Could Georgia become another Illionis

[OSR stands with Israel]

Illinois in the late 1980s similarly like Georgia by 2016 had voted Republican for 6 consecutive elections and seemed tough for Democrats to win in presidential elections due to how much Republicans would dominate the Chicago Suburbs by along with their strength in the more rural parts of Georgia . But in the early 1990s the Chicago Burbs flipped hard against the Republican party and even though Republicans would continue to improve in Rural Illionis it didnt matter as the Chicago Suburbs becoming Democratic made it a Safe D state.


Could the same happen to Georgia or is the worst case scenario for Georgia Republicans having the state become another Virginia

[Young Conservative]

I think this depends on if the Atlanta suburbs start to act like the Chicago collar permanently.

[Alcibiades]

More like Virginia. Unlike in Illinois, where the GOP continued to nominate electable moderates for statewide office, I could see the GAGOP having a total collapse like the VAGOP, with a base far to the right of the state voting for crazies in primaries who have no chance statewide.

[MargieCat]

More like Virginia. Unlike in Illinois, where the GOP continued to nominate electable moderates for statewide office, I could see the GAGOP having a total collapse like the VAGOP, with a base far to the right of the state voting for crazies in primaries who have no chance statewide.

That same thing is happening in Arizona. With both McCain and Flake speaking out against Trump, they received some backlash from the state party. And then people like McSally, Biggs, Lesko, Gosar, and Kelli Ward became the face of the AZ GOP and can't win on a statewide ballot.

The last somewhat sane one is Doug Ducey, and he will be term limited out of office.

Despite its republican heritage, Arizona doesn't want a Trump bootlicker.

[neostassenite31]

I don't really think so.

The simplest way to look at Illinois politics is to realize that it has one county that will turn ANY of the 50 states in the United States of America into a blue state if said county becomes a part of that state.

Cook county gives Democrats a raw vote lead of over one million in each presidential election, and I don't think Georgia will have an equivalent to a machine like this in the immediate future.   

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Tbilisi doesn't have the reservoir of white collar professionals and the shipping significance that allow Chicago to remain a wealthy and well-developed city.

[forsythvoter]

I think VA is probably the more appropriate IL of the South - although it's proximity to the Mid-Atlantic doesn't make it seem as much of an outlier on the map.

For GA to become an Illinois, I think one or both the following would need to happen:
1) The exurban counties like Forsyth, Cherokee, Hall, Coweta and Paulding vote more like McHenry or Kendall counties rather than 60-70% R.
2) The suburban counties (Cobb and Gwinnett) start voting like Fairfax or Montgomery Counties outside of DC.

While these counties certainly are trending D, I think reaching those levels of Democratic support isn't going to happen for at least 2-3 more cycles. That said, I do think GA is likely to become the second most Democratic leaning state behind Virginia for a long time. Metro Atlanta is driving the vast majority of the state's population growth and it is undeniably trending younger and more diverse. This has the dual effect of making the white vote more D-leaning even as the minority vote share grows.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Tbilisi doesn't have the reservoir of white collar professionals and the shipping significance that allow Chicago to remain a wealthy and well-developed city.

I can't resist:

I said Georgia
Oh Georgia, no peace I find
Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind

Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the West behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia's always on my my my my my my my my my mind

Baby, don't you wanna go home
Back from the land of California Western Europe
To my sweet home Chicago Tbilisi

[TopShelfGoal]

The scary thing about GA for Republicans is that they are already getting like 80% of the vote share or more in a ton of rural counties. It is not like NC or VA or even FL that have a lot of ancestral rural Democrats that the Rs could hope to flip in order to balance out the D gains in the metro areas.

[Roll Roons]

The scary thing about GA for Republicans is that they are already getting like 80% of the vote share or more in a ton of rural counties. It is not like NC or VA or even FL that have a lot of ancestral rural Democrats that the Rs could hope to flip in order to balance out the D gains in the metro areas.

Rural VA is also largely maxed out for Republicans. Though they still have room to grow in rural NC, which is why I expect it to be highly competitive for quite some time.

[bagelman]

The scary thing about GA for Republicans is that they are already getting like 80% of the vote share or more in a ton of rural counties. It is not like NC or VA or even FL that have a lot of ancestral rural Democrats that the Rs could hope to flip in order to balance out the D gains in the metro areas.

Best region Rs can count on in GA is the southwest, but that's mainly due to blacks leaving than local whites party switching. In South GA there are some areas trending rightward, whether it be due to black population decrease or other reasons, but 2020 showed how little it matters against Atlanta. Biden won exactly one LESS county than Clinton while flipping the state.

[AGA]

Not really. Illinois was a "Republican" state in the 1980s because each presidential election then was a Republican landslide. Even during this time, Democrats had considerable rural strength in southern Illinois, which has not been true for Georgia. Georgia is more like Virginia in that one metro area votes so lopsided for Democrats that they can win statewide despite having very low vote shares in the rural areas.