Exclusive: Lucy McBath gets a $1 million bump from an outside group

Mike Bloomberg’s gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety is spending $1 million on a new TV ad through its super PAC to boost Rep. Lucy McBath. She is in the final weeks of her campaign against Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux.

Why it matters: The two suburban Atlanta Democrats are locked in an intra-party battle for a single congressional seat after Republican-led redistricting pushed McBath to run in Bourdeaux's district.

• Georgia's 7th is one of five congressional incumbent 2022 matchups.

State of play: In the most recent federal disclosures, McBath reported about $1 million more in donations than Bourdeaux. Plus, McBath is seeing far more outside support, including a $2 million ad buy from Protect Our Future PAC and other support from the Asian American Advocacy Fund.

• State Rep. Donna McLeod, the only candidate to live within the district’s new boundaries, is also in the primary.
• The primary is May 24. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, the top two will head to a June runoff.

Catch up quick: Everytown has long backed McBath, who's well-known as a gun control advocate after her son died of gun violence. The group had already committed about a million dollars in radio, digital and mail ads to McBath's 2022 campaign.

• John Feinblatt, head of the Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund said, “Lucy has always gone all out for the gun safety movement, so we’re going all out to get her re-elected, including talking to voters on the airwaves, in their mail boxes, and online, as well as deploying our grassroots army of Moms Demand Action volunteers to turn out gun sense voters for Lucy.” 

The other side: Bourdeaux has been promised a six-figure ad buy from the Democrats Serve PAC, but her campaign does not expect any additional outside support.

• In a past interview with Axios, Bourdeaux characterized herself as "very grounded in this community. And I think for me, that is the key difference, versus somebody who is more focused on national issues and comes with a lot of outside money into this race."