Why doesn’t Georgia vote like Illinois?

[DS0816]

This would have been considered a bizarre question in literally any previous year. 2020 was the first time GA had voted Democratic since 1992, why should it vote like Illinois?

During the Republican realignment period of 1968–2004, Virginia was carried by the party in all ten of those election cycles. Now, during this Democratic realignment period which began in 2008, Virginia gives Democrats stronger margins than does Minnesota. (With exception of 1972, when Richard Nixon was re-elected with 49 states, Minnesota has carried Democratic in every U.S. presidential election since 1960.)

[THG]

GA Whites are some of the most conservative in the nation.

[CentristRepublican]

Why doesn’t Georgia vote like Illinois? Both are large states anchored by one huge left-leaning metro area that overpowers Republican performance elsewhere.

It's coming... it'll be about the same in about 3-4 Presidential election cycles.

No, it won't by any means.

  Hot take: In 2024, unless Trump runs, GA will shift rightward and may even flip red. While many suburban Romney/Biden voters are gone for good, there are some who only voted blue because Trump was the GOP candidate, and if he isn't, who knows?: it might flip red by a bit. It barely voted blue and the suburbs are largely maxed out for Democrats. The high turnout in 2020 was likely a one-time thing. My guess is in 2024, the suburbs stay the way they are or even shift marginally rightward, and turnout decreases, which will be more than enough for it to potentially flip red. The whole Atlanta metropolitan area is about 3/7 of GA's population (look at the congressional districts), while Chicago is close to 70% or so of IL's voters, and it is bluer than the Atlanta metropolitan area. Also, excluding a handful of other urban/majority black counties, the rest of GA is staunchly red (with some Trump counties giving him more than 90%), while IL has more blue support (university counties, East St. Louis, somewhat more moderate rural areas, and Rock Island are just some examples) even outside Chicago. The reason Ossoff and Warnock won (and they won very narrowly) is because of the high stakes, leading to the same high turnout in the Atlanta area that gave Biden GA's 16 electoral votes. I guarantee you that in the next 3 presidential cycles GA won't vote blue by more than 5% (at the very most), forget the 17% by which IL voted blue.

[CentristRepublican]

This would have been considered a bizarre question in literally any previous year. 2020 was the first time GA had voted Democratic since 1992, why should it vote like Illinois?

Thank you! That's exactly what I'm saying - Talk Elections users are vastly overestimating GA's  blue-ness. It's a swing or even tilt R state come 2024, unless Trump is the Republican candidate. IL voted for Biden by 17% after Biden underperformed Clinton, and GA voted blue by 0.24% in the ultimate position for Democrats. Best, best case scenario for Democrats in Georgia will be if they can win by more than 5% in any election. Forget 17%.

[seeking mystical annihilation]

Why doesn’t Georgia vote like Illinois? Both are large states anchored by one huge left-leaning metro area that overpowers Republican performance elsewhere.

It's coming... it'll be about the same in about 3-4 Presidential election cycles.

No, it won't by any means.

  Hot take: In 2024, unless Trump runs, GA will shift rightward and may even flip red. While many suburban Romney/Biden voters are gone for good, there are some who only voted blue because Trump was the GOP candidate, and if he isn't, who knows?: it might flip red by a bit. It barely voted blue and the suburbs are largely maxed out for Democrats. The high turnout in 2020 was likely a one-time thing. My guess is in 2024, the suburbs stay the way they are or even shift marginally rightward, and turnout decreases, which will be more than enough for it to potentially flip red. The whole Atlanta metropolitan area is about 3/7 of GA's population (look at the congressional districts), while Chicago is close to 70% or so of IL's voters, and it is bluer than the Atlanta metropolitan area. Also, excluding a handful of other urban/majority black counties, the rest of GA is staunchly red (with some Trump counties giving him more than 90%), while IL has more blue support (university counties, East St. Louis, somewhat more moderate rural areas, and Rock Island are just some examples) even outside Chicago. The reason Ossoff and Warnock won (and they won very narrowly) is because of the high stakes, leading to the same high turnout in the Atlanta area that gave Biden GA's 16 electoral votes. I guarantee you that in the next 3 presidential cycles GA won't vote blue by more than 5% (at the very most), forget the 17% by which IL voted blue.

The movement in the Atlanta suburbs is driven more by demographic change than people changing their votes. Most wealthy conservative whites in Roswell who've voted straight R since Reagan are still voting R, but expatriates from elsewhere in the country aren't and perhaps their kids aren't either. While Georgia outside of Atlanta is obviously far redder on the whole than Illinois outside of Chicago, the smaller metros and the Black Belt still played a major role in giving Biden the win. If you were to take just one of Columbus, Macon, Savannah, Athens, Albany, or Augusta out of the state, then Trump would've won.

[CentristRepublican]

Why doesn’t Georgia vote like Illinois? Both are large states anchored by one huge left-leaning metro area that overpowers Republican performance elsewhere.

It's coming... it'll be about the same in about 3-4 Presidential election cycles.

No, it won't by any means.

  Hot take: In 2024, unless Trump runs, GA will shift rightward and may even flip red. While many suburban Romney/Biden voters are gone for good, there are some who only voted blue because Trump was the GOP candidate, and if he isn't, who knows?: it might flip red by a bit. It barely voted blue and the suburbs are largely maxed out for Democrats. The high turnout in 2020 was likely a one-time thing. My guess is in 2024, the suburbs stay the way they are or even shift marginally rightward, and turnout decreases, which will be more than enough for it to potentially flip red. The whole Atlanta metropolitan area is about 3/7 of GA's population (look at the congressional districts), while Chicago is close to 70% or so of IL's voters, and it is bluer than the Atlanta metropolitan area. Also, excluding a handful of other urban/majority black counties, the rest of GA is staunchly red (with some Trump counties giving him more than 90%), while IL has more blue support (university counties, East St. Louis, somewhat more moderate rural areas, and Rock Island are just some examples) even outside Chicago. The reason Ossoff and Warnock won (and they won very narrowly) is because of the high stakes, leading to the same high turnout in the Atlanta area that gave Biden GA's 16 electoral votes. I guarantee you that in the next 3 presidential cycles GA won't vote blue by more than 5% (at the very most), forget the 17% by which IL voted blue.

The movement in the Atlanta suburbs is driven more by demographic change than people changing their votes. Most wealthy conservative whites in Roswell who've voted straight R since Reagan are still voting R, but expatriates from elsewhere in the country aren't and perhaps their kids aren't either. While Georgia outside of Atlanta is obviously far redder on the whole than Illinois outside of Chicago, the smaller metros and the Black Belt still played a major role in giving Biden the win. If you were to take just one of Columbus, Macon, Savannah, Athens, Albany, or Augusta out of the state, then Trump would've won.

There was a shift, fair enough - but Trump accelarated and expanded that shift to include some former (moderate) suburban Republicans with college education. GA-06, GA's most educated district, went from a 23-point Romney victory to a 1.5-point Trump victory, to an 11.5-point Biden victory. If Trump isn't the GOP nominee in 2024, I can see 11.5 fall to 6 points, and that kind of shift applies to GA-07 as well. Very possible that the Atlanta suburbs overall still shift rightward. It's not like there was a gigantic, unprecedented shift in demographics from 2012 to 2020 - there was one, but a bigger reason for collapse in GOP support (in my opinion) is related to Trump, as suburban, white moderates who went for Romney voted for Biden in 2020, and may go back to being red if the GOP doesn't nominate Trump. Even if Atlanta does continue shifting left, it will be held back because of (some, not all) white suburbanite Romney/Biden voters going red again, and it can't keep up the pace at which it is demographically shifting for that much longer.

[UNL]

One day, people will wonder “Why doesn’t Illinois vote like Georgia?”