By the time May of 2026 rolls around, it will be the first time in four years Representative for Georgia’s 9th Congressional District Andrew Clyde will face primary opposition.
On Jan. 28, Gainesville Mayor Sam Couvillon announced he would be running for the seat in the Republican primary. Clyde, however, says that will not deter him from seeking another term.
“Being a congressman for Georgia’s ninth district has been the honor of my life,” Clyde said. “I have been focused on keeping the promises that I made to the ninth district. Promises made, promises kept.”
A major issue for Clyde in this congressional term is immigration.
“What we want to accomplish in this session is we want to close that border,” Clyde said. “We want to deport these illegal aliens.”
Clyde is also on the House Appropriations Committee and the Budget Committee, with responsible spending being another key issue.
“So those two very important committees are going to be able to do this and give the President and his executive branch the funding that they need in order to accomplish this very important agenda,” Clyde said.
He added that they will try to extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
When asked about both he and Couvillon being pro-President Donald Trump Republicans, Clyde said that he has proven to be effective, referencing the Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022, which was the first piece of legislation passed in the 118th Congress.
The bill struck down the elimination of minimum mandatory sentencing for violent crimes in Washington, D.C. and passed with bipartisan support.
He also referenced the effort to pause the renaming of Lake Lanier.
In an interview on WDUN’s “The Martha Zoller Show” on Thursday, Couvillon said that the 9th District needs a “better representative” citing his worries for farmers in the district and hurricane relief funding.
“I mean, here recently our representative voted against farm aid," Couvillon said. "We had a bad natural disaster, Hurricane Helene, hit our state and our representative voted against hurricane relief."
Clyde said that he supports farmers, but he wants to be fiscally responsible.
“I totally support farmers,” Clyde said. “But we have to be fiscally responsible as well. That bill was a part of the big Omnibus CR at the end of last year, which was chock full of other priorities.”
When asked about hurricane relief funding, Clyde said he would support it if it was paid for.
“You cannot continue to borrow money and put our … current children, and our children's children, and saddle them with additional debt, because eventually what will happen is we will hit a point of financial collapse, and then there will be money for no one,” Clyde said.
Clyde also noted the importance of the 2026 midterms for Republicans.
“I think the House is going to be more challenging to keep than the Senate,” Clyde said. “If we lose the House in the 2026 elections, they’ll try to destroy the America-first agenda.”
Clyde first won the 9th Congressional seat in 2020, defeating Republican Matt Gurtler in the primaries before beating Democrat Devin Pandy in the general election. He will look to defend his seat a third time when the 2026 primaries come around.
“That's up to the people of the ninth district,” Clyde said. “It's an honor to serve them, and what you see is what you get with Andrew Clyde.”
