First Time Blue Since ’92: Georgia’s Future in Presidential Elections
Joe Biden winning this presidential election and accumulating roughly 79.8 million votes, the most of any presidential ticket in history, was not a shock to many. He rebuilt the Democratic “blue wall” that was destroyed in 2016 by putting Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania back in the Democrats’ column. He even won Arizona, the first time a Democrat has won that state since 1996. Perhaps most shocking of all was President-elect Biden’s win in Georgia, which the Democrats last won with Bill Clinton in 1992. Since 1972, with a couple of exceptions, Georgia has been a Republican stronghold. It is the home of several prominent Republican politicians, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and its rural counties, of which there are many, are reliably Republican. The question many people are asking is if Georgia is on track to become more and more Democratic over time, like Virginia has become in recent elections.
The short answer is no, there has not been enough to come out of this election to suggest that Georgia will become more Democratic over time. As it stands right now, Biden has won the state by a razor thin 12,670 votes. While it is enough to win the state’s electoral votes, it was by no means a landslide victory for Biden. When another previous Republican stronghold, Virginia, flipped Democratic in 2008, Barack Obama won by roughly 232,000 votes. That much larger win in Virginia suggested that Democrats would perform well there in future elections, which they indeed did. In Georgia this year, Biden’s much narrower win will certainly keep it a swing state in 2024 and certainly does not mean it will always stay Democratic in the future. For perspective, compare Georgia to Michigan. It voted Democratic in every presidential election from 1992–2012, with Donald Trump winning it in 2016 by 10,700 votes, very similar to the amount as Biden in Georgia this year. In Michigan this year, Biden has won by a healthy 154,000 votes. Even though Trump won Michigan in 2016, it was not a Republican hold this year. It is possible that Georgia will vote Democratic in 2024, but Biden’s narrow win this year is not enough to guarantee that. When Virginia became a blue state in 2008, it was by a much wider margin compared to Georgia in 2020.
Another factor to consider is the Georgia Senate runoffs. Both US Senate races there are headed to a January runoff, with the latest polls showing incumbent Senators Perdue and Loeffler virtually tied with their competitors. Obviously, these races have become even more nationalized since November 3rd because their outcomes will determine which party has control of the Senate. In this hyper-partisan era, the candidates from the same party typically win both the Presidential race and the Senate race within a particular state. By following that logic, both Warnock and Ossoff would be in a good position to win their races. Of course, that is never a guarantee, especially in this case since Biden narrowly won the state. If one or both of the candidates does indeed win the runoff in January, that may be the sign of a political realignment towards the Democrats in Georgia. However, solely relying on Biden’s win in the state is not enough to determine that.
How did Joe Biden win Georgia in the first place? Mostly because of his strong performance among suburban voters and African Americans in the Atlanta area. With the help of Stacey Abrams’ mobilization efforts, Biden was able to continue the momentum from the 2018 midterms, earning the votes of many suburbanites and performing strongly with African Americans. For example, Biden easily defeated Trump in DeKalb County, which is overwhelmingly African-American, by receiving 308,227 votes, or approximately 83%. This was an improvement from 2016, where Hillary Clinton received 239,131 votes, 69,000 votes fewer than Biden. Biden also outperformed Clinton in Cobb County, another suburban county of Atlanta, which has a much lower African American population than DeKalb. Biden still received 221,846 votes to Clinton’s 159,416, a 62,000-vote difference. In addition to Biden performing better than Clinton in Cobb, Trump received 42% of the vote, 5 points less than his 47% in 2016. Another suburban area outside of Atlanta is Gwinnett County, which is majority white. This year, Biden garnered 241,827 votes compared to Trump’s 166,413. Biden received about 77,000 votes more than Clinton in this county, where she received 165,063 votes in 2016. There is a clear trend here. Biden outperformed Clinton in both the Atlanta metropolitan area and in majority African American counties, like DeKalb, as well. While it was a given that Biden would carry African American counties, the real question was how he would perform in mostly white suburbs. The vote totals not only show Biden beating Trump, but also accumulating tens of thousands of votes more than Clinton in 2016. The mobilization efforts seem to have paid off for Democrats in the Peach State.
While Biden’s suburban jumps are impressive, at the end of the day he still only won Georgia by 12,670 votes. Unsurprisingly, the state’s major city of Atlanta stayed blue, while many of the small rural counties sprinkled throughout the state stayed red. How future elections go is all up to the suburbs. At this point, it cannot be said that Georgia is the new Virginia since Biden narrowly won by 0.2%, compared to Obama’s big Democratic win in Virginia in 2008 where he won by 6.3%. While this is a step in the right direction for Democrats, Georgia cannot be called a blue state yet. If Democrats continue to mobilize and engage voters, they may be successful in future elections. Will they do that? Only time will tell.