Georgia's Very Own Megathread!

[LimoLiberal]

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.

[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.

[Adam Griffin]

A lot of questions like these will be cleared up in the next couple of weeks, when the state publishes age, race and gender turnout breakdowns for every precinct in the state. We'll be able to see clear correlations beyond the county level, and also see who exactly voted in each county. I just don't want to wait that long to speculate.

[Adam Griffin]

BTW, I'd say this map is more likely to show where Dixiecrats are disproportionately influencing (particularly in the Yes >70% counties). I really wish I had done these with 5-point gradients, but oh well:



Can't wait to do the mass transit one: pretty much the distance from ATL seems to have influenced the outcome.

[Adam Griffin]

Again, 4 specific counties (Taliaferro, Washington, Wilkinson and Montgomery) show substantial signs of Dixiecrat meddling. Echols (which Bernie won in 2016) and Clinch are also other less obvious examples.

[NOVA Green]

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.

Fmr President: To what extent though can we really equate Latino population of a County in many parts of Georgia with % of RVs, % of actual voters in GEs, % of voters in primary elections?

Anecdotal but relevant: A couple years back I start chatting a bit more about one of my son-in-laws "roots of his raising" in Hall County, Georgia. 

Naturally being the political and demographic geek I am, I did a bit of research into his home county and was surprised to see it was 26% Latino, but overwhelmingly Republican at all levels...

A bit more research, and we see that 13% of the workers in the County are in the "Production" occupations, and 20% in the "manufacturing" industry....

Sure enough it turns out there is a major poultry food processing facility located within the County, where the vast majority of the workers are either Latino or "Rednecks" (My Son-in-Laws words and not mine)....

Many of these workers are likely subcontracted or temp workers, in one of the lowest paying and most dangerous occupations in America....

I just pulled the numbers for Whitfield County, and ok it is 32% Latino, with the Anglo population 62%, but once you look at the Latino Population by age, we see the population aged 45+ becoming overwhelmingly Anglo, and we are not even talking about registered voters here.

We look at occupational categories, and almost 22% of workers are in "Production" and 37% (!!!) are employed in the "Manufacturing" Industry....

Now Whitfield County appears much more tied to the Textile Industry (Carpet Tiles) than Food Processing, but still there does appear to be a direct correlation between Latino Populations and certain types of Manufacturing work within Georgia (Not to mention other smaller and more rural counties in the South-lands and the Central Plain States)....

http://www.georgiatrend.com/September-2011/Dalton-Whitfield-County-A-Manufacturing-Resurgence/

I suspect that the Latino electorate in Georgia is still much smaller than raw population numbers would suggest, especially outside of the core parts of Metro Atlanta.

Thoughts?

[Adam Griffin]

*snip*

Oh, absolutely - even in Whitfield, you're doing good to have 15% of the total electorate be Latino in a presidential year (which is roughly what it was in 2016 if I recall correctly, when you include the large segment of "other/unknown" registered voters as classified by SoS who are in fact Latino). That number is growing rapidly, though: it was something like 10-11% in 2012 and in the single digits in 2008.

But that number is obviously a bit bigger in the Democratic primary, even when assuming fewer Latinos as a share of the electorate show up to vote compared to a general. Prior to 2016, our baseline Democratic electorate in Whitfield was approximately 60% White, 25% Latino and 15% Black, making us one of the only counties in GA where not only are whites the majority of the Democratic electorate, but where blacks are not the runners-up, so to speak (maybe even the only; not sure if Latinos have become the #2 bloc even in Gwinnett or Hall). I'll need to go check the data for 2016 to get an approximate figure, but it wouldn't surprise me if the Latino percentage of our electorate in the 2016 general was one-third of our vote-bloc.

In a primary, however, I'm sure those numbers are lower. Nevertheless, in most of the surrounding and far northern counties, you're dealing with Democratic electorates that are 90-95% white or more, so it would still be a fairly big difference in a primary.

EDIT: and yes, at least as of a few years ago, two of the three counties with the highest percentage of workers in manufacturing in the country were in NW Georgia. I believe #2 was Murray (our neighbor) and #3 was Whitfield; the #1 county is home to Elkhart, Indiana I believe. It's also no surprise that these two MSAs were the hardest hit by the recession as a share of jobs lost (~25%) during the height of the economic situation.

[DrScholl]

It's similar to how parts of Central California and Eastern Washington have heavily Hispanic precincts that are 70% or more Republican. The CVAP demographics are far less Hispanic than the demographics of overall population.

[Adam Griffin]

It's similar to how parts of Central California and Eastern Washington have heavily Hispanic precincts that are 70% or more Republican. The CVAP is far lower than the population.

Yes, it's a common phenomenon outside of any urban area where a large Latino presence has appeared in the past 30 years for the area to be substantially GOP. In my county, you're looking at 40-45% of the Latino population being non-citizens, and of those who are citizens, a disproportionate share are still under the age of 30. Basically, here, 80% of those over 50 are non-citizens and 80% under 30 are citizens.

When you control for those factors, Latinos are actually voting at comparable levels to whites in places like this (i.e. old Latinos can't vote for the most part, and young Latinos - who comprise most of the citizenry - are voting at levels compared to young whites, which is at piss-poor levels but not unique to them based on race or ethnicity).

[henster]

On the bump stock Q it may just people not being familiar with the term, it was virtually unknown to the general public before Vegas. Also I wish more parties had the ability to pose ballot questions to primary voters it is a good way to gauge divisions in the party. Would have liked to see Q's on single payer, Israel, impeachment etc.

[NOVA Green]

*snip*

Oh, absolutely - even in Whitfield, you're doing good to have 15% of the total electorate be Latino in a presidential year (which is roughly what it was in 2016 if I recall correctly, when you include the large segment of "other/unknown" registered voters as classified by SoS who are in fact Latino). That number is growing rapidly, though: it was something like 10-11% in 2012 and in the single digits in 2008.

But that number is obviously a bit bigger in the Democratic primary, even when assuming fewer Latinos as a share of the electorate show up to vote compared to a general. Prior to 2016, our baseline Democratic electorate in Whitfield was approximately 60% White, 25% Latino and 15% Black, making us one of the only counties in GA where not only are whites the majority of the Democratic electorate, but where blacks are not the runners-up, so to speak (maybe even the only; not sure if Latinos have become the #2 bloc even in Gwinnett or Hall). I'll need to go check the data for 2016 to get an approximate figure, but it wouldn't surprise me if the Latino percentage of our electorate in the 2016 general was one-third of our vote-bloc.

In a primary, however, I'm sure those numbers are lower. Nevertheless, in most of the surrounding and far northern counties, you're dealing with Democratic electorates that are 90-95% white or more, so it would still be a fairly big difference in a primary.

EDIT: and yes, at least as of a few years ago, two of the three counties with the highest percentage of workers in manufacturing in the country were in NW Georgia. I believe #2 was Murray (our neighbor) and #3 was Whitfield; the #1 county is home to Elkhart, Indiana I believe. It's also no surprise that these two MSAs were the hardest hit by the recession as a share of jobs lost (~25%) during the height of the economic situation.

Fascinating stuff an awesome effort post as always Fmr. President....

I keep forgetting that because Georgia is still a VRA State, that one can actually drill down the self-identified "race/ethnicity" numbers to model turnout numbers....

So based upon what you have discovered in Whitfield County, Latino baseline composition of the Democratic Primary (Assuming a GE year election) are roughly 25% of the Democratic Electorate, and possibly as high as 15% in a "Good Year--- 2016" of the Total GE electorate?

So, this raises some interesting questions as well, since 80% of Latino voters 50+ are non-citizens, and 80% under 30 are citizens....

Is it fair to say that the vast majority Latino electorate of Whitfield County skews heavily Millennial???

If so, one would imagine that when it comes to certain types of Social Issues, these voters would tend to be fairly Liberal compared to their Parents/ Grandparents....

Now, one thing you didn't state about Whitfield, is that this is a pretty decent sized County (Population 103k), so obviously changes in the age brackets and social-demographics could likely have a significant impact if we were to roll 10 years forward in time, especially in a significant population center within a solidly Republican NW Georgia Congressional District.....

WOW at your numbers regarding % of workers employed in the manufacturing sector in NW GA....

I spent a decent amount of time looking through 2016 Presidential Election Data by County, and even precincts in some cases, and recall being extremely surprised by various numbers from places in Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina, not to mention certain Plain State Counties....

In much of the "Deep South" (George Wallace / Barry Goldwater States) we typically tend to see rural manufacturing work with a much higher African-American base, even in food-processing manufacturing counties, although these numbers go much higher once you pull up numbers for Auto Plant Counties, etc....

Still, we haven't yet really seen a revitalization of the Labor Movement nor massive swings in most of these counties in 2016, despite an increasingly changing social demographic....

How much of that is the "Trump effect" versus a relatively demoralized Democratic potential electorate in places from the Furniture Industry in Western North Carolina, to the food processing plants of Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, etc in parts of the Country and economic sectors that got whacked hard under the failed economic policies of Bush Jr with the Great Recession, combined with a lack of economic recovery in places where frequently it's harder to get a decent paying job with benefits, even with Obama as President.....

[Adam Griffin]

Fascinating stuff an awesome effort post as always Fmr. President....

I keep forgetting that because Georgia is still a VRA State, that one can actually drill down the self-identified "race/ethnicity" numbers to model turnout numbers....

So based upon what you have discovered in Whitfield County, Latino baseline composition of the Democratic Primary (Assuming a GE year election) are roughly 25% of the Democratic Electorate, and possibly as high as 15% in a "Good Year--- 2016" of the Total GE electorate?

So, this raises some interesting questions as well, since 80% of Latino voters 50+ are non-citizens, and 80% under 30 are citizens....

Is it fair to say that the vast majority Latino electorate of Whitfield County skews heavily Millennial???

If so, one would imagine that when it comes to certain types of Social Issues, these voters would tend to be fairly Liberal compared to their Parents/ Grandparents....

Whoops, I should have clarified: the 25% number is a baseline for their share of the Democratic electorate in a presidential general election (based on 2012 GE figures). In a midterm, that number has historically dropped dramatically (I believe it was ~15% of our electorate in 2014 GE), and in presidential primaries, somewhere in between.

For this year's primary specifically, I can't say until the figures come out: in part, it's hard to say that any one number/percentage is the norm because the Latino share of the electorate across all types of contests here is growing so rapidly and was practically nothing as little as 12 years ago, so my baselines are generally just relevant for the last comparable election.

Just to give you somewhat of an example, the white share of the overall electorate in Whitfield in presidential general elections has been dropping at roughly one point per year since 2000 (96% white in 2000, 92% white in 2004, 87% white in 2008, 82% white in 2012 and 78% white in 2016; while not all of that was Latino growth, the vast majority was).

And yes: Millennials are a huge percentage of the Democratic Latino electorate. I remember that in 2016, a little over 70% of Latino Democratic presidential primary voters were 18-30 in Whitfield, and actually was the first time Latinos were a plurality in any age group (in this case, 18-30) in any Democratic contest here. Compare that to the electorate at-large and it's an incredible difference. I don't have the figures for the general on-hand but I imagine they're equally insane.

[MillennialModerate]

I admittedly don’t know much about this race and haven’t read a lot of this thread but Dems are blowing heir chances by nominating far left candidates in lean red-purple states. Maybe Abrams is good for Hawaii or something but in Georgia, Evans was the right call.

All things being equal I think the moderate is the better choice but especially in this case

[Rookie Yinzer]

I admittedly don’t know much about this race and haven’t read a lot of this thread

Stopped reading there.

[libertpaulian]

I admittedly don’t know much about this race and haven’t read a lot of this thread but Dems are blowing heir chances by nominating far left candidates in lean red-purple states. Maybe Abrams is good for Hawaii or something but in Georgia, Evans was the right call.

All things being equal I think the moderate is the better choice but especially in this case

Many of Sherrod Brown's views are as left-wing as Abrams', yet he's been elected statewide four times in the "lean red-purple" state of Ohio.  Oh, and as a note...Ohio is whiter than Georgia, AND Georgia voted to the LEFT of Ohio in 2016.

[ON Progressive]

I admittedly don’t know much about this race and haven’t read a lot of this thread but Dems are blowing heir chances by nominating far left candidates in lean red-purple states. Maybe Abrams is good for Hawaii or something but in Georgia, Evans was the right call.

All things being equal I think the moderate is the better choice but especially in this case

Abrams isn't a far left candidate whatsoever, and Evans had basically no GOTV operation while Abrams has a massive one. Abrams was absolutely the right call.

[Blair]

I remember when everyone said Doug Jones would lose because he was pro-choice...

[_]

I admittedly don’t know much about this race and haven’t read a lot of this thread but Dems are blowing heir chances by nominating far left candidates in lean red-purple states. Maybe Abrams is good for Hawaii or something but in Georgia, Evans was the right call.

All things being equal I think the moderate is the better choice but especially in this case

I don't think Abrams is far left at all, her platform is fine, she just needs to win the Metro and keep margins down in Rural GA, which she can probably do. 

Also if someone can be endorsed by Hillary, Jason Kander, and pretty much every Union in the state, in addition to pretty much every progressive group in the Country, something tells me she's not a nut, just a consensus candidate.

[Sir Mohamed]

I remember when everyone said Doug Jones would lose because he was pro-choice...

Agreed, but he was up against a far right pedophile. GA is far more Dem friendly territory though. I think most people won't care whether pro-choice or not. Those who don't vote for Abrams wouldn't vote for her if she was pro-life.

[Podgy the Bear]

I had voted for Evans because I fully doubted Abrams' GOTV setup and her appeal beyond the Democratic base.  I had thought that the big uptick for Democrats in the early voting in the north Atlanta suburbs would be highly favorable for Evans.

I now realize this is not the case.  Abrams dominated throughout the state, and the primary vote between the two parties was the closest it has been in several years. 

Even though I think it will be difficult for her to win, she has the ability to make an impact on making Georgia a two-party state again.  She has to do whatever possible to make inroads in those areas that are going to be very hostile to Democrats (not to mention a black woman).  I keep bringing this up--it's the Obama strategy of having some impact on rural Iowa which allowed him to cut the expected deficits in those areas and to win the state twice in 2008 and 2012.

At the very least, it will make the downstream races very competitive--with good chances to pick up the Lieutenant Governor (perhaps the most powerful position in the state) and SOS.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I had voted for Evans because I fully doubted Abrams' GOTV setup and her appeal beyond the Democratic base.  I had thought that the big uptick for Democrats in the early voting in the north Atlanta suburbs would be highly favorable for Evans.

I now realize this is not the case.  Abrams dominated throughout the state, and the primary vote between the two parties was the closest it has been in several years. 

Even though I think it will be difficult for her to win, she has the ability to make an impact on making Georgia a two-party state again.  She has to do whatever possible to make inroads in those areas that are going to be very hostile to Democrats (not to mention a black woman).  I keep bringing this up--it's the Obama strategy of having some impact on rural Iowa which allowed him to cut the expected deficits in those areas and to win the state twice in 2008 and 2012.

At the very least, it will make the downstream races very competitive--with good chances to pick up the Lieutenant Governor (perhaps the most powerful position in the state) and SOS.

I completely agree with this.

[OneJ]

I admittedly don’t know much about this race and haven’t read a lot of this thread but Dems are blowing heir chances by nominating far left candidates in lean red-purple states. Maybe Abrams is good for Hawaii or something but in Georgia, Evans was the right call.

All things being equal I think the moderate is the better choice but especially in this case

If Evans was losing to Abrams in Places like Cobb by 50 points while also losing predominantly white counties like Raburn and Lumpkin by over 40 points then that should tell you a lot. Those were the kinds of counties I expected Evans to have more appeal in. The more moderate candidate doesn’t always mean that they’re the best candidate.

[henster]

I had voted for Evans because I fully doubted Abrams' GOTV setup and her appeal beyond the Democratic base.  I had thought that the big uptick for Democrats in the early voting in the north Atlanta suburbs would be highly favorable for Evans.

I now realize this is not the case.  Abrams dominated throughout the state, and the primary vote between the two parties was the closest it has been in several years. 

Even though I think it will be difficult for her to win, she has the ability to make an impact on making Georgia a two-party state again.  She has to do whatever possible to make inroads in those areas that are going to be very hostile to Democrats (not to mention a black woman).  I keep bringing this up--it's the Obama strategy of having some impact on rural Iowa which allowed him to cut the expected deficits in those areas and to win the state twice in 2008 and 2012.

At the very least, it will make the downstream races very competitive--with good chances to pick up the Lieutenant Governor (perhaps the most powerful position in the state) and SOS.

Well obviously electing the moderate is the best strategy because we've seen it work well in other states. I haven't seen NC Dems talk about abandoning nominating moderates and focus exclusively on turning out blacks in order to win.

[KingSweden]

I had voted for Evans because I fully doubted Abrams' GOTV setup and her appeal beyond the Democratic base.  I had thought that the big uptick for Democrats in the early voting in the north Atlanta suburbs would be highly favorable for Evans.

I now realize this is not the case.  Abrams dominated throughout the state, and the primary vote between the two parties was the closest it has been in several years. 

Even though I think it will be difficult for her to win, she has the ability to make an impact on making Georgia a two-party state again.  She has to do whatever possible to make inroads in those areas that are going to be very hostile to Democrats (not to mention a black woman).  I keep bringing this up--it's the Obama strategy of having some impact on rural Iowa which allowed him to cut the expected deficits in those areas and to win the state twice in 2008 and 2012.

At the very least, it will make the downstream races very competitive--with good chances to pick up the Lieutenant Governor (perhaps the most powerful position in the state) and SOS.

Does the LG in Georgia enjoy similar powers to the LGs in Mississippi and Texas?

[Rookie Yinzer]

I admittedly don’t know much about this race and haven’t read a lot of this thread but Dems are blowing heir chances by nominating far left candidates in lean red-purple states. Maybe Abrams is good for Hawaii or something but in Georgia, Evans was the right call.

All things being equal I think the moderate is the better choice but especially in this case

Abrams isn't a far left candidate whatsoever, and Evans had basically no GOTV operation while Abrams has a massive one. Abrams was absolutely the right call.

Abrams’ GOTV operation is why I jumped ship to her side in the first place. Evans and her people were doing nothing but trying to rack up endorsements of political has-beens like Buddy Darden and Max Cleland. In a state with one of the highest rates of transplants in the country, why on Earth would their endorsements make a dent? They were not knocking on any doors and thought a covert campaign of “I’m white” was enough to win. I’m glad she got shellacked because it puts the outdated strategy being propped up by Roy Barnes to bed forever. These people put forth this mediocre campaign wanting to lose with a white woman rather than win with a black woman who rattled the status quo.