Lucy McBaths name is intimately tied to the issue of guns. The Democratic candidate for Georgias 6th Congressional District was first thrust into the national spotlight in 2012, when her black 17-year-old son, Jordan Davis, was shot dead at a Florida gas station by a white man complaining about loud music. McBaths tragic loss became the fuel for years of advocacy for gun safety. And after the Parkland, Florida, school shooting in February, she set her sights on Congress.

Her run is not only part of the wave of a record number of women running for office this year, but its also a test as to whether a candidate running primarily on gun control can win in a state with gun-friendly laws in the heart of the Deep South, which has some of the nations highest rates of gun ownership .

McBath faces a tough race. The odds are stacked against the political newcomer vying to unseat Republican incumbent Karen Handel, who beat Democrat Jon Ossoff in a special election last year that was the most expensive House race ever. And her suburban Atlanta district has long been a GOP stronghold .

But advocates are optimistic that she could win, pointing to Georgias growing diversity more people of color, and likely Democrats, are moving into the state, including to McBaths district and the evolving attitudes on gun control in the state and the nation.

Whether or not McBath pulls off an upset, it wont have been a function of her gun control platform which includes policies most Americans support , pollsters and organizers said. Whats more, the issue of gun control alone doesnt tend to motivate voters to head to the polls.

People have an idea of what they think Georgia is: super-conservative and really red. None of those things are true, said Nse Ufot, executive director of the New Georgia Project , which has registered more than 250,000 black and Latino voters in the state in recent years.

[McBaths] candidacy seems right on time for parents of school-aged kids concerned about losing kids to gun violence, Ufot added.