Why was Obama weak in Georgia

[Motorcity]

Obama made huge gains in the sun belt in states like Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, and North Carolina. States that were not competitive during the Bush years.

He did make gains in Georgia. In 2004, Bush won 1.9 million votes and Kerry won 1.4 million. In 2008, McCain won 2 million and Obama won 1.8 million. 2012 was about the same.

Georgia is a huge state. Its larger than North Carolina and its major urban center (Atlanta) is much larger than anything NC has. It also has a higher portion of African American voters. The votes were there.

Logically, you would think the Obama campaign would make a play but they to my knowledge they never did in either 2008 or 2012.

Thoughts?

[If my soul was made of stone]

The '08 campaign made a small effort for Georgia early on, but later divested in favor of North Carolina when it became clear that the state's suburban white-collar white population and the deep Republican firewall in the north would be too much to overcome. Even back then, the demographics of counties like Cobb, Henry, Gwinnett, and north Fulton were fairly different, and others such as Douglas and Newton were just becoming competitive. Obama's overperformance in the Black Belt and lesser performance in the Atlanta suburbs compared to Clinton and Biden can be in part attributed to Black people in the Black Belt leaving for the suburbs due to lack of economic opportunity, as well as expatriates flooding in. Georgia had also voted significantly right of North Carolina in 2004, making it a less attractive target.

[YE]

Georgia isn’t very elastic so despite a huge national swing, inroads were small as the Atlanta suburbs were still a conservative hotbed.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Colorado , and Virginia were decided by single digits  in both 2000 and 2004 and Nevada and New Mexico were swing states  .

As for North Carolina , it’s that upper south white voters are much less solidly Republican than the ones in Georgia and even in 2020 whites in North Carolina voted Less republican than the ones in Georgia.  If you wanna hear a startling stat , in Kentucky young whites voted for Joe Biden according to CNN’s exit poll while in Georgia they voted for Trump by an over 20 point margin .

The problem for republicans now in Georgia is two things :

- Demographic changes in Georgia over the past decade

- the fact that whites in Georgia are starting to vote like upper south whites instead of Deep South ones(and this hasn’t even happened yet) .

[Motorcity]

Colorado , and Virginia were decided by single digits  in both 2000 and 2004 and Nevada and New Mexico were swing states  .

As for North Carolina , it’s that upper south white voters are much less solidly Republican than the ones in Georgia and even in 2020 whites in North Carolina voted Less republican than the ones in Georgia.  If you wanna hear a startling stat , in Kentucky young whites voted for Joe Biden according to CNN’s exit poll while in Georgia they voted for Trump by an over 20 point margin .

The problem for republicans now in Georgia is two things :

- Demographic changes in Georgia over the past decade

- the fact that whites in Georgia are starting to vote like upper south whites instead of Deep South ones(and this hasn’t even happened yet) .

I thought the upper south was one of the few places that trended rightward in 2008

The only five states McCain improved on were TN, AR, LA, WV, and OK. Four of these can be considered upper south states.

And KY only swung 3%, which was Obama's second weakest swing from Kerry. The weakest being Arizona for being McCain's home state

But that fact you mentioned about the young voters in KY and GA is mindblowing and shows Democrats can NOT bleed minority voters

[OSR stands with Israel]

Colorado , and Virginia were decided by single digits  in both 2000 and 2004 and Nevada and New Mexico were swing states  .

As for North Carolina , it’s that upper south white voters are much less solidly Republican than the ones in Georgia and even in 2020 whites in North Carolina voted Less republican than the ones in Georgia.  If you wanna hear a startling stat , in Kentucky young whites voted for Joe Biden according to CNN’s exit poll while in Georgia they voted for Trump by an over 20 point margin .

The problem for republicans now in Georgia is two things :

- Demographic changes in Georgia over the past decade

- the fact that whites in Georgia are starting to vote like upper south whites instead of Deep South ones(and this hasn’t even happened yet) .

I thought the upper south was one of the few places that trended rightward in 2008

The only five states McCain improved on were TN, AR, LA, WV, and OK. Four of these can be considered upper south states.

And KY only swung 3%, which was Obama's second weakest swing from Kerry. The weakest being Arizona for being McCain's home state

But that fact you mentioned about the young voters in KY and GA is mindblowing and shows Democrats can NOT bleed minority voters

Sure but it didn’t mean upper south whites voted even close to how republican Deep South whites did .
This is from 2012 but I don’t imagine things were that different from 2008

https://mobile.twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/906560060557467649


Yah the thing is Georgia would be a Republican state again for the foreseeable future if they had a strategy aimed at making inroads with African American voters rather than a strategy aimed at pre 2018 Georgia

[Motorcity]

Colorado , and Virginia were decided by single digits  in both 2000 and 2004 and Nevada and New Mexico were swing states  .

As for North Carolina , it’s that upper south white voters are much less solidly Republican than the ones in Georgia and even in 2020 whites in North Carolina voted Less republican than the ones in Georgia.  If you wanna hear a startling stat , in Kentucky young whites voted for Joe Biden according to CNN’s exit poll while in Georgia they voted for Trump by an over 20 point margin .

The problem for republicans now in Georgia is two things :

- Demographic changes in Georgia over the past decade

- the fact that whites in Georgia are starting to vote like upper south whites instead of Deep South ones(and this hasn’t even happened yet) .

I thought the upper south was one of the few places that trended rightward in 2008

The only five states McCain improved on were TN, AR, LA, WV, and OK. Four of these can be considered upper south states.

And KY only swung 3%, which was Obama's second weakest swing from Kerry. The weakest being Arizona for being McCain's home state

But that fact you mentioned about the young voters in KY and GA is mindblowing and shows Democrats can NOT bleed minority voters

Sure but it didn’t mean upper south whites voted even close to how republican Deep South whites did .
This is from 2012 but I don’t imagine things were that different from 2008

https://mobile.twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/906560060557467649

Yah the thing is Georgia would be a Republican state again for the foreseeable future if they had a strategy aimed at making inroads with African American voters rather than a strategy aimed at pre 2018 Georgia

The only states that Obama won the white vote in 2012 were WA, OR, IA, NY, MA, RI, CT, VT, NH, and ME

I strongly suspect Trump won the white vote in Iowa and probably New Hampshire.

I wonder how Trump did in NY and CT?

[Calthrina950]

Colorado , and Virginia were decided by single digits  in both 2000 and 2004 and Nevada and New Mexico were swing states  .

As for North Carolina , it’s that upper south white voters are much less solidly Republican than the ones in Georgia and even in 2020 whites in North Carolina voted Less republican than the ones in Georgia.  If you wanna hear a startling stat , in Kentucky young whites voted for Joe Biden according to CNN’s exit poll while in Georgia they voted for Trump by an over 20 point margin .

The problem for republicans now in Georgia is two things :

- Demographic changes in Georgia over the past decade

- the fact that whites in Georgia are starting to vote like upper south whites instead of Deep South ones(and this hasn’t even happened yet) .

I thought the upper south was one of the few places that trended rightward in 2008

The only five states McCain improved on were TN, AR, LA, WV, and OK. Four of these can be considered upper south states.

And KY only swung 3%, which was Obama's second weakest swing from Kerry. The weakest being Arizona for being McCain's home state

But that fact you mentioned about the young voters in KY and GA is mindblowing and shows Democrats can NOT bleed minority voters

Sure but it didn’t mean upper south whites voted even close to how republican Deep South whites did .
This is from 2012 but I don’t imagine things were that different from 2008

https://mobile.twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/906560060557467649

Yah the thing is Georgia would be a Republican state again for the foreseeable future if they had a strategy aimed at making inroads with African American voters rather than a strategy aimed at pre 2018 Georgia

The only states that Obama won the white vote in 2012 were WA, OR, IA, NY, MA, RI, CT, VT, NH, and ME

I strongly suspect Trump won the white vote in Iowa and probably New Hampshire.

I wonder how Trump did in NY and CT?

Obama also won the white vote in DC, HI, and MN. Trump certainly won the white vote in IA, and according to Reagente's tables, he narrowly won whites in CT, NH, and NY as well. Clinton won whites only in CA, DC, HI, ME, MA, OR, RI, VT, and WA.

[Bootes Void]

Georgia went from +17 Bush in 2004 to +5 McCain. Obama wasn't weak in GA whatsoever, it was still a fairly conservative state ( actually still is) so Obama needed more of a punch to pull off a win in GA.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

Colorado , and Virginia were decided by single digits  in both 2000 and 2004 and Nevada and New Mexico were swing states  .

As for North Carolina , it’s that upper south white voters are much less solidly Republican than the ones in Georgia and even in 2020 whites in North Carolina voted Less republican than the ones in Georgia.  If you wanna hear a startling stat , in Kentucky young whites voted for Joe Biden according to CNN’s exit poll while in Georgia they voted for Trump by an over 20 point margin .

That is wild, interesting to think about the sort of impact that could have in a place like Kentucky going forward.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Colorado , and Virginia were decided by single digits  in both 2000 and 2004 and Nevada and New Mexico were swing states  .

As for North Carolina , it’s that upper south white voters are much less solidly Republican than the ones in Georgia and even in 2020 whites in North Carolina voted Less republican than the ones in Georgia.  If you wanna hear a startling stat , in Kentucky young whites voted for Joe Biden according to CNN’s exit poll while in Georgia they voted for Trump by an over 20 point margin .

That is wild, interesting to think about the sort of impact that could have in a place like Kentucky going forward.

Overtime it may make Kentucky vote more like Missouri but even that is probably 3 cycles away and I suspect by the mid 2030s the parties will be very different than they are today .


Also it’s not really wild if you think about it , as Georgia demographically has always been a state that should have been democratic but it’s just that absurd levels of racial polarization is what kept the state Republican.

So yah thats why the whole idea that Kentucky or Missouri are more racist states than Georgia now days misses the point that if whites in Georgia voted like they did in Kentucky or Missouri , Georgia would be more dem than it is now and probably even solidly Democratic

[TDAS04]

If only NC whites voted like WV whites, maybe Obama could have carried NC a second time.