Georgia's Trend

[ElectionsGuy]

Nope, it was extremely red in 1964 and 1972 due to racism and segregation, and it would've been extremely red again in 1968 if it wasn't for Wallace, which was pretty much a republican vote for the south. After that, Carter had a special thing with the south, and I don't know why this was, but Carter swept the deep south just like Nixon did, and even though Reagan won in his smaller landslide in 1980, the south still had strong showings for Carter as Reagan just barely carried many of them when he was winning by 9 points nationally. 1980 is the last we've seen of the blue south, and the last we've seen of blue Georgia. Let me review some trends:

1964: R+30.8%
1968: R+3.0% (without Wallace involved)
1972: R+27.2%
1976: D+31.6%
1980: D+24.5%

And now the aftermath...

1984: R+2.2%
1988: R+12.5%
1992: R+5.0%
1996: R+9.7%
2000: R+12.2%
2004: R+14.2%
2008: R+12.4%
2012: R+11.7%

As you can see over the years, the trend may be in the republican direction. However, in recent years the tremendous turnout for blacks and the Democrat % for blacks increased significantly causing the state to trend democrat, offsetting the republican gains with whites. Whites in Georgia have become more republican since 1984 and its why Georgia trended republican throughout. But now the demographics have caught up to itself. However the democratic hope is that the black vote will continue going >90% for democrats, which is hard to replicate. I believe Kerry only got 88% or something around there and not to mention the turnout among blacks that has been historic throughout the Obama presidency.

We'll see if these hopeful democratic trends continue, but for right now I still call it "Likely R" in presidential elections due to its in-elasticity. If it keeps trending democratic, it will be slow but steady, not anything like Arkansas's hard right turn in 2008 and New Mexico's sharp left turn in 2008. Sorry for the long essay style post.

[ElectionsGuy]

Even if we just look at the last four elections though and subtract Bush's over performance with white evangelicals, we see hardly any trend at all.

Yep, and white voters don't appear to be going anywhere. Of course, 2016 polling suggests that Clinton can win any southern state, but I expect that's junk just like the the "Obama can win Arizona" crap we heard 1 year before the election. But in all seriousness, Georgia is equal to Washington in terms of score relative to the country. Reaching for Georgia is just too far.

It will be interesting to see in '16 if black voters keep up at the current turnout rate.

[ElectionsGuy]

I'm not sure why everyone thinks that blacks only trended democrat because of Obama...

Is everyone forgetting that Republicans did everything they could to suppress the minority vote in the last election?  How could any black voter want to vote for a party that literally doesn't even want them to vote in the first place?

I guess I could see some who are super rich voting Republican in hopes of lower taxes, but that's about it.

Well, if you check virtually every Senate Race 2010-2012 in a southern state the democrat almost always gets <90% where Obama got >90% both times. Not only that but in the presidential elections Obama had better turnout among blacks, but the democrat in those same states in the Senatorial race get less % and turnout.

Take the Mississippi Senatorial Election for example:

White (60%) = 87% Wicker, 11% Gore
Black (35%) = 88% Gore, 10% Wicker

Compare that the the presidential election:

White (59%) = 89% Romney, 10% Obama
Black (36%) = 96% Obama, 4% Romney

Turnout difference wasn't significant, but the % of the vote won was. Basically all the the states you check for exit polls in Senate Races blacks vote between 80-90% democrat, but Obama got >90% easily in both elections. Except in cases of Illinois and New York, you don't find many times where blacks go >90% for the democrat. Turnout was also much lower in the Bush elections (and in mid-terms) than in the Obama elections. Just something I would like to point out.

We'll have to evaluate if this is a real trend for Obama in 2016, but right now its still a plausible theme.