Georgia's Very Own Megathread!

[Adam Griffin]

Georgians: Turnout dropped from 2010 to 2014. Simply put: how the christ

Speaking of which, here's a map that shows where nominal turnout increased/decreased, and by how much

Grimes ignored the south of the state. JUNK CAMPAIGN!

Well, I would hope that Grimes ignored most of Georgia.

In all fairness, this is a count/comparison in nominal terms; South Georgia is shrinking in population, so it's to be expected that there would be drop-offs to an extent in this metric. It was also observed in early voting. However, I am also working right now on a turnout by percentage of RVs for 2010 and 2014 to compare how much turnout dropped by in that regard, which will be a better metric.

One interesting thing I noticed thus far is that in the second map, SW Georgia doesn't look nearly as bad (2014 % of RV who voted) as it does in the map that shows nominal increase/decrease in turnout.

[Adam Griffin]

And voila: a map showing the percentage-point change in turnout among RVs between 2010 and 2014. Sorry about the formatting of the numbers (click on each county for details); Google doesn't like actual percentages.

So if you click on a county and see:

10 RV TRN: 0.4814
14 RV TRN: 0.4683
% CHG, 10-14: -0.0132

That means that 2010 turnout was 48.14%, 2014 was 46.83%, and that there was a percentage point drop of 1.32.

[Adam Griffin]

Isakson will formally announce he's running next week.

I kind of thought he might retire, but this isn't particularly surprising.

Good luck running an active campaign with all that COPD and cancer in his lungs

RIP

[Adam Griffin]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Adam Griffin]

So I've noticed Sanford Bishop has been voting as more of a moderate than usual lately- any chance he might have statewide ambitions?

You mean as opposed to voting conservative (relatively)?

[Adam Griffin]

Thurgood Baker gets a pass because he was appointed by Zell and never actually had to win a primary or a general without being an incumbent. I don't think a lot of people knew he was black, frankly, BUT everyone knew Mike Thurmond was black and he did in fact win a primary/general without ever being appointed/advantage of incumbency, becoming the first/only newly-elected black statewide officer in GA.

[Adam Griffin]

Thought you guys might be interested in this; here's to hoping BK has the time to scour the 2015-2016 incoming class to see if I missed any potential freshman rural white Dems that were elected in upsets:

Does anyone know how many white rural Democrats are left in the old Confederacy, particularly in the legislatures?  I imagine most would be concentrated in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas, as well as a few in the Virginia Senate (Creigh Deeds, John Edwards, Lynwood Lewis).  

Georgia: Number of rural white Democrats in the 2011-2012 session:
State House - 5/180
State Senate - 1/56

STATE HOUSE:

• 
  Sistie Hudson (D-Sparta) declined to run again in 2012 and instead ran for a County Commission Chair after they carved her district up (in full disclosure, though: she was in a very black and very safe district prior). She was first elected in 1996. She was replaced in 2012 by Mack Jackson, a black Democrat. She was a rural white Democrat who declined to run in 2012, representing a rural majority-black electorate.
   
• 
  Carol Fullerton (D-Albany) opted not to run again in 2014 upon facing a likely primary challenge. She was first elected in 2008. The guy running against her, Darrel Ealum (also white), ran unopposed. This district can only be considered "rural" in the sense that it is not one of the larger, typical metro areas in Georgia. It's also a 58% black district. She was a rural white Democrat who declined to run in 2014, representing a majority-black electorate. She was replaced by a rural white Democrat.
   
• 
  Debbie Buckner (D-Junction City) is still in office, and won with 64% of the vote in 2014. She was first elected in 2002. Her district is 51% black VAP. Based on the tendency for blacks in this part of the state to be a few points more Republican in State House contests, it appears that she won 40-45% of the white vote in 2014 (!). She is a rural white Democrat representing a majority-black district/majority-white electorate.
   
• 
  Rick Crawford (D-Cedartown) was one of only two remaining rural North Georgia Democrats as of 2012, and one of only three non-Atlanta based white Democrats in both chambers to represent a majority-white district. He served from 2006-2012. Being low-hanging fruit and after winning a nail-biter in 2008 (he had no opposition, surprisingly, in 2010), the GOP slightly altered his district in an attempt to sink him. He famously imploded in late-summer 2012, when he publicly stated that "if I win in November, I will switch to the Republican Party". In a district where he would have likely got 45%, he only won 33% against 24 year-old Republican Trey Kelley. He was a rural white Democrat who lost in 2012, representing a 80% white electorate.
   
• 
  Barbara Reece (D-Menlo) was the other of only two remaining rural North Georgia Democrats as of 2012, and also the other of only three non-Atlanta based white Democrats in both chambers to represent a majority-white district. She served from 1998-2012. She was my favorite of the five here, because she was the only "local" Democratic State House member remaining in my general area, representing Chattooga County (which the only locally-controlled Democratic county remaining in North GA) and parts of Floyd County. She won with 61% of the vote in 2008; they altered her district ever so slightly like they did Crawford's in 2011. Despite all of this, she managed to win 58% of the vote in Chattooga County in 2012 (69% Romney), which was half of the district. She got 42% of the vote in the Floyd half (75% Romney), which had slightly higher turnout. She got roughly 40% of the white vote in 2012. In the end the gerrymandering was just enough, and she lost 51-49 in an district that voted 72% Romney. She was a rural white Democrat who narrowly lost in 2012, representing a 90% white electorate.

STATE SENATE:

• 
  George Hooks (D-Americus) was the sole remaining white rural Democrat in the Georgia State Senate after 2010, serving from 1990-2012. He retired in 2012. His district as of 2010 was a 51% white VAP district. His district was dissected thoroughly in 2011, being split into four pieces. The newly-formed district in which he lived would not have re-elected him, and he had only formerly represented about 1/8 of its population. The single-largest piece of his former district to remain intact was joined with part of Columbus, becoming a 53% white district (which elected Ed Harbison, a black Democrat). He was the last rural white Democrat in the State Senate and represented a 55% white electorate.

Georgia: Number of rural white Democrats in the 2013-2014 session:
State House - 2/180
State Senate - 0/56

STATE HOUSE:

• 
  Carol Fullerton (D-Albany) opted not to run again in 2014 upon facing a likely primary challenge. She was first elected in 2008. The guy running against her, Darrel Ealum (also white), ran unopposed. This district can only be considered "rural" in the sense that it is not one of the larger, typical metro areas in Georgia. It's also a 58% black district. She was a rural white Democrat who declined to run in 2014, representing a majority-black electorate. She was replaced by a rural white Democrat.
   
• 
  Debbie Buckner (D-Junction City) is still in office, and won with 64% of the vote in 2014. She was first elected in 2002. Her district is 51% black VAP. Based on the tendency for blacks in this part of the state to be a few points more Republican in State House contests, it appears that she won 40-45% of the white vote in 2014 (!). She is a rural white Democrat representing a majority-black district/majority-white electorate.
   

Georgia: Number of rural white Democrats in the 2015-2016 session:
State House - 2/180**
State Senate - 0/56**
** I haven't checked to see if any white rural Democrats managed to either unseat a Republican or beat out a black Democrat in a primary, but it's highly doubtful either of these things happened.

STATE HOUSE:

• 
  Darrel Ealum (D-Albany) is the sole remaining white rural Democrat in the entire General Assembly for the 2015-2016 session. This district can only be considered "rural" in the sense that it is not one of the larger, typical metro areas in Georgia. It's also a 58% black district. He is the sole rural white Democrat who will be inaugurated in 2015, representing a majority-black electorate.
   
• 
  Debbie Buckner (D-Junction City) is still in office, and won with 64% of the vote in 2014. She was first elected in 2002. Her district is 51% black VAP. Based on the tendency for blacks in this part of the state to be a few points more Republican in State House contests, it appears that she won 40-45% of the white vote in 2014 (!). She is a rural white Democrat representing a majority-black district/majority-white electorate.
   

BONUS ROUND:

• 
  Rusty Kidd (I-Milledgeville) ran in 2010 against a Democrat and won with 58% of the vote. He hasn't faced opposition since then. He represents a 60% white electorate. I am including him because for all intents and purposes, he is very similar to John Barrow in terms of how he votes (although a bit more conservative). He has voted against items such as welfare drug testing and anti-immigration bills, and mysteriously vanishes whenever items such as abortion restrictions, unemployment cuts or assisted suicide prohibition show up for a vote. Unfortunately, he also voted to approve the "guns everywhere" law, put the Ten Commandments in the Capitol, and block Medicaid expansion. He has a 69% lifetime ACU rating.
  
  
  
  There are no rural white Democrats remaining in the Georgia General Assembly as of the 2015-2016 session that represent majority-white districts.
  
  Debbie Buckner likely wins re-election with a nominally majority-white electorate, but her district is 51% black VAP.
  
  There are only two rural white Democrats remaining in both chambers combined (both in the State House).
  
  Rusty Kidd (I) is the only non-Republican representing a majority-white district/electorate in either chamber of the General Assembly.

[Adam Griffin]

In many CDs, they were within a few decimals of eachother, but Adam, check out CD14! Carter did almost 6% better!

Congrats, me! In all honesty, I think there are a few reasons why this happened. I'll be the first to say that as a coordinator in the CD, there was a lot more enthusiasm from the base for Carter than Nunn. On multiple occasions, Nunn bailed on visits to the area and her team was very elusive at times. Carter is a genuinely open person, could remember people's names, visited several areas in the district multiple times (including our headline fundraiser that Nunn skipped) and was running ads in the Chatt media market two months before Nunn started (when early voting began).

A lot of volunteers didn't have much desire to proactively promote Nunn. A lot of the activist base up here even voted for primary opponents like Dr. Rad in the primary (in my own county, the active county committee went like 90% Dr. Rad, because he was progressive and actually took the time to visit with us and give real answers; Nunn cancelled on us twice during that time period). Plenty of people (including myself) viewed her as being way too opportunistic and generic; she didn't stand for anything, wouldn't take a solid position on most issues and like I said, kept giving us the cold shoulder up here. I heard plenty of my phone bankers basically skip over the questions about Nunn during their calls (to be fair, asking 5-6 questions to a complete stranger is hard to do and keep it flowing; volunteers tend to skip the questions at the end or the questions they feel are "less substantial"). This led to a lot more responses on how people felt about Carter than Nunn.

I would have said that the overall performance (outside the volunteer base) had something to do with gender, but the 9th and 12th are just as backwards - if not more so - than the 14th and she did better than Carter there. I'd also speculate the the Libertarian performance and the difference in candidate quality between Hunt and Swafford might have played a small role somehow, too (GA-14 is usually the most Libertarian area of the state).

I think Carter's efforts here paid off and in conjunction with the work I and many others did, we moved the 14th considerably for him given the nature of the terrain. In fact, my county swung more to Carter when compared to 2010 than any other in the state, and several of the other biggest swingers were up in NW GA, too; we added over 700 votes to his column despite turnout dropping countywide by 400 votes when compared to 2010. I'm pretty sure I posted this before, but here's my own map by county for Gov and Sen showing DPI/RPI increase (it's not technically a swing map since it just measures which party increased its share of the vote and by how much; it also compares Nunn to Thurmond in 2010 and not to Martin in 2008; I think that's a more accurate way to do it, anyway):

Can we just make him the national democratic outreach person please. It's obvious he's doing far better than those involved today.

Carter?

[Adam Griffin]

Here it is at the county level:

[Adam Griffin]

^ I know that Deal being from Gainesville probably helped Nunn perform better in those northeastern CD9 counties, but how much of an impact do you think Zell Miller had there for Nunn?

In Deal's "home base" of counties, it seemed like a mix-bag in terms of Carter/Nunn doing better than the other. Hall County actually swung to Carter, fwiw. Every single county in NE that swung hard to Deal in 2010 except for one (Habersham) saw Carter lead Nunn this time around, and a majority of them actually swung to Carter this time. These are the counties closer to the SC border than the NC one, by the way.

Ol' Zig-Zag's influence in his immediate backyard (the counties that border NC and his home of Towns County: Union, White, Rabun) is strong to this day. Most of the area rebounded pretty well for Nunn and actually swung to Deal, so take it for what it's worth: Deal's actual backyard swung away from him. In fact, this little area of Zell's was the only group of counties in the northern half of the state that showed distinctly-opposing swings (practically everywhere else either swung D in both cases or R in both cases). I'd say it definitely helped both Nunn & Deal.

[Adam Griffin]

Can we just make him the national democratic outreach person please. It's obvious he's doing far better than those involved today.

Carter?

You.

I'm flattered!


2014 voter breakdowns by race from SoS are finally in:

Georgia 2014
White 63.5%
Black 28.7%
Other/Unknown 6.0%
Latino 1.0%
Asian 0.8%

Georgia 2010
White 66.3%
Black 28.2%
Other/Unknown 4.0%
Latino 0.7%
Asian 0.6%

[Adam Griffin]

2014 voter breakdowns by race from SoS are finally in:

Georgia 2014
White 63.5%
Black 28.7%
Other/Unknown 6.0%
Latino 1.0%
Asian 0.8%

Georgia 2010
White 66.3%
Black 28.2%
Other/Unknown 4.0%
Latino 0.7%
Asian 0.6%

That's more white than 2012, right?

Yes, but less so than 2008. I need to refine my 2016-2024 projections with the new data in, but everything else is accurate:

Full-size

[Adam Griffin]

Percentage of vote each party received in House races by county for 2014. The darkest blues and reds you see there are actually 100%, but I didn't bother updating the legend. Some interesting finds include:

Bibb - 50.06% R - 49.94% D
Gwinnett - 51.96% R - 48.04% D

[Adam Griffin]

A GIF I made of Henry County



They added several precincts after 2004, but its still pretty interestingly. This is about as close as it gets to WV in reverse, as you have Republicans going from winning the county by more than 2:1 to slightly losing.

Very neat! I bet you would see similar patterns in Douglas and Rockdale, too (and even Gwinnett; to a lesser extent but tons of precincts and I imagine the visual R to D shifts would be quite dramatic).

[Adam Griffin]

A GIF I made of Henry County



They added several precincts after 2004, but its still pretty interestingly. This is about as close as it gets to WV in reverse, as you have Republicans going from winning the county by more than 2:1 to slightly losing.

Very neat! I bet you would see similar patterns in Douglas and Rockdale, too (and even Gwinnett; to a lesser extent but tons of precincts and I imagine the visual R to D shifts would be quite dramatic).

Henry (along with Gwinnettt) was quite the highlight of the otherwise rough night! Adam, BaconKing, and I had a lot of discussions if Henry would fall this year.  I live next to it in Newton, so our whole little area is trending very nicely Democratic.

AND I WAS RIGHT ABOUT HENRY! But I was wrong in saying that "if Henry flips, then Carter/Nunn win". It just goes to show how quickly the area is trending (and to some degree, how other parts of the state are doing the same but in the opposite direction to cancel it out).


Miles reminded me of a GIF (non-Atlas colors) I made at the beginning of the year, and despite spending 15 minutes looking for the forum post I had assumed that I had made (which I now can't find), I'll post it here:



This GIF is comparable to a static swing map, but instead of it being a simple swing map, it shows the election results for President in 2000, 2004, 2008 & 2012 in animated fashion. The changes in D & R % of the vote in each county is averaged out over 4-year periods and proportioned (as best possible) by frame/year. I know that the legend really can't be read, but you don't necessarily need it to appreciate the overall trends (lightest colors begin at 50% and each shade represents a 2-point range, with the last numbered shade being 86%). In essence, you're looking at the political changes of the state of Georgia over the past 12 years, condensed into 5 seconds. Take particular notice of Rockdale, Henry, Douglas, Gwinnett (and of course, most of rural GA for the opposite effect).

[Adam Griffin]

TROLOLOLOLOL

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Adam Griffin]

Full-sized image



Counties where Carter performed at or above statewide average among whites:



#1 Dekalb
#1 Clayton
#3 Clarke
#4 Fulton
#5 Hancock
#6 Chattooga
#7 Muscogee
#8 Chatham
#8 Chattahooche
#8 Stewart
#8 Macon
#12 Bibb
#12 Richmond
#12 Dougherty
#12 Talbot
#16 Clay
#16 Rockdale
#18 Floyd
#18 Murray
#18 Sumter
#21 Baldwin
#21 Cobb
#21 Liberty
#21 Telfair
#25 Dade
#25 Oconee
#25 Quitman
#25 Towns
#25 Walker
#25 Whitfield

[Adam Griffin]

I bet that county where Carter only got 7% is just a wonderful place.

Yeah, that's Walton County - BK lives near there, so he can probably tell us all about it. I've never had an excuse to go to that county (who would?), but looking at the area, it strikes me geographically as a place where the worst of rubery would fuse with awful transplant conservative cookie-cutter subdivision mentality, thanks to the outward growth of the metro.


Now, I've taken my old 2012 Obama performance map among whites by county and put it alongside the Carter 2014 map to show the difference.

It's amazing that despite how much better Carter did among whites in many of these counties compared to Obama's 2012 showing, he still received the same percentage of the overall vote. Even small drop-offs in minority turnout in GA have huge effects, and that's before we even count the documented drop-off of non-white support for Democrats in the midterm. All in all, it was enough to reduce Carter from potentially getting 48% of the statewide vote (in a 2012-style turnout/support scenario with whites giving 23%) to getting 45% of the statewide (actual).

An even more interesting comparison might be Obama 2008/Carter 2014 (since both received 23% statewide in exit polling). Here is the comparison of each county in the two scenarios, showing who did better among whites and by how many points:



And the actual side-by-side:

Full-sized image

[Adam Griffin]

I had been waiting for awhile to make this map, but forgot post-election to actually do it - until now! Here's a gubernatorial swing map comparing 2002 and 2014. Seeing as how 2002 was considered the "death knell" election for Georgia Democrats and 2014 was/is considered the beginning of a re-surging DPG, comparing these two years is arguably very relevant/prudent.



Go go Whitfield!

I'm assuming that the cluster of central GA counties swinging Democratic is almost exclusively due to the lack of a native son factor in 2014 (Sonny Perdue was from Houston County), but some of those counties are bit far from Bonaire. It could also be intensified to a degree by the fact that Carter home turf is immediately SW of the cluster (Sumter County; though Sumter itself did not swing to Carter).

[Adam Griffin]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Adam Griffin]

Sharing here:

It's amazing how as recently as the early 2000s, guys like Max Cleland, Zell Miller, and Roy Barnes strode across Georgia politics like colossi. It must have been multiracial coalitions of whites and blacks that put these men into power. Impossible to imagine today. In many ways, the South has been regressing since the 1990s, similarly to how it regressed during post-Reconstruction in 1873-1908.

Quite remarkable how quickly it all shifted, but it was long overdue, to be fair. Let's take a look at election results and compare them to turnout by race in GA over the cycles in order to see the makeup of the coalition.

% of candidate's voters that were white, 1996:
Clinton 56% (lost)
Cleland 59% (won)

% of candidate's voters that were white, 1998:
Barnes: 59% (won)
Coles: 48% (lost)

% of candidate's voters that were white, 2000:
Gore: 49% (lost)
Miller: 62% (won)

% of candidate's voters that were white, 2002:
Barnes: 54% (lost)
Cleland: 53% (lost)

% of candidate's voters that were white, 2004:
Kerry: 45% (lost)
Majette: 39% (lost)

(the blue/pink line roughly indicates what percentage of Democratic candidate's electorate needed to be white in order to win)

So basically, from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, the Democratic coalition in Georgia went from 60% white to 45% white. It's now about 35% white and yet pulling roughly the same statewide numbers as when Barnes and Cleland lost in 2002 (which tells you how rapid the demographic shift has been here).

[Adam Griffin]

Gingrey coming in third in his own congressional district. LOLOLOLOL

To be fair, a good chunk of his pre-2012 CD is now in GA-14, which was his best CD.

[Adam Griffin]

WAKE UP, YOU SILLY THREAD

Was just doing some thinking about how much Georgia has changed, and thought I'd illustrate with a hypothetical (being, "what if Clinton only did as well as John Kerry among all races, and not just blacks?"):

2004...
Kerry got 23-24% among whites
Kerry got 88% among blacks
Kerry got 43% (!?!) among latinos
Kerry got an unknown number among asians/other voters (let's assume 50%)
This led to Kerry receiving 41.34% of the vote

2016...
Clinton gets 23-24% among whites
Clinton gets 88% among blacks
Clinton gets 43% among latinos
Clinton gets 50% among asians/other voters
This leads to Clinton receiving 46.38% of the vote

I maintain - especially in retrospect - that the DNC picked the wrong state (NC) to invest in in 2008. When you look at 2004, 2008 and 2012 elections with respect to Democratic performance between GA & NC, there's evidence that they picked the wrong one.

[Adam Griffin]

*BUMP*

Tonight there is a special election for House District 80 in Brookhaven. Formerly held by Mike Jacobs, this is perhaps the softest district in the state for Republicans. Taylor Bennett, the D challenger, came in first in the four-way run-off (with about 37% of the vote) in the special election. What has changed since then is the fact that the nuttiest candidate of the three Rs got the nomination.

If Bennett manages to pull this fiscally-conservative but socially-liberal district (the R candidate is a bit of a wacko, despite being Mayor of Brookhaven) away from the R column, then GAGOP loses its supermajority in the House and the Fulton County delegation reverts to being majority-D again (Fulton county government because of its size and a variety of other factors is heavily constrained at the state level by how the majority of state house reps approve or disapprove various actions made at the county level that they are allowed to weigh in on).

In short, it'd be really big if this Democrat pulls out a win. I'm not really doing the overall campaign/story justice here and I should have been posting about this sooner, but oh well.

http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/56407/153665/en/summary.html

[Adam Griffin]

There's no way he loses it now without fraud. There can't be more than a few hundred remaining votes left in that Fulton section - if even anywhere near that - and Bennett's up by 400!

RIP GOP supermajority
RIP GOP majority in Fulton County