Factors for the Democratic collapse among white Southerners

[RedSLC]

-Many of the remaining white Democrats being a downscale, low turnout demographic (particularly in rural areas).

This one is not so much the cause of the collapse, but is a huge part of why so many areas remain staunchly Republican and states along the Atlantic are taking longer to rebound. What's going on below is the result of a cycle that is now feeding off of itself; people aren't very interested in voting when they never have any real choices on the ballot or highly-efficient county and state parties conducting outreach.

I'm fortunate enough to have access to a public voter system in Georgia, which allows me to explore various elements of the electorate (and more broadly speaking, registered voters). In this system, there are several scoring models that rank voters' likelihoods of voting for both a party and/or a specific type of candidate, of turning out in a given election and of supporting various hot-button issues.

Awhile back, I created a map of my congressional district (GA-14), which is the 8th most Republican CD in the country according to CPVI. Since the Civil War, this area of the state has traditionally been more Republican than the rest of Georgia and the vast majority of the Deep South. An average of two different scoring models was used by me in order to make this (one that assesses a voter's likelihood of supporting a Generic Democrat, and one that was aimed at gauging support for Obama specifically), and below you can see the extent of the discrepancy that existed in 2012 (personally, I think the non-Atlas colors version does a better job at illustrating this):



Another example is breaking down these counties' estimated Democratic and Republican turnout - along with overall turnout - in 2010 (as a % of RV). Keep in mind that we don't have party registration in Georgia, so these scoring models and primary voting histories are used instead. The "Democrats/Republicans +x" on the right is just the number of points difference between D & R turnout in the 2010 general:

Pickens: D = 56%, R = 55%, TOTAL = 55%; Democrats +1
Catoosa: D = 31%, R = 44%, TOTAL = 41%; Republicans +13
Paulding: D = 36%, R = 49%, TOTAL = 46%; Republicans +13
Dade: D = 30%, R = 46%, TOTAL = 42%; Republicans +16
Gordon: D = 29%, R = 50%, TOTAL = 45%; Republicans + 16
Walker: D = 21%, R = 44%, TOTAL = 38%; Republicans +23
Floyd: D = 30%, R = 55%, TOTAL = 49%; Republicans +25
Haralson: D = 31%, R = 56%, TOTAL = 50%; Republicans +25
Murray: D = 18%, R = 43%, TOTAL = 37%; Republicans +25
Whitfield: D = 25%, R = 50%, TOTAL = 44%; Republicans +25
Polk: D = 26%, R = 54%, TOTAL = 49%; Republicans +28
Chattooga: D = 20%, R = 53%, TOTAL = 45%; Republicans +33

GA-14:
D = 29% of Democrats voted in 2010
R = 50% of Republicans voted in 2010
TOTAL = 45% of all RVs voted in 2010

Republicans +21

So both Rome and Dalton (the two main urban centers of the district) would vote like most other cities in the US if dem turnout was comparable to R turnout? Interesting.

The state party should focus on some GOTV efforts here. It most likely won't help in this region as a whole, but it could probably improve dem prospects in some downballot races (like state legislature or mayoral races).