National Journal: Democrats Are Running Out of States to Flip

[Adam Griffin]

Georgia is going to flip by the end of the decade or beginning of the next. The demographic trends are big to ignore.

Adam Griffin should post his chart in here. 

Your prayers have been heard and I will return to this thread shortly.

[Adam Griffin]

I'll provide some new content later, but you can start with this in regards to Hillary needing 30% of the white vote (LOL):

I observed some silly talk a bit ago in this thread about how someone like Hillary couldn't win Georgia. So here's a spreadsheet (well, an image of a spreadsheet) that will let you compare scenarios for 2016 (1% given to third-parties)!



I couldn't include every single one, but hey, isn't 99 enough? Also highlighted are the two closest scenarios to 2008 & 2012. If you consider the likely composition of the electorate in 2016 (58-59% white) with Obama's 2008 performance, you'll suddenly realize that someone like Hillary could win the state with 50-51% of the vote - and that's just on momentum - an actual campaign in Georgia would only increase the likelihood of Dems winning the state.

If a Dem can get more than 25% of the white vote in Georgia in a presidential election, it's over.

Then there was also this:

I've never understood the general argument that minority turnout in Deep South states will suddenly plummet once Obama is no longer in office and his supposed hex wears off of the electorate. That it will immediately disintegrate come 2016 is demonstrably false. I worry about something else, but I'll elaborate below. Let's consider Georgia's electorate over the past few cycles, using this nifty past and future chart I made:



In 2004, the black electorate comprised 25% of the voting population. It surged in 2008 - by five points - and was 30% of the electorate. Fast forward to 2012 and it remained the same - roughly 30% of the electorate. But what about in the mid-terms? Obama was not on the ballot then, yet blacks managed to comprise 28% of the electorate in 2010, an incredibly impressive number considering their share of the electorate in the 2004 election. Sure, it was the largest nominal drop between a presidential year and a midterm year for the black electorate in the past two decades, but it also followed the biggest surge in black registration and turnout since at least Reconstruction.

Just four years prior (2006), that number was 24%. I don't buy that a potential effect in turnout among blacks - especially in the midterms - was avoided just because Obama was sitting in the White House. We all saw the disorganization and terrible turnout nationally of Democrats, yet this wasn't nearly as big of a problem in Georgia in relative terms. The black voting bloc in Georgia has been activated and there has been a historical trend over the past few decades in Georgia that blacks who are registered to vote have a pretty strong tendency to actually vote - it's getting them registered that usually proves to be the issue.

My big worry does not pertain to whether or not blacks will turnout in 2014 & 2016 (they will), but rather to how much they will continue to support Democrats. The black electorate in Georgia gave Gore and Kerry 88% and 89% of their vote, respectively. In 2008, that number increased to 98% and was somewhere around 95% in 2012. If this number reverts from 95% to 89%, that's effectively a two-point reduction in statewide Democratic performance; under those conditions, Obama would have only received 43.5% of the vote in 2012.

If I recall, Black turnout in Georgia actually fell in 2012- probably due to voter ID. However, the demographic changes in Georgia aren't the kind that will be canceled out by any potentially decreased turnout- they'll make up for lowered turnout an then some.

That's assuming, as Mechaman has pointed out, that current trends will continue with no modification thanks to changes in the parties. However, I actually think the trends in Georgia are more likely to put the state in the D-column long term than those in NC and VA. That's simply because in the latter 2, the shift is more dependent on moderate white suburbanites.

It only fell by 0.2 points. Voter ID was passed in GA in 2004 and went into full effect in 2007. Again, the biggest surge in black turnout and registration in Georgia was done under the first full election cycle of photo ID. I hate to admit it, but the Republicans' best argument for voter ID laws is Georgia; it really has not prevented the black community as a whole from exercising their democratic rights. The black share of the electorate has been 93-97% representative of their share of the population in the past two presidential election cycles, far higher than it was prior to voter ID laws being implemented.

[Adam Griffin]

There's no point in Democrats going after Arizona before Georgia. The demographic math simply disagrees with the premise.

The argument for Arizona goes somewhat like this: "well, whites there are more Democratic than in Georgia and minorities are more fickle about turning out, so let's go with Arizona". The only problem is that you need strong minority turnout in Arizona - in fact, you need even more of it in Arizona than you do in Georgia, because Arizona's minority bloc is less Democratic. Oh, and that minority bloc is the most fickle of all voters.

The secondary argument seems to be: "well, blacks are voting at unnaturally high rates for Democrats in Georgia; if it swings in the opposite direction even just a bit, it's not attainable". Well, so are Latinos in Arizona, and the swing in the Latino electorate between 2004-2012 is much larger than it was for blacks. I'd also argue that polarization could drive white support for Democrats down by a much larger amount in AZ than it will in GA; you're not going to see white support in GA get any lower than it is now, but AZ is culturally quite similar to GA and yet has remained above 35% Democrat among whites.

In short, there's a lot more room for white and Latino Democratic support alike to fall in AZ than there is in Georgia. You're not going to see black turnout relevant election-to-election drop in GA; white turnout will, however. I also don't think you're going to see black support for Democrats drop by any huge amount (though even a small drop in Georgia will have a measurable impact). The long-term trends in Georgia are simply stronger, and there's no debate about that. Arizona's minority population is comprised largely of a group of which half aren't even citizens, and the other half turnout at a rate only 2/3 that of blacks.

Keep in mind that everything that's happened in GA thus far has happened without any DNC investment whatsoever. I'd argue that if GA had been contested like NC, it'd already be as Democratic - if not more - than the Tarheel State. And if Hillary wants a Senate with as many Democrats as possible (i.e.: 60), then you bet she and the DNC will be in GA come 2016.