Let’s not beat around the bush. Nobody saw what was coming on Tuesday night. However, the news wasn’t all bad for the blue team. The Democrats picked up two Senate seats, cutting the Republican margin to a bare majority of one seat. And from the looks of it, the Democrats netted a nine-seat gain in the House.
But the best news of the night bodes very well for the Democrats in the long run. Even as the night went downhill for Hillary Clinton, one constant remained–Georgia was too close to call. Well, when all was said and done, Donald Trump only squeaked through with 51.3 percent of the vote to Hillary’s 45.6 percent–a difference of just over 231,000 votes.
Georgia wasn’t called for Trump until just before midnight. A look at the county results map reveals why.
See that lovely swatch of blue around Atlanta? In past years, the Atlanta suburbs were the same shade of red as a Georgia Bulldogs jersey. For the better part of the last four decades, they were the stereotype of suburban counties in the South–heavily Republican, with a strong social conservative tint. Those factors made the suburban ring around Atlanta one of the strongest Republican fortresses in the South. That fortress collapsed in spectacular fashion on Tuesday night, as nearly the entire suburban ring swung to Hillary.
Take Cobb County, the third-biggest county in the state, for instance. Aside from Jimmy Carter’s clean sweep of the state in 1976, it hadn’t supported a Democrat for president since 1960. However, Hillary won it by just over 7,000 votes. By comparison, John McCain won it by eight points in 2008, and Mitt Romney won it by 12 points in 2012–in both cases, significantly underperforming George W. Bush’s 25-point win there in 2004. Gwinnett County, the second-biggest county in the state, went for Hillary by six points. Since Bush won it by 30 points in 2004, the Republican margin has gone through the floor–30 points for Bush in 2004, 12 points for McCain in 2008, and nine points for Romney in 2012.
The exit polls offer more encouraging signs. Young voters broke heavily for Hillary; she picked up 55 percent of voters under 44, and 63 percent of millennials. Additionally, 52 percent of voters who made their decision in the last week voted for Hillary–a sign that the snafu over James Comey didn’t have much effect.
It’s not hard to see why this Republican fortress cracked wide open on Tuesday night. Georgia has become considerably less white since the turn of the millennium. According to the 2000 census, Georgia was 63 percent white; by 2010, it was only 56 percent white. It’s even more stark in the Atlanta area. The 28-county metro area was 60 percent white in 2000, but is now only 51 percent white.
Despite encouraging polling numbers this summer, Hillary’s effort to expand the electoral map didn’t extend to Georgia. But what if either Michelle Obama, or President Obama himself, had come to Atlanta? Or what if Hillary had come to Atlanta rather than Phoenix? It’s not too unreasonable to suggest that with just a little more investment of time and money, Hillary might have gotten the additional six percent she would have needed to flip the state’s 16 electoral votes into her column. At the very least, it would have made things very interesting.
These trends should give Republican strategists ulcers. After all, if Georgia turns purple, they will suddenly find themselves having to spend money on expensive Atlanta television. As a North Carolinian, I confess that I have selfish reasons for enjoying this. Every penny that they have to spend in Atlanta is a penny they can’t spend in three other very expensive Southern markets–Charlotte, the Piedmont Triad, and the Triangle.
Additionally, it suggests that the three Republican congressmen holding seats based in Cobb and Gwinnett can’t get too comfortable. Among them are the former seats of two of Bill Clinton’s biggest tormentors in the 1990s, Newt Gingrich and Bob Barr. The thought of the GOP actually having to do some heavy lifting in those seats should warm the heart of any Democrat who remembers the legal lynching attempt that was the Clinton impeachment–an effort led in part by Gingrich and Barr.
It was already clear that the Democrats had two major items on their to-do list for the next two years. They need to call out every bit of Republican fail–and if history is any indication, there’s going to be a lot of it. Additionally, they need to restore the trust of Rust Belt voters. After all, it’s clear that Hillary lost the Electoral College because she took the Rust Belt for granted–and a large number of Democrats in this area just stayed home. Had they come out to vote, Hillary would have won easily.
Well, add another item to the list–building infrastructure in Georgia. After all, it is clear beyond any doubt that this will be the last time Georgia is on the sidelines for a presidential election.
