Democrats have 53% chance of winning Arizona (if white support normalizes)

[Adam Griffin]

I did a detailed write-up/compare and contrast between GA & AZ last year, with the overall premise being that AZ would be a lot harder to flip than GA when you're talking about actually getting to 50% in the long-run. AZ's demographics are simply more difficult when you break them down bit-by-bit. It's possible that AZ could flip in a fluke beforehand - sort of like how NC did - but it'd require either the same type of circumstances (heavy investment) or the worst-case scenario for Republicans (Trump). I will admit that my memory is a bit fuzzy on said write-up and it did not factor in huge swings among Latinos caused by an anomaly like Trump.

[Adam Griffin]

I did a detailed write-up/compare and contrast between GA & AZ last year, with the overall premise being that AZ would be a lot harder to flip than GA when you're talking about actually getting to 50% in the long-run.

Obama has done surprisingly well in Georgia, but this is complicated by the fact that Georgia has a very high percentage of black voters. It's doubtful that they will turnout as strongly for Hillary.

They'll turnout. Take a look at this:



The black electorate was 24% in 2006; 28% in 2010; 29% in 2014. In 2008 & 2012, it was only 30%, so the drop-off in the past two mid-terms when Obama was not on the ballot was marginal. The debate and effects will be in support, not turnout: a drop (which is all but guaranteed) back to 90% D (instead of 98% D in 2008 & 95% D in 2012) will knock anywhere from 1.5-2.5 points off of the statewide D total. If Nunn/Carter had received the same share of the black vote as Obama did in 2008, they would have received anywhere from 47-48% of the vote.


In regards to AZ, it is slightly overperforming what demographics suggest, while GA is slightly underperforming. Here was my post from last year:

Yeah I browsed over the discussion about AZ here, and I'll just boil my thoughts all down to this. We'll take the Democratic voting blocs and break them down by the numbers. The percentages shown below will build upon one another, showing the percentage of the vote statewide that is Democratic.

AZ not only a couple points less non-white than Georgia, but its non-white population is super-majority Latino, not super-majority Black. Latinos are barely 2-to-1 Democratic; Blacks are 9-to-1.

Theoretical non-white, Democratic vote (as a % of the state)
Georgia: 37.0%
Arizona: 30.8%

Then you have to factor in the fact that oh, say, 40% of the Latino population in a given area usually can't even register to vote.

Theoretical non-white, Democratic vote minus non-citizens (as a % of the state)
Georgia (83%): 34.8%
Arizona (69%): 21.0%

The whites in AZ may be more Democratic, but it isn't nearly enough to make up the difference.

Theoretical white, Democratic vote (as a % of the state)
Arizona (40%): 22.4%
Georgia (25%): 13.5%

When you add the two latter sets of numbers together:
Georgia: 48.3% D
Arizona: 43.4% D

Arizona's got a while before it's ready.