There's a lot of focus on Virginia, Florida, and North Carolina trending and voting Democratic with talk of Arizona and Georgia doing the same in the future particularly because of shifting demographics. But of those two states, which do you think would happen first?
Georgia is R+6 and Arizona is R+7 for 2008/2012 PVI but last election's trends were opposite for the two: Arizona went from R+6 in 2004/2008 PVI to R+7 in 2008/2012 PVI while Georgia went from R+7 in 2004/2008 PVI to R+6 in 2008/2012 PVI.
On one hand Georgia has more ethnic minorities than Arizona (though
both states are under 60% non-hispanic white as of 2012) and those minorities are less Republican due to a higher percentage of blacks (GA is ~31% black vs AZ's ~4.5%) with blacks generally voting at higher rates than Hispanics but on the other hand Arizona whites are less Republican than Georgia's. An equal weighting for these two?
Both states also have population growth above the national average but the demographics of that in-migration are probably different (more older white retirees move to Arizona while more minorities move to Georgia?). This one could make you think lean Georgia but also consider that, among all the states, Arizona has the largest
white vs. non-white gap between 65+ year-olds and under 18 year-olds which could mean faster change for Arizona as it has more seniors (14.8% of its population) than Georgia (11.5% of its population)?
And what about religion? I don't really know how to weight for that but that can be something to consider when comparing a southwest state vs a state in the deep south. Arizona is less religious overall with less (white) baptists than Georgia.
Before Nov 2012, I was going to guess Arizona for this question because I was expecting the state to swing to Obama compared to 2008 but, as we saw, that didn't happen (though AZ Hispanics
swung heavily to Obama) and now I'm leaning towards Georgia. What do you think?
Poll
