Tony Kozycki, a Democrat running for Congress in Georgia’s 7th District in the upcoming November midterms, has a simple message for voters: look at the person, not the party. The combat veteran and immigration lawyer is challenging Republican Rich McCormick. In an exclusive interview with HT.com, he spoke about his rival, the Iran war, politics and his life at home.
Speaking about his message to voters, Kozycki said, “Look who they are. Look what they’re telling you and actually vote on people and not party right now.”
How Kozycki’s family shaped his path to politics
Kozycki said he was not ready for this. “Honestly, I think if I didn’t get involved in Godfrey’s case, I’d be coaching my son’s baseball team right now,” he said. He had even paused a public leadership course at the Harvard Kennedy School to run.
He said his story starts with his mother. According to Kozycki, she was a Puerto Rican girl who grew up in inner-city New York at a time of bias and racism. She later joined the US Army. He said she was one of the first women to lead troops on the demilitarized zone in Korea.
After leaving the Army, she went to law school while he was in elementary school. Those years were hard, according to Kozycki, and the family needed government help.
The family then moved to LaGrange, a small town in Georgia, where his mother became a public defender. Kozycki said she defended people who could not afford a lawyer. “When we walked into the grocery store and you saw the folks behind the counter know who mom was, it meant so much,” he said.
Kozycki said his mother encouraged him to join the military. He went to the US Naval Academy and served in the military. After that, he went to law school and started a small law firm in Atlanta with his mother and his wife, who are both attorneys. Their firm does a lot of immigration work. He is also a father of two, aged 9 and 12.
The case that pushed him
Kozycki said the turning point was the case of Godfrey Wade, a fellow veteran. According to reports, Wade is a US Army veteran who was deported to Jamaica in February over a bounced cheque from almost 20 years ago, while his appeal was still going on
Kozycki said he reached out to his own congressman, expecting help. “I thought, yeah, we’re all military veterans. Let’s fix this,” he said.
That did not happen. “At the very least, I expected him to try or at least pretend to care,” he said. According to Kozycki, he kept speaking to the office week after week and month after month, and they kept saying they were not interested.
He said the frustration became too much. He started talking to his wife about needing “somebody different”. Then he asked himself a question. “If I don’t want to do it myself, then why would anybody do it?” he said. And then, he and his wife decided they needed to do this work “on a bigger scale”.
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What he says about his opponent Rich McCormick
Kozycki said McCormick does not know the people of the district. “The guy that I’m challenging, Rich McCormick, he doesn’t represent this district,” he said.
According to Kozycki, McCormick talks mostly about border security, as if Kozycki wants open borders. Kozycki said that is not true. “I think we need secure borders,” he said. He also said dangerous criminals who are not citizens should be removed if the law requires it.
But Kozycki said McCormick misses one point: the law also says people must get a fair hearing. He said someone like Godfrey Wade is entitled to “due process” and “the rule of law”.
Kozycki also said McCormick has no real answers for voters. According to him, McCormick’s only reply is to call him a communist. “He just wants to scare you into thinking that I’m a communist,” Kozycki said. He pointed to his own record in reply. “I fought in three wars for this country. I’m a small business owner,” he said.
Kozycki also said big tech is funding McCormick’s campaign, so McCormick does not listen to people on data centers. As per him, the community is not against data centers, it only wants a fair deal.
Kozycki also said, “Rich McCormick has had serious character flaws”. He alleged that McCormick has had affairs and “has gone through several wives”. He also said McCormick is tied closely to Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, and that Miller’s idea of how an American should look is “a white nationalist idea”.
HT.com could not independently verify these claims.
What Kozycki says about the poll numbers
According to Kozycki, his campaign’s poll shows McCormick at 46 per cent and him at 43 per cent.
Kozycki said the numbers give him hope. “If we can get our message in front of voters, I think that’s what it shows. We can win this race,” he said. He said the seat was not seen as close a year ago.
He also said McCormick is taking voters for granted. “McCormick isn’t even campaigning. He’s saying he’s going to beat me by double digits,” he said. According to Kozycki, a leader has to come back every two years and earn the vote.
Then he made a prediction. “And I think it’s going to be a big shock to Rich McCormick on November 4th when he lost his job,” he said.
Kozycki’s views on the Iran war
Kozycki said the Iran war is costly, but money is not his main worry. “It’s not dollars and cents. It’s American lives that are going to be at risk,” he said.
According to Kozycki, McCormick wants a ground invasion. He said this would cost “another trillion dollars at a minimum because that’s what a forever war would look like.”
He said the war feels personal. He spent his young adult life in a war in the Middle East. “I watched my daughter’s first steps while I sat on a Zoom call in the desert. I missed her first Christmas,” he said.
“We can’t throw them into a war without a plan, without objectives, and without an exit strategy,” he said.
Instead of a ground invasion, Kozycki said the US should go back to its allies. “America’s greatest strength is the alliances that we’ve built,” he said. He named India and NATO as good partners.