."

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in July that the school board represents the GOP's last major foothold in a county that has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 2016.

What's at stake

Cobb County has nearly 600,000 registered voters and serves 105,738 students across 112 schools. East Cobb families with children at Walton, Wheeler, Pope, Lassiter and Sprayberry would feel any policy shift directly.

The Cobb GOP has called on Garza to return $6,600 in contributions from an attorney associated with the Southern Poverty Law Center, according to the Marietta Daily Journal. Garza has not publicly responded to that demand in sources reviewed for this article.

The Cobb Democrats' Aug. 15 organizing meeting is the next scheduled public event in the campaign. The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 3.