Georgia's Trend

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Was Georgia ever that red?

2012- light red for Romney
2008- light red for McCain
2004- Bush's base was evangelical conservatives.
2000- Bush's base was evangelical conservatives.
1996- battleground for Dole
1992- toss up for Clinton
1988- not indicative due to Dukakis
1984- not indicative due to Mondale
1980- not indicative due to Carter
1976- not indicative due to Carter
1972- not indicative due to McGovern
1968- Wallace won the deep south due to segregation.
1964- Goldwater won the deep south due to segregation.

When I said not indicative it's because Carter was from Georgia and the other three were terrible everywhere. Prior to these elections, Georgia was solid to safe Democrat which begs the question of whether or not Georgia's trend is very significant at all?

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Even if we just look at the last four elections though and subtract Bush's over performance with white evangelicals, we see hardly any trend at all.

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Even if we just look at the last four elections though and subtract Bush's over performance with white evangelicals, we see hardly any trend at all.

Yep, and white voters don't appear to be going anywhere. Of course, 2016 polling suggests that Clinton can win any southern state, but I expect that's junk just like the the "Obama can win Arizona" crap we heard 1 year before the election. But in all seriousness, Georgia is equal to Washington in terms of score relative to the country. Reaching for Georgia is just too far.

It will be interesting to see in '16 if black voters keep up at the current turnout rate.

It will. I'm not making the argument that it's way out of reach or that it's staying where it was with Bush. What I'm saying is that the trend is a moot point and it will remain where it's been for the last quarter century.

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It won't be 96-4 again either.

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Even if we just look at the last four elections though and subtract Bush's over performance with white evangelicals, we see hardly any trend at all.

Dead on.  Georgia is going to continue to be safe for Republicans for the foreseeable future.  It's possible that it could go Democrat in a fluke election, but doubtful.

I'd call it likely Republican, but yes.

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I think Republicans have hit their ceiling with the white vote in Georgia. Obama was an absolutely horrible candidate for white voters here outside of Metro Atlanta. Expect the next Democratic nominee to win more of the white vote in Georgia unless Jesse Jackson gets the nomination. It won't be a huge swing but it will likely be around 20-25%. If minority turnout remains the same then it will be a close race in Georgia, at least closer than people are expecting.

Do you remember Bush over performing in Georgia due to his evangelical base? This alone should explain that the state has never been that red and therefore the one measly point it trended last year is a point of fantasy for the left. The state is pretty much the same with numbers as it's been for a couple decades.

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I think Republicans have hit their ceiling with the white vote in Georgia. Obama was an absolutely horrible candidate for white voters here outside of Metro Atlanta. Expect the next Democratic nominee to win more of the white vote in Georgia unless Jesse Jackson gets the nomination. It won't be a huge swing but it will likely be around 20-25%. If minority turnout remains the same then it will be a close race in Georgia, at least closer than people are expecting.

Do you remember Bush over performing in Georgia due to his evangelical base? This alone should explain that the state has never been that red and therefore the one measly point it trended last year is a point of fantasy for the left. The state is pretty much the same with numbers as it's been for a couple decades.

If the state has never been all that red then by your logic it should be a future pickup opportunity for Democrats.

It might but by this logic it's too early to tell and because Georgia has never been that far to the right, a one point trend to the left last year isn't worth our time.

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GA GOP is trying to reach out to Minorities but there recent actions around Fulton County have damaged them. We are seeing a shift in the suburbs, but only slightly. I also think GA won't have as high a Dem turnout in the future, Obama was one of the best candidates for GOTV.
Democrats are associated with the Metro-Atlanta Region and everyone who lives outside the 285 loop strongly dislike the Metro-Atlanta region, the GOP does do very well outside the Metro. The Democratic party knows it will be a long slog but they have a game plan. So let's see.

It's not as big of a problem as Democrats make it out to be. There's small signs of a leftward trend, but the truth is that the state has never been that far to the right. Therefore, the trends can easily be argued to be a result of a candidate who is a great fit for Georgia. Yes, Bush did win there by a solid margin; 12 and 17, but Bush was also a great fit for Georgia with his southern evangelical base. So what we really see is a Republican as a great fit and then a Democrat as a great fit. This is what has caused the trend. As for indicative data, we really don't have any recently unless we're willing to look beyond the trend and into what's really causing the trend. The cause is simple. We had a great Republican candidate and then a great Democratic candidate for the state. Georgia has been and will remain a light red state.

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Unless the whites get as bad here as they are in MS, there's a clear trend. Thankfully, this isn't Alabama or Mississippi and slightly more civilized way of life will ensure you will never see GA whites dropping below 18-19%.

How does this information change the fact that last year Georgia only trended 0.7% to the right? Are you saying the trend will speed back up again soon?

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How does this information change the fact that last year Georgia only trended 0.7% to the right? Are you saying the trend will speed back up again soon?

I think you may be reading too much into that one number, as I've said before. Indiana trended Republican for nearly 20 years - until it didn't (it swung harder than any state for the Democrats in 2008).

The only trend that I'm willing to speak to is the one that is outlined in the graphs above. Obviously, voting patterns among those groups can change, but I do feel comfortable in saying that Georgia will be majority-minority by 2020 and its electorate will follow suit sometime in between 2024-2028.

The projections in those graphs are aggregated from 20-year averages; Georgia was not always diversifying at the same rate as it was in 2003-2008, but the average suggests that whites will continue to decrease at a rate of one percentage point of the total population per year.

Despite the fact that both whites and non-whites both went 3 points more for Romney than McCain, Romney only did 1.1 points better than McCain did.

The reason is the demographic shift in the composition of the electorate, which should be viewed (at least within these confines) differently than the composition of the population at-large. Even if Georgia were to remain 54-55% white for the next decade, the percentage of white voters would continue to fall at a rate of around a half-point per year.

Black growth in terms of population began to stall around 2009. It'll continue to grow over the next decade, but very slowly. There is still a bit of wiggle room in terms of blacks' becoming a slightly larger percentage of the electorate, however, due to the historical disenfranchisement and lack of equitable representation at the ballot box.

Above, you'll see that blacks at the ballot box have lagged their actual representation by about 5 points, whereas whites have exceeded their representation by about 6 points. These two numbers will continue to approach their respective parities - with or without any additional demographic shifts.

If Georgia's white and non-white voters had voted how they did in 2012 and had parity in terms of racial turnout versus population (55% white), then President Obama would have won Georgia in 2012 with 49.7% of the vote. The same scenario ran based on 2008 numbers (59% white) would have netted Obama 50.1% of the vote. Despite the fact that he lost 3 points of support across the board between 2008 and 2012, these two projections change by less than one-half of a percentage point due to demographic shifts. I understand that this means nothing in a tangible sense, but it is important to understand that the dynamics of the consistent changes in Georgia will make it more competitive in the coming years.

I'd also argue that any gains from a black Presidential candidate were more than cancelled out among whites who share a racist sentiment. Obama did exactly as well as Kerry among whites in 2008 (23%). Maybe some do not draw anything from that, but I draw the following:

• One was a relatively weak white candidate running against an incumbent, wartime President
• One was a charismatic black candidate running with the most momentum of any national Democrat in decades

Come 2016, I expect these two factors (black enthusiasm and white racism) to cancel each other out. While blacks may revert to their past voting habits (~88% Democratic versus 95-98% Democratic; enough to decrease total Dem support by around 2.5 points), whites will also rebound slightly when there is (presumably) a white Democratic candidate running for President. If whites rebound to 2004 levels, that'll be enough to cancel out any loss of African-American support when combined with the reductions in the white electorate over the next three years. If somehow black support holds and whites rebound to 2004 levels, then flip a coin to see who wins the state.  If white support hits 25% for Democrats, then Democrats win the state under almost any scenario.

I don't see how (let's ignore all the non-white growth and just look at the white demographic shifts/who's moving here) you end up with a white electorate in Georgia that continues to become more Republican. The rural areas very well may, but they are rapidly shrinking. I'm honestly surprised that with all the dog-whistling and hatred that was in the air, that Obama only lost 3 points among whites when compared to 2008.


Another thing that I'd like to explore later (and particularly in your NC topic) is how DNC/DSCC/Dem Presidential campaign spending will affect Georgia in the years to come. Virtually no national money has been spent in Georgia to augment Democratic performance thus far. Obama spent $4 million in Georgia in 2008 (all before Labor Day) and $11,000 in 2012. More than $50 million was spent by Obama in NC in 2008 and 2012 combined (outspent by Republicans both times), yet Georgia held within 2.8-2.9 points of North Carolina in both elections.

I'm familiar with most of what you're saying. One factor we've all overlooked is Bush's evangelical base. Before anyone points out that Romney did just as well as Bush with their voting base, I'll point out that Bush was able to motivate his evangelical base to raise money and support him actively while Romney they simply only voted for because he wasn't Obama.

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I'm familiar with most of what you're saying. One factor we've all overlooked is Bush's evangelical base. Before anyone points out that Romney did just as well as Bush with their voting base, I'll point out that Bush was able to motivate his evangelical base to raise money and support him actively while Romney they simply only voted for because he wasn't Obama.

It depends on how you break those numbers down (for simplicity's sake, looking at two-way fundraising model):

2004:

Bush: $6,643,906 (75.51%)
Kerry: $2,154,302

2008:

Obama: $6,459,072 (58.92%)
McCain: $4,502,301

2012:

Romney: $11,005,091 (65.24%)
Obama: $5,861,277

Romney raised 1.7 times as much as Bush did 8 years prior, but he did raise less in terms of percentage of direct Georgia contributions to Democratic/Republican presidential candidates who ultimately became their parties' nominees. A key difference, however, is that Bush did not have to worry about a primary - Romney's percentage certainly would have been higher had he not had to deal with a very divisive and extended primary.

Yes but the other way to look at it is that Romney was 10 points behind Bush in fundraising. Bush won 17 and Romney won by 7.