Georgia
Georgia is a Republican leaning-state and, in 2016, Trump defeated Clinton by 5.2 percentage points. Georgia has been won by the Republican nominee in every presidential election since 1996 and has a Partisan Voting Index score of R+5. Nonetheless, our research indicates that by mobilizing Democratic Low Propensity Voters (LPVs) and Mid-High Propensity Voters (MHVs) voters, we can challenge the Republican dominance.
Georgia’s demographics are changing, with Atlanta thriving as one of the major cities of Black America and a magnet for immigrants across the world. People of color represent 47 percent of the state’s population, including 30.5 percent Black, and 40 percent of all eligible voters. In 2018, the electorate was less white than it has ever been.
About 59 percent of Georgia voters were white, down from 61 percent in 2016 and 64 percent in 2014. Georgia voters were also older in 2018: people 52 and older made up 52 percent of the electorate, which was a 5 percent increase from 2016, while voters 18-34 were 19 percent of the electorate, representing about a 3-percentage point drop from 2016.
The biggest change in Georgia is that from 2014 to 2018 voter turnout skyrocketed statewide by more than 10 percent. Turnout increased by at least 20 percent in 81 counties. Republican Governor Brian Kemp won 71 of those counties, which tended to be exurban or rural. There was not a huge surge in newly-registered voters. About 7 percent of voters in 2018 were newly-registered. In 2016, 12 percent were newly-registered.
The 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election was one of the most high-profile races in the nation. Georgians had the opportunity to elect the first black woman governor in U.S. history. Stacey Abrams easily won the Democratic primary and was pitted against Secretary of State Brian Kemp who received Trump’s endorsement a few days before the Republican primary runoff. On November 7, Kemp declared victory over Abrams with 50.2 percent of the vote versus her 48.8 percent, or a difference of 54,723 votes. But Abrams did not end her campaign until over a week later.
In her announcement, Abrams emphasized that her statement was not a concession, because “concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true, or proper,” but acknowledged that she could not close the gap with Kemp to force a runoff. In addition, her campaign filed a lawsuit against the state of Georgia and created an organization called Fair Fight Georgia.
This election was marred by irregularities, including the rejection of absentee ballots; 3,000 people wrongly flagged by the state as being ineligible to vote, and 53,000 voter registrations that were delayed by Kemp’s office without adequately notifying the applicants. These irregularities, which disproportionately affected Black voters, resulted in allegations that Kemp was using voter suppression tactics to increase his chances of winning the contest. Kemp retained his office as Georgia Secretary of State throughout the campaign, arguably a conflict of interest for overseeing an election in which Kemp himself was a candidate.
Nonetheless, Abrams outperformed Clinton’s 2016 rates in all 25 counties with at least 100,000 residents, while Kemp underperformed Trump’s totals in the state’s 18 top populated counties.
As a result of the 2018 election, in which Democrats picked up 13 legislative seats, mostly in north metro Atlanta, the Georgia State Senate has 35 Republicans and 21 Democrats, and the State House has 105 Republicans and 75 Democrats.
In 2020, Georgia will likely be a presidential battleground state with President Donald Trump on the ballot, but Democrats are also preparing to challenge Republican David Perdue as he competes for a second term in the U.S. Senate.
There is also a special election planned for the second U.S. Senate seat that will be held on November 3, 2020, but there is little clarity yet about that race. Following the resignation of Johnny Isakson due to health issues, Governor Brian Kemp appointed Kelly Loeffler to serve as Isakson’s replacement, effective January 6, 2020, until the special election.