Georgia's Very Own Megathread!

[Adam Griffin]

Ok I'm just looking at the swing in Gwinnett, Henry, Cobb, wow the Metro looks like it's surging Dem.  

Chatham county looks interesting too, I assume due to Black turnout in Savannah?

There of course can be a litany of different things going on in different counties (some counties naturally have larger early vote totals, while others don't; some shift from cycle to cycle in one direction or another depending on early vote locations; some places are seeing turnout surges while others are seeing defections; etc)...but looking at the raw totals in Chatham, I'd say it's probably white voters pulling DEM ballots after voting GOP in the past. Look at the '14/'18 EV totals, how much the D/R margin has shifted and then compare that to some other metro/urban counties. Turnout is barely up in Chatham compared to most of the other counties with comparable swings.

I've talked about for years how coastal Georgia is arguably the most "moderate" region of the state in terms of ideology; while it tilts GOP usually, you have a much larger share of GOP voters who'd self-identify as moderate and they're largely clustered around Savannah. It wouldn't be surprising at all to see a huge defection from GOP to DEM here if you're seeing it in metro ATL communities as well.

[Adam Griffin]

Here are 50 counties total: since last update, I've added 5 counties in NW Georgia (Chattooga, Dade, Gordon, Murray & Walker), the 4 remaining Obama-Trump counties (Baker, Early, Peach & Twiggs) + Jimmy Carter's home county (Sumter). This comprises around 77% of the state's population, which Clinton won by 5 points.

The remaining 23% of the state as a whole would be more Republican than every other state save for Wyoming, with Trump winning it by 42 points (70-28).

County	'14 EV	'18 EV	'14 D	'14 R	'18 D	'18 R	Swing
Baker	168	145	61.3%	36.9%	61.4%	37.9%	0.9
Baldwin	1522	1557	45.6%	52.4%	54.3%	44.6%	16.5
Bartow	1585	1834	12.4%	86.8%	21.0%	77.6%	17.8
Bibb	5614	5047	68.1%	31.5%	73.2%	25.4%	11.2
Bulloch	1823	2349	33.5%	64.7%	41.5%	57.4%	15.3
Calhoun	95	152	57.9%	42.1%	73.0%	33.6%	23.6
Catoosa	989	1548	11.6%	88.1%	20.6%	76.9%	20.2
Chatham	5955	6526	42.4%	57.1%	66.0%	30.4%	50.3
Chattooga	1073	684	50.0%	46.1%	36.0%	62.8%	30.7
Cherokee	7349	7849	8.1%	91.7%	16.8%	82.7%	17.7
Clarke	3672	6552	61.7%	37.2%	73.6%	22.3%	26.8
Clayton	4570	6778	80.3%	19.3%	84.1%	13.0%	11.1
Cobb	13373	16018	21.7%	77.8%	44.2%	55.1%	45.2
Columbia	2938	6098	13.4%	86.4%	19.6%	78.9%	13.7
Coweta	2203	3552	22.7%	77.0%	30.6%	68.6%	16.3
Dade	602	686	15.9%	84.1%	9.7%	89.9%	12.0
Dekalb	16799	22594	78.1%	20.8%	86.3%	12.8%	16.2
Dougherty	2209	3110	88.2%	11.6%	85.8%	12.6%	3.4
Douglas	3327	3770	34.1%	65.6%	52.2%	47.3%	36.4
Early	310	638	81.3%	18.7%	39.0%	59.9%	83.5
Elbert	623	1241	27.3%	71.3%	24.8%	74.2%	5.4
Fannin	1329	1568	8.1%	91.5%	12.2%	86.5%	9.1
Fayette	-----	5283	20.1%	79.6%	38.4%	61.1%	36.8
Floyd	1793	2762	23.3%	76.4%	27.7%	68.9%	11.9
Forsyth	6813	12182	7.4%	90.2%	18.1%	78.2%	22.7
Fulton	17351	39760	63.0%	33.0%	66.1%	29.4%	6.7
Glynn	3899	3669	17.7%	81.7%	30.7%	68.2%	26.5
Gordon	931	1240	13.4%	86.1%	19.0%	80.9%	10.8
Gwinnett	8019	16538	24.8%	67.7%	56.1%	39.8%	59.2
Hall	-----	4442	10.2%	89.1%	21.3%	77.4%	22.8
Hancock	933	712	96.1%	3.6%	95.8%	3.9%	0.6
Henry	4819	8390	26.1%	73.1%	50.5%	48.8%	48.7
Houston	3843	4347	32.2%	64.9%	41.9%	57.1%	17.5
Laurens	1251	1882	42.2%	57.5%	38.4%	59.8%	6.1
Lowndes	3328	3139	32.7%	67.2%	34.8%	64.6%	4.7
Murray	801	531	27.1%	71.8%	15.1%	84.7%	24.9
Muscogee	9126	8101	62.7%	31.0%	65.8%	31.1%	3.0
Newton	3267	3356	51.7%	47.3%	56.8%	40.9%	11.5
Paulding	3506	5653	13.7%	85.4%	19.1%	79.6%	11.2
Peach	749	984	47.2%	52.3%	59.8%	39.4%	25.6
Quitman	235	192	67.7%	23.8%	52.6%	44.3%	35.6
Rabun	1617	2320	16.0%	83.1%	15.1%	84.8%	2.6
Randolph	362	606	81.5%	18.5%	75.7%	21.3%	8.6
Richmond	7903	7467	71.0%	27.2%	67.0%	30.2%	7.0
Rockdale	3705	5317	51.3%	48.4%	56.6%	41.3%	12.4
Sumter	1963	1423	59.2%	36.5%	62.0%	36.5%	2.8
Tift	1765	1540	16.7%	82.8%	25.5%	74.4%	17.2
Twiggs	651	397	86.6%	13.4%	71.5%	28.5%	30.2
Walker	1341	826	11.2%	88.7%	17.7%	81.5%	13.7
Whitfield	-----	1259	14.9%	83.3%	21.2%	77.1%	12.5

[Adam Griffin]

I'm not going to ask for a map of it but is the story in Quitman repeating in the other Obama-Trump counties, at a glance?

Added above. There are some huge swings among them, but the fact is that primary composition has tended to swing wildly in a lot of South Georgia counties that are ancestrally Democratic. If you go back a page or two and look at the 2010-2014 ballot maps link I posted, there are some counties in 2014 that went from 40% D to 90% D and vice-versa; I'm sure select incumbents on the ballot and a variety of other factors impact that. Nevertheless, there's probably not as much to read into results for counties like these as there are for other counties (the one exception in Obama-Trump counties would be Peach).

[Adam Griffin]

One county that would be interesting to see would be Oconee - White, wealthy county on the outskirts of Metro ATL next door to very-liberal Athens. 

Wish I had thought of it before! It had some pretty big improvement in 2014 if I recall correctly. Anyway, I'm not going to bother adding it to the chart yet (until I do a few more), but:

2014-Oconee (1664 votes): 89.2 R, 10.5 D
2018-Oconee (2872 votes): 72.1 R, 27.4 D
Oconee-Swing: 34.0

[Adam Griffin]

One fun fact I just observed: the 50 counties above have done a mirror flip compared to 2014:

2014 (50 Counties, Two-Way):
Republican EV: 55%
Democratic EV: 45%

2018 (50 Counties, Two-Way):
Democratic EV: 55%
Republican EV: 45%

It's worth noting that this analysis should be considered alongside the fact that GA Democrats had no contested gubernatorial primary in 2014. We would expect some general statewide rebound simply because of a contested top-ticket race in 2018, but the question is: how much of the rebound is attributable to that? Furthermore, how much may be the result of increased ED vote cannibalization by Democrats? I have a hard time believing even both factors combined are responsible for a 20-point shift.

[Adam Griffin]

Do the primaries have the same runoff rules as the GE or are they FPTP?

Yes; the GOP Governor's race will almost certainly go to a runoff.

[Adam Griffin]

Turnout is low in Whitfield. I mean, it usually is compared to other parts of the state, but the GOP must really not be caring if the mid-day numbers hold (I have 6/23 strategically-selected precincts staffed with poll-watchers). In areas like this, it wouldn't surprise me if Democratic turnout is at or slightly below 2014, while GOP turnout is way, way below 2014. That likely won't be the case for both parties' turnout totals everywhere, but it's probably pretty relevant in GOP stronghold regions outside the inner metro.

[Adam Griffin]

RANDOM PRECINCT REPORT FROM MY COUNTY

2014: 550 R, 67 D (89-11)
2018 (as of 4 PM): 249 R, 70 D (78-22)

Dem turnout at 104% of 2014; GOP at 45% of 2014.

[Adam Griffin]

^^^ At the same precinct, just now, from an old white bubba:

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[Adam Griffin]

What were the statewide percentages of democratic and republican ballots cast in 2014 and 2010?

Update: as of Friday, 340,255 AIP/ABM ballots have been cast or requested (via mail) in Georgia.

While there might be another half day's worth to report tomorrow (I can't remember if the SoS daily reports are through noon or if that is something proprietary to the voter file software I use elsewhere) and any returned ballots in the mail, the early vote is over.

Bigger day for Democrats, who pulled 50% of today's ballots (compared to the GOP's 48%). While not a huge difference, because of the sheer # of votes cast today (over 65k), this was enough to drop the GOP's margin in early voting from 7.3 points to 5.7 points.

Votes	%	Party
176346	51.82	Republican
157020	46.14	Democratic
6889	2.02	Non-Partisan/Other

Percentage of '14 DEM Primary (353,103): 44.5%
Percentage of '14 GOP Primary (617,876): 28.5%


And comparisons to previous primary composition:

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[Adam Griffin]

RANDOM PRECINCT REPORT FROM MY COUNTY

2014: 550 R, 67 D (89-11)
2018 (as of 4 PM): 249 R, 70 D (78-22)

Dem turnout at 104% of 2014; GOP at 45% of 2014.

5 PM UPDATE:

2014: 550 R, 67 D (89-11)
2018 (as of 5 PM): 267 R, 88 D (75-25)

Dem turnout at 131% of 2014; GOP at 49% of 2014.

[Adam Griffin]

[Adam Griffin]

The reality is that Abrams campaigned everywhere. She personally came to BFE Whitfield County 3 times, and her campaign came twice more. Evans' last (and only) appearance to my county to my knowledge was for our county party's fundraiser in August 2017 - and this was her ancestral home turf; where she needed to run up the margins to have any chance whatsoever (and a proportionate performance elsewhere). She banked on astroturfing in the metro and it didn't work. I'm not sure she could have won even with a better grassroots effort, but she certainly had no reason to suffer a 3:1 loss given her resources other than not working for it.

Now that the primary is over, I'll speak more freely about these things. Kudos to Abrams for running one hell of a campaign and putting in the groundwork to make it happen. It definitely yielded results in the Democratic primary. The real question is whether she can break the dynamic in the general: over the past 12 years, we've lost one vote in rural GA for every vote we've gained elsewhere. While she has personally made more appearances at this point in my part of the state than any other candidate I can recall (and that gives me hope), there is a contradictory message that has been muttered within campaign circles that basically implies "we're going to win this on the backs of urban and/or minority voters".

If anything, I hope the results tonight inspire them to reassess that strategy (if it is in fact what has been guiding them) and make a play everywhere, since the votes needed for victory originating from the core constituencies of the party just aren't there to carry us to 50%+1 yet, and since she did so well across the board (even in areas where DEM turnout was almost certainly inflated by suburban white former Republicans).


As a side-note, I'm going to have some fun maps to publish soon (after the remaining counties fully report).

[Adam Griffin]

Wow, there must have been a huge vote dump out of Dekalb in the past 15 minutes:

GAGOV-GOP-2018: 603,391 (52.34%)
GAGOV-DEM-2018: 549,397 (47.66%)

Incredible. Even if this is partially because a metric s[inks]t-ton of the GOP stayed home, Democratic raw turnout is getting closer to doubling 2014. I haven't ran the figures yet, but ED vote might be more Democratic than EV...

[Adam Griffin]

I haven't ran the figures yet, but ED vote might be more Democratic than EV...

According to the SoS figures (which breaks it down by EV & ED):

Election Day:
GOP: 52.01%
DEM: 47.99%

Early Vote:
GOP: 56.21%
DEM: 43.79%

This doesn't match up with the data that was in the absentee file published by SoS in the days prior...unless everybody who requested a mail ballot and who didn't vote were Democrats.

[Adam Griffin]

Voila (same as my pre-Election Night maps, but complete and with all votes*)



*Dekalb and Mitchell weren't fully reporting when I started making this

[Adam Griffin]

Two fun observations:

1) Wow look at Coastal GA what did I tell you (moderate GOP rebelling)
2) Black Belt & SW GA cracking in 2016 probably wasn't a one-time thing, and is on its way out

(Also most of those really really dark blue counties - and even some lighter shades - in SE GA and beyond are areas where something like 70-90% of primary voters pulled a Dem ballot in '14 for local reasons but are now voting GOP, but it's not indicative of a hemorrhage of GE support; only county where I'd say that's probably the case is Chattooga, but it already showed up in 2016 in the GE)

[Adam Griffin]

So, it looks like Senate Minority Leader Henson is going to hang on by a thread, thank goodness; still in the range of recount, though.

I bet Curt Thompson never saw it coming, though...

[Adam Griffin]

Fun fact: counties comprising 93% of GA's population swung Democratic in the primary compared to 2014 (measured by my primary swing map here). As relatively bad as some of that blue might look (around one-third of all counties), it's basically a selection of the least-populated areas. While additional measurements will be useful (such as which counties saw raw increase in Dem vote as opposed to a smaller drop-off compared to GOP), it's pretty astonishing.

While we could be wrong about it, Bacon King and I were discussing the southern areas last night (in particular SWGA) and - outside the counties that are obvious anomalies due to local conditions that led to wildly different primary outcomes - how it's definitely possible there'll be no significant majority-black territory left south of the Fall Line in 10 years' time. Mainly, because a huge chunk of young black residents are leaving for more urban areas and older black residents having life expectancy that is basically a decade shorter than white residents is converting majority-black areas into majority-white ones in just a few years. More granular analysis is needed, though. What's obvious, however, is the area as a whole is evaporating population-wise by the day.

Voila (same as my pre-Election Night maps, but complete and with all votes*)



*Dekalb and Mitchell weren't fully reporting when I started making this

[Adam Griffin]

Fun fact: counties comprising 93% of GA's population swung Democratic in the primary compared to 2014 (measured by my primary swing map here). As relatively bad as some of that blue might look (around one-third of all counties), it's basically a selection of the least-populated areas. While additional measurements will be useful (such as which counties saw raw increase in Dem vote as opposed to a smaller drop-off compared to GOP), it's pretty astonishing.

While we could be wrong about it, Bacon King and I were discussing the southern areas last night (in particular SWGA) and - outside the counties that are obvious anomalies due to local conditions that led to wildly different primary outcomes - how it's definitely possible there'll be no significant majority-black territory left south of the Fall Line in 10 years' time. Mainly, because a huge chunk of young black residents are leaving for more urban areas and older black residents having life expectancy that is basically a decade shorter than white residents is converting majority-black areas into majority-white ones in just a few years. More granular analysis is needed, though. What's obvious, however, is the area as a whole is evaporating population-wise by the day.

Voila (same as my pre-Election Night maps, but complete and with all votes*)



*Dekalb and Mitchell weren't fully reporting when I started making this

That would obviously have substantial VRA implications for Sanford Bishop, I imagine. What does rural Hispanic growth in GA look like?

It's a common misconception, but Bishop's district actually isn't a VRA-required district in the here and now: it was designed primarily to be a 49.5% BVAP vote-sink so that the Jim Marshalls of the world couldn't break through and win 2 or more districts in the southern half of the state. Nevertheless, it could definitely impact his future, as if the area is watered down enough for Republicans by 2021 and they still have control, they'll cut it in half and deal with having 2 55% GOP districts in the area or whatever (which'll be far less likely to elect Blue Dogs than they would have been a decade earlier).

[Adam Griffin]

ETA: For anyone who watches population, when will Gwinnett County become the most populous county in Georgia?

At to the height of the recession, it looked as if Gwinnett could overtake Fulton by 2020. However, since then, the two counties have been maintaining a pretty static difference population-wise (between 120-140k people). Trends can abruptly change but based on recent growth, there is no evidence it'll happen anytime soon. Gwinnett certainly has more physical room for growth, though.

EDIT: by the late 2030s, though, most projections have Gwinnett pulling into the lead.

https://www.ajc.com/news/local/what-georgia-county-will-have-the-most-people-2040-hint-not-fulton/CokXMmMP8nK6Qf7B7MhXpO/

[Adam Griffin]

Is there any movement in GA to abolish general election runoffs? I am not a fan of them at all.

Almost certainly won't happen until Democrats take both the Governorship and the General Assembly.

To give you some examples, the runoff law was set by Democrats and was 50%+1 from its inception until after the 1992 elections, when Wyche Fowler won a plurality on Election Day and lost the runoff a few weeks later; Democrats moved the threshold to 45%+1.

The GOP took the Governorship in 2002 and both chambers of the General Assembly in 2004. The following year, the GOP raised the runoff threshold back to 50%+1.

It has always existed in whatever form based on how it benefited the majority party (and/or the majority race, in the Democrats' case, in primaries).

[Adam Griffin]

So this is interesting - and not necessarily the result (at least in distribution) you'd expect based on media framing...

[Adam Griffin]

So this is interesting - and not necessarily the result (at least in distribution) you'd expect based on media framing...

The population taking the Dem ballot in North GA must be down to the committed liberals now?

Definitely - but looking throughout rural GA as a whole, it would appear that (rural) blacks are less supportive of banning bump stocks than (rural) whites. I use parentheses there because it may not be limited just to rural voters, but voters as a whole.

There are some counties in the southern part of the state where Dixiecrats/Republicans may be skewing things a bit, but the broader trend is still strong even when excluding them. As an example, of the 20 blackest counties in GA (as a % of population), 19 of them voted in favor of the ban by less than the state as a whole (the one exception - Dekalb - is arguably the only one that's also full of white yuppie liberals).

The only other potential explanation would be disproportionate drop-off of black voters down-ballot, but that wouldn't explain why the northern counties with virtually no black voters are still so strongly in favor. It also wouldn't explain why many of the heavily-white suburban counties around the state are more in favor as well (why Columbia is more in favor than Richmond; why Houston is more in favor than Bibb; why Effingham is more in favor than Chatham; etc).

[Adam Griffin]

So this is interesting - and not necessarily the result (at least in distribution) you'd expect based on media framing...

The population taking the Dem ballot in North GA must be down to the committed liberals now?

Yeah, my guess is that many Democrats take a Republican ballot in Northern Georgia to have greater influence on who will represent them because of the one party nature of the region. And those who take them are more likely to be moderate/conservative democrats, leaving only the most liberal voters to take a democratic ballot. This theory could also work in the black belt, where many counties are democratic-dominated so moderate Republicans take a democratic ballot. Or it could be because there are still some blue dog/conservadems in the region. Idk.

In previous primaries, I would tend to agree. However, this primary was more reflective of presidential margins than any in recent history, both statewide and at the county level. A lot of the Black Belt and Dixiecratic counties in the southern half of the state swung heavily to the GOP in terms of who pulled which party's primary ballots, and in the north, there was a significant rebound in the percentage of people who pulled Democratic ballots. While it's certainly not a perfect reflection, the state's primary margins county-by-county are more reflective of actual voters than at any point in many years.

But yes, I know for a fact that in my county (Whitfield), 35-40% of Democrats have historically pulled a GOP ballot because it is the de-facto general election, making Democrats about 1 in 5 GOP primary voters. I don't think that was true this time, however, but I'm sure there's still some skewing in one-party counties.

EDIT: another observation I just made about my own area is that Whitfield was one of the least supportive counties in North (Rural) Georgia, yet is the most diverse (mostly Latino rather than Black) and one of the most Democratic. The other two that beat us (Dade and especially Chattooga) still have a large contingent of Dixiecrats that likely skewed them to the extent they were.