Alaina Reaves Lost the District 1 Seat After Two Years

Alaina Reaves was sworn in July 8, 2024, as Clayton County’s District 1 commissioner, then lost the June 16, 2026, Democratic runoff to Demeitrice Collins. She had taken an unexpired seat after Alieka Anderson left to run for commission chair, and no Republican appeared on that special-election ballot.

Complete unofficial returns showed Collins with 2,313 votes (55.3 percent) and Reaves with 1,866 (44.7 percent). Collins is the only name on the Nov. 3 general election ballot and will succeed her when the new term begins. The county website still lists Reaves in the District 1 chair through the 2026 expiration date.

The Oath Came Half a Mile From Lee Street

The ceremony was at the Clayton County Administrative Building on Smith Street in Jonesboro. Reaves used the short walk to her old school as the line that defined the day.

I am so grateful and humbled that over two decades ago I started school at Lee Street Elementary, which is half a mile from here.

Alaina Reaves, District 1 commissioner, July 8, 2024, swearing-in

The county’s own District 1 page calls her a lifelong resident of Clayton County and a Clayton County Public Schools graduate. She holds a policy-studies degree from Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School, interned for the late Rep. John Lewis in Washington, and later interned at the White House. She worked in Jacksonville’s Mayor’s Office of Economic Development before coming home as a community organizer.

In June 2020 she was elected as Georgia’s youngest Democratic National Committee member. She had already served as president of the Clayton County Young Democrats, on the county’s Citizens MARTA Advisory Board, and on Morrow’s Urban Redevelopment Authority. The county bio still lists knitting and cycling as what she does when she is not in the board room.

Seven Names, Then a June Runoff

Anderson, sworn as District 1 commissioner on Oct. 26, 2021, to finish the late Sonna Singleton Gregory’s term, stepped down in 2024 to run for chair. The special to replace her was nonpartisan. Seven candidates filed.

On May 21, 2024, Reaves led with 2,586 votes in the May special, 42.49 percent of 6,086 ballots counted, short of a majority. Eddie Gordon placed second with 803 (13.19 percent). Junior “JJ” Jackson had 760, Rahmel Willis 729, Arvis Walker 482, Hackwin Devoe 379, and Emmett McCord 347. The county logged 6,165 ballots cast.

The June 18 runoff was smaller and cleaner. Reaves took 2,103 votes, 62.79 percent in that runoff, to Gordon’s 1,246 (37.21 percent) out of 3,349 votes. Georgia Working Families Party posted that night that she had won “her runoff election to become the next Clayton County Commissioner in District 1.” Because no Republican had entered, she was seated as soon as the special was certified.

The Seat Was Only a Remainder Term

County election records mark the District 1 term as expiring in 2026. Hambrick in District 2 and Tashe’ Allen in District 3 are listed through 2028. Reaves never had a four-year clock. She had the balance of Anderson’s term, then had to defend the seat in a regular Democratic primary.

HOW THE DISTRICT 1 SEAT MOVED

1. October 26, 2021: Anderson is sworn as District 1 commissioner after a special to replace Sonna Singleton Gregory.
2. 2024: Anderson leaves the district seat to run for commission chair.
3. May 21, 2024: Reaves leads a seven-candidate special with 42.49 percent and is forced into a runoff.
4. June 18, 2024: Reaves beats Gordon, 2,103 to 1,246.
5. July 8, 2024: Reaves is sworn in at Smith Street.
6. January 2025: Anderson-Henry is installed as the county’s first Black woman chair.
7. May 19, 2026: Five Democrats appear on the District 1 primary ballot.
8. June 16, 2026: Collins beats Reaves in the runoff, 2,313 to 1,866.
9. November 3, 2026: Collins stands unopposed on the general election ballot.

That remainder structure is the whole job she won. A special with no other party on the ballot got her a gavel. It did not get her a full term.

What the May Primary Did to the Incumbent

The May 19 Democratic primary tally put Reaves first again and still short of 50 percent. She received 4,094 votes, 38.6 percent of 10,615. Collins, in his first campaign, took 2,720 (25.6 percent). Tamala Lashae-Harps had 1,443, Lavona Shantel Cooper 1,311, and Gordon, back for another try, 1,047.

Gordon’s 9.9 percent closed a two-cycle loop. He had been the runoff partner in 2024 and finished last among the five Democrats in 2026. Reaves’s raw vote in the 2026 primary (4,094) was higher than her 2024 special total, but it was a different electorate, a partisan primary rather than a nonpartisan special, and it was not enough to avoid a second runoff in two years.

DISTRICT 1 VOTE, FOUR CONTESTS

The June 16 runoff was a low-turnout slice of a low-turnout night. Clayton County posted 16,877 cards cast from 193,077 registered voters countywide. Inside District 1, 4,179 votes decided the nomination. Collins’s 447-vote margin was larger, as a share, than anything Reaves had faced since Gordon in 2024.

A First-Time Candidate Took the Nomination

Collins holds a bachelor’s degree from Clayton State University. Campaign materials describe him as an entrepreneur, author, realtor, and insurance specialist, and as a resident of the county for 28 years. His own race page states that the District 1 campaign is his first entry into politics, and that he is running unopposed in the general election.

He campaigned on higher-paying jobs, tighter handling of tax money, new housing, and safer-looking neighborhoods, and he named Rex, Conley, Ellenwood, Lake City, Morrow, and Forest Park as the map he intended to work. Reaves’s 2026 platform, posted while she was already in office, leaned on small-business recruitment, unincorporated-area service, a residential-commercial zoning mix, and more grocery stores and restaurants in places that lack them.

Those are overlapping promises in a district that runs from Forest Park and Morrow toward Rex and Ellenwood. The runoff did not turn on a single bill. It turned on whether two years of incumbency, town halls, and a hometown oath were enough against a first-time candidate who asked for a change in the chair.

She Kept Working the District Anyway

The loss on June 16 did not empty the office. The next day, June 17, the board adopted a $522.1 million fiscal 2027 budget. On Sept. 24 the same board voted 3-2 to raise the millage rate for that budget year. Public roll-call sheets naming Reaves’s vote were not posted with the first accounts of that meeting, so her individual yes or no is not recorded here. She was still in the seat when the rate was set.

County channels kept circulating her name on routine District 1 work. Neighborhood Beautification Grant applications were pushed through a July 31 deadline. Monthly cleanups with Refuse Control were listed through Oct. 24. In April she opened a quarterly town hall and told the room it was the first of the year, after earlier “Let’s Talk Budget” and zoning sessions that drew questions about how District 1 gets built out.

In August she was still on the state party circuit, helping arrange a quiet room at the Democratic Party of Georgia convention. In September she appeared at the Georgia AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic with Rep. Nikema Williams. Statewide feeds treated her as a sitting commissioner because, until the new term starts, that is what she is.

THE BOARD SHE IS LEAVING

• Chair: Dr. Alieka Anderson-Henry, elected in 2024, installed January 2025, term listed through 2028.
• District 1: Alaina Reaves, sworn July 8, 2024, term listed through 2026.
• District 2: Vice Chair Gail Hambrick, term listed through 2028.
• District 3: Tashe’ Allen, who won her own 2024 runoff, term listed through 2028.
• District 4: DeMont Davis, term listed through 2026.

Jordan Moore is listed as the District 1 constituent aide at 112 Smith Street. The office phone on the county page is (770) 477-3213. Those details will move with the gavel after Collins is seated.

District 1 Turned Her Away Once Before

The 2024 special was not her first run at this chair. In 2021, after Gregory’s death opened the seat, Stacey Abrams endorsed Alaina Reaves for District 1 and called her “a champion of progressive values.” Fair Fight endorsed her in the same cycle. Anderson won that special and held the seat until the chair race.

The pattern is blunt when the three contests sit in a row. In 2021 the progressive network’s candidate lost to Anderson. In 2024, with Anderson gone and the race a nonpartisan special, Reaves won. In 2026, in a five-way Democratic primary and a runoff, District 1 chose someone else again. The 2024 oath at Lee Street was the middle chapter, not the last one.

X barely registered the 2026 loss. The posts that still travel with her name are the 2021 endorsements, the 2024 runoff congratulations, and party-circuit snapshots from after she had already been beaten. Clayton District 1 does this kind of turnover without a statewide argument. The people who vote there already had the last word.

Collins does not face a Republican on Nov. 3. Reaves remains the listed District 1 commissioner until the new term starts, with a cleanup still on the county calendar for Oct. 24. The remainder she accepted on July 8, 2024, runs to its printed date, then the seat changes hands.

Frequently Asked Questions

When and Where Was Alaina Reaves Sworn In as District 1 Commissioner?

She took the oath on Monday, July 8, 2024, at the Clayton County Administrative Building on Smith Street in Jonesboro, about half a mile from Lee Street Elementary, the school she named in her remarks. The write-up of the ceremony ran the next day. She was seated at once because the 2024 special had no Republican on the ballot.

Who Did Alaina Reaves Replace on the Clayton County Commission?

She replaced Alieka Anderson, later Chairwoman Dr. Alieka Anderson-Henry, who left District 1 in 2024 to run for chair and was installed in January 2025 as the county’s first Black woman in that post. Anderson had herself been sworn as District 1 commissioner on Oct. 26, 2021, after winning a special to succeed Sonna Singleton Gregory.

Which Cities Sit in Clayton County Commission District 1?

Collins’s campaign listed Rex, Conley, Ellenwood, Lake City, Morrow, and Forest Park as the communities he would work. Reaves’s county page and town-hall calendar put District 1 work in Jonesboro (Smith Street), Riverdale (Northwest Branch Library and Frank Bailey Senior Center), Rex (Carl Rhodenizer Recreation Center), and Forest Park. The district covers the southeastern slice of the county, including unincorporated neighborhoods that fall under county zoning rather than a city council.

When Does the Clayton County District 1 Term Change Hands?

County election records list the District 1 term as expiring in 2026, the same year as District 4, while the chair, District 2, and District 3 are listed through 2028. Collins is unopposed on the Nov. 3, 2026, general election ballot. Reaves remains the seated District 1 commissioner on the county site until that new term begins.