A Red Wave met a Blue Sandbag Defense in Metro ATL
One thing that really struck me was the continued divergence of the two Georgia’s politically. Outside of the 11 county ARC region (more or less DeKalb+Fulton plus any county that touches them except for Coweta), Walker had a pretty strong performance. His vote total equaled 90% of Loeffler’s total in the ‘21 runoff. Warnock’s vote total was 85%. That’s clearly a red ripple if not a red wave. And it was centered on Southeast Georgia, the strongest region for Republicans these days.
But, then head over to the 11 county metro area and you see something a little different. Warnock also getting about 85% of his vote total from the runoff. But Walker only pulling 80% of Loeffler’s totals. A massive dropoff compared to what he was doing elsewhere. You add it all up and you get a turnout differential of 87% for Walker total and 85% for Warnock.
So was there a red wave? Well, you could argue that yes there was a red wave and that persuasion in metro Atlanta heavily benefited Warnock. Republicans turned out, but enough of them (+independents) couldn’t vote for Walker and he neutralized it.
However, you could also look at the total House vote for Democrats in all 14 districts and you would not really see a red wave at all. Democratic candidates got 47.7% of the two-party vote for Congress in Georgia. This is down slightly from the 49.0% that we got in 2020, but it’s also exactly the same as the 47.7% we received in 2018, a bonafide blue wave year.
How do you explain that? I’m not sure. But I do know this. Before modern times, Georgia was more Democratic than the country as a whole. As recently as 1990 we had a 9-1 Congressional delegation. But ever since 1994 the Democratic two-party vote share for Congress in Georgia has been lower than the national Dem two-party vote share. Ironically enough 1994 (when Georgia Dems got 45.5% and national Dems got 46.5%) was the modern high water market. It got or stayed worse after that.
Redistricting can affect the shares if one party has too many uncompetitive seats. But it does seem to have stabilized in the mid 2000’s at around an 8% deficit. That’s the average from 2002-2016. Even in a wave year like 2008 when Democrats received 49.7% of the two-party vote in Georgia, that paled compared to the 55.5% the party received nationally. Then something started happening post-Trump. In 2018, the Georgia deficit was only 6.6%. In 2020, it was only 2.6%.
And as of today’s vote count (which should get a little bluer as CA continues to count) the Democratic vote share in Georgia is actually 0.2% MORE Democratic than the national count. Even if that ends up moving to the negative side, it will still mean that we’re seeing radical movement left in this state.
What does this mean for the runoff and for future races? Well, I would argue that Democrats are now roughly favored to beat or exceed the national median political environment here. And right now the national median political environment seems to favor moderation and candidate quality.