Unscientific poll of Northwest GA: Sanders +20

[Adam Griffin]

Since we apparently can post random polls of NH townships with 300 people...

Unscientific Facebook poll conducted between 2/7 and 2/14.

68 responses in Northwest GA (93 overall).

Area has a comparable number of white Democrats to the nation at-large (55-60%), more Latino Democrats (25% versus 15-17%) and fewer black Democrats (12-15% versus 20-22%); median age of the area skews a bit younger as well.

2016 Results for NW GA (two-way):
Clinton 53.8
Sanders 46.2

 

[GeorgiaModerate]

Posting Facebook polls?  It's time to take a break, Adam.

[DrScholl]

His best areas in southern states are white, Republican ones with leftover conservative Democrats who choose him as protest vote against the establishment.

[Adam Griffin]

Posting Facebook polls?  It's time to take a break, Adam.

There are "credible" pollsters distributing polls of entire states with 200 respondents and threads of polls for single cities, so hey: can't be any worse than that!

Besides, remember where I live: it's quite easy to get far more than a rounding error's worth of Democratic primary participants across a 4-county area to answer a poll here!

[Adam Griffin]

His best areas in southern states are white, Republican ones with leftover conservative Democrats who choose him as protest vote against the establishment.

Can absolutely assure you that this is not the case here. This isn't a state where party registration exists, let alone closed primaries. The people choosing to vote in Democratic primaries are federal, GE-voting Democrats and of course have plenty of "protest" options if that was their choice. In all likelihood, I expect Sanders to do better here than '16 relative to drop-off he'll see in most majority-white rural areas simply because of the large young, Latino population that exists.

You'd be better off dismissing this with a "they won't account for barely any of the vote!" (or just accept this poll isn't scientific) rather than going the "racist old whites who aren't really Democrats" route.

[DrScholl]

His best areas in southern states are white, Republican ones with leftover conservative Democrats who choose him as protest vote against the establishment.

Can absolutely assure you that this is not the case here. This isn't a state where party registration exists, let alone closed primaries. The people choosing to vote in Democratic primaries are federal, GE-voting Democrats and of course have plenty of "protest" options if that was their choice. In all likelihood, I expect Sanders to do better here than '16 relative to drop-off he'll see in most majority-white rural areas simply because of the large young, Latino population that exists.

You'd be better off dismissing this with a "they won't account for barely any of the vote!" (or just accept this poll isn't scientific) rather than going the "racist old whites who aren't really Democrats" route.

I'm going off of the 2016 maps where Sanders' best counties in southern states tended to be the most Republican ones. In Georgia, his two best counties were the two best for Trump in the general and those places have no young Latinos. Maybe that will be different this year, but we have to see actual results to know for sure.

[Adam Griffin]

His best areas in southern states are white, Republican ones with leftover conservative Democrats who choose him as protest vote against the establishment.

Can absolutely assure you that this is not the case here. This isn't a state where party registration exists, let alone closed primaries. The people choosing to vote in Democratic primaries are federal, GE-voting Democrats and of course have plenty of "protest" options if that was their choice. In all likelihood, I expect Sanders to do better here than '16 relative to drop-off he'll see in most majority-white rural areas simply because of the large young, Latino population that exists.

You'd be better off dismissing this with a "they won't account for barely any of the vote!" (or just accept this poll isn't scientific) rather than going the "racist old whites who aren't really Democrats" route.

I'm going off of the 2016 maps where Sanders' best counties in southern states tended to be the most Republican ones. In Georgia, his two best counties were the two best for Trump in the general and those places have no young Latinos. Maybe that will be different this year, but we have to see actual results to know for sure.

That makes sense given those areas have ancestral Democratic voting habits (well, Echols and Brantley do, but not Banks per se) and even fewer Democrats at-large. In 2016, white definitely correlated to Sanders performance - but presidential and state/local primaries are on separate days here, and with no party registration, there was no reason for Republicans to crossover and vote in Democratic presidential primaries; Democrats are just hopelessly outnumbered there these days.

Northwest GA has ancestral GOP roots going back to the Civil War (when it was anti-secession, funny enough) - and it's especially informative to know that the GOP state/local primary tends to draw about one-third of Democrats to vote in it rather than the other way around, given their dominance.

Anyway, yes, it's an odd area compared to most of the rural South, given the largest minority group is Latino, manufacturing is its largest industry, it's heavily-white and lies basically at the crossroads of Appalachia and Dixie. I expect some divergence relative to 2016 will occur.