Math says Doug McKillip can’t win; human nature says he will. You remember McKillip: our fair-haired, liberal Democrat, whom we elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, and then… Well, I don’t want to rub your face in it.

The truth is, Athens faces have been rubbed in it ever since the Republicans took over the state Legislature. First, they split state Senate district 46, that Athens-Clarke shared with Oconee County, into two districts (46 & 47). In both districts Athens is now in the minority, overpowered by rural counties that have their own interests to look after. Along the way, the Republicans jerked Athens around in Congressional re-districting. Then, Doug jumped to their party, and to make his district safe, they stitched part of Athens into a country-crazy-quilt of a district that includes parts of Oconee, Barrow and Jackson counties. Doug thanked them by redistricting our own Athens-Clarke County government over the heads of our mayor and commission, our redistricting committee and our citizens, while also making his bones with a strict anti-abortion law.

Doug’s new district, the 117th, is carefully drawn to assemble a Republican majority. No Democrat has a prayer there, and none was foolhardy enough to volunteer to prove it in this election. The math works for the Republicans, but it doesn’t necessarily work for Doug, because he has a Republican opponent: a strong Republican opponent—a real Republican opponent, one more genuinely conservative than Doug with all his posturing can pretend to be: Athens attorney Regina Quick.

Here’s where the math begins to break down for Doug. Over half the registered voters in House District 117 are in the Athens-Clarke County portion of the district. So, District 117 is a majority-Athens district by a percentage of roughly 60-40. Moreover, the precincts that make up the Athens portion of District 117 voted 60-40 Democratic in the hotly contested 2010 governor’s race. Of course, those Democrats don’t count in the upcoming July 31 Republican primary between McKillip and Quick. Or do they?

The Atlanta Republicans assume that they have drawn a district that disenfranchises Athens Democrats, because they’re in a minority district-wide. These are the same voters that the Atlanta Republicans have knocked around by diluting their voting strength in the state Senate and now in the House. These voters can be treated with impunity.

But suppose those voters saw themselves not as Democrats but as citizens of Athens, that same Athens that has watched its community of interest sliced and diced and subjugated to those of other communities in the surrounding area. Suppose those Athens voters wanted to tell Atlanta that we’ve had enough, and we’ve found an unexpected, deeply uncharacteristic way to fight back: vote Republican.

The Atlanta Republicans and McKillip are confident that few liberal Democrats will vote for Regina Quick or any other Republican. There’s no way those Democrats are going to ask for a Republican ballot, even though they don’t even have a Democratic candidate in that race or any other race in that primary. There are no Democrats on the ballot in the Athens part of District 117, which hooks into Five Points to pick up Doug’s house, then snakes west along both sides of the Atlanta Highway.

So, here’s the deal: most Athens Republicans in District 117 will probably go for Quick, because she is one of them, and McKillip is not. But McKillip will win in the surrounding counties, and he’ll never have to worry about Athens again. Athens voters—Democrats and Republicans—will be marginalized in House District 117, just as they already are in our two Senate districts. But if even a few Democrats vote in the Republican primary—it doesn’t mean they’ve become Republicans—they can make the difference in electing Regina Quick, and she will know it.

The Democratic voters in District 117 absolutely hold the balance of power, but will they choose Athens over their party? Doug McKillip and the Atlanta power brokers are confident Athens Democrats will never ask for a Republican ballot—and they’re smiling.