Is Georgia a red state?
There's too much red meat on the kitchen table.
Topline Takeaways
Biden’s support among rural African Americans in the Black Belt helped him clinch the win in Georgia. While changes in Atlanta’s suburbs helped make the state competitive, Joe Biden owes his win to support from rural counties where Black voters outnumber White voters.
Black women supported Joe Biden in higher numbers than Black men (and were also much more likely to vote than Black men.)
Information flows differently through less densely populated, more isolated communities, allowing controversial candidates like Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene to gain popularity and spread misinformation while receiving little pushback from voters.
In-depth Insights
Biden’s success in the Atlanta metropolitan region has been well documented, (partially due to Donald Trump’s fierce opposition to accepting the final results.) Most of the region’s 29 counties were Republican strongholds as we entered the early 2000s. Barack Obama’s candidacy helped jumpstart the shift by flipping Douglas, Newton and Rockdale counties in the 2008 election. Hillary Clinton compounded on these successes by flipping Cobb, Gwinnett, and Henry counties in 2016. While Biden failed to flip any new counties in the 2020 election, he further cemented Democratic strength in Atlanta by running up the numbers, becoming the first Democrat to gain over 70% of the vote in Fulton County since FDR in 1944.
Biden most certainly centered his support in Atlanta; 2 out of every 3 votes for the Democrat came from the state’s most populous metropolitan area. However, even though an increasing majority of Georgia voters live in or around Atlanta, Biden’s win was only possible due to his ability to keep the margins close in the more rural parts of the state, particularly in counties where White voters are in the minority.
“If you take away 15,000 Democratic votes from rural Georgia, Biden doesn’t win Georgia.”
-Manswell Peterson, a Democrat running for Secretary of State in 2022
While not quite as distinct as in Mississippi and Alabama, the Black Belt stretches through the center of Georgia and holds many of the state’s more racially diverse counties. Democratic grassroots organizers have been investing in this unique human geography for a while and may have finally tapped in to a winning strategy:
“Georgia can be an example of what long-term planning and power building can bring about… The results of 2020 didn't happen because people got motivated and involved that January, it's a result of dedication and commitment over years of time… that’s not easy to do.” -Kelly Dietrich, founder and CEO of the National Democratic Training Committee
But how can candidates shape their campaigns to appeal to rural voters without alienating urban residents? Political parties should be looking to groups like the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative that conduct research and organize around issues important to rural voters that also prevail in impoverished, urban settings: including food insecurity, low access to broadband internet, and low educational attainment.
Despite the lower prevalence of White voters, Trump still managed to win a respectable number of these counties. The strongest explanation for this is Trump was able to capitalize on the growing political divide between Black men and Black women. While African Americans largely rejected Trump in both elections, Black men were twice as likely to vote for Donald Trump when compared to Black women. (Stay tuned for my upcoming post on South Carolina where we dive into this divide more deeply.)
Donald Trump ran up the numbers in most of rural Georgia by focusing on a prevailing sentiment among rural voters of feeling left behind by the elite establishment in major cities. Weeks before the election he was rallying across rural parts of the state attacking the “left-wing corporate media.” Trump didn’t focus on “kitchen table” issues (everyday concerns that ordinary folks encounter on a daily basis) instead he went straight for the “red meat” (issues that excite and inflame voters, often because these are new ideas they don’t understand or encounter regularly).
“When GOP voters have a choice among conservatives, you have to give them red meat. You’re losing ground if you’re discussing the veggie side options.” - Brian Robinson, a veteran Republican strategist
It’s important to note that this strategy works wonderfully within conservative and rural bases due to how information flows differently through these less densely populated, more isolated communities.
Throughout the last decade we’ve witnessed a drastic shift in the news-media landscape and this shift has directly affected how voters process and verify information. Newspapers have reduced circulation, local outlets have shuttered, and broadcast news has consolidated into the hands of a few national operators. Now, news appears in personalized feeds on social media, micro-targeted to capture your attention. At the same time, political parties have embarked on a trend of nationalization: dropping regional intra-party differences in favor of broader issues that can capture anyone’s attention, regardless of where they live. These trends were supercharged during the pandemic as we all disconnected from our local surroundings and spent more time on the Internet. While some uber-connected, overeducated urban voters thrive in this onslaught of nationalized, digital media, many voters in rural areas aren’t equipped to tackle complex national issues that they have no personal experience with, especially if they lack the critical thinking skills (and/or a strong broadband connection) to verify and research these issues. (No wonder they’re so susceptible to claims of voter fraud.)
Enter Marjorie Taylor Greene…
Like Trump, MTG succeeds in this environment because she embodies the aspirational attitudes of uneducated, rural voters. She fearlessly shares her opinion on the issues of the day and doesn’t need others to endorse her facts (unless that person is Trump, of course.) Rural Americans felt left behind by the booming urban economy of the 2010s and today are threatened by the educated elite’s obsession with fact checking and political correctness. Greene and Trump both stand in opposition to these forces by refusing to flinch in the face of shame. Who cares if they accidentally share misinformation? What matters to rural voters in Georgia is that these politicians aren’t letting the ‘experts’ make decisions for them. They’re using their own voice and making their own decisions, even if they don’t have all of necessary information at their disposal.
Forecasting the Future: Georgia will continue to be a hard-fought battleground as both parties have discovered new strategies for success. Several Republicans openly admit that their current strategy does not have long-term prospects: the regions where they are making significant gains are shrinking. Leaning into the culture wars may help stop the bleeding for a short moment but Democrats’ inroads in rural areas prove to be a lethal threat for Republican prospects in the state. As long as Democrats keep their tight grip on the state’s urban areas, Georgia will be a purple state for the foreseeable future.