Southern State Legislative Chambers Up in 2012

[old timey villain]

Georgia is becoming more and more like Florida every day: A large, diverse state, that can be competitive nationally but is still dominated by Republicans at the state level. (I'm assuming that GA will be competitive nationally in the next few cycles)

Thanks to redistricting, the GOP will have firm control of the GA legislature for the foreseeable future. But I think they may have hit their ceiling in 2010. I expect Democrats to gain a few seats in 2012. If anything it'll be due to GALEO, an organization of Hispanic elected officials who have been working on a massive voter outreach in the past year. Many Hispanics in the state will likely be compelled to vote due to the immigration law. There are a lot of districts here that would be competitive if the Hispanic and Asian residents were more politically active.

(People seem to forget that Georgia has the 10th largest Hispanic population in the nation. Most of them don't vote though.)

I also think that Democrats can still pick up seats in South Georgia....once Obama leaves office. The connection between the Democratic party and Barack Obama is just too powerful for a lot of rural white voters in that part of the state.

[old timey villain]

Also an interesting little story:

I was interning for a congressman last summer when the Georgia legislature was holding redistricting hearings where the public could provide their "very important input". I went to one and it was a total joke. All of the people on the panel were Republicans (not surprising) and I swear one guy fell asleep for a few minutes. I mean, I get that it was purely symbolic but they could have at least tried to play along with the farce.

If that's how the GOP plans to interact with its constituents then I look forward to the day when the voters interact with them by kicking them out of office.

[old timey villain]

I will be keen to see if Kentucky follows suit...   

Kentucky has Louisville. Arkansas doesn't.

Everybody here seems to think a border state is the same as a Deep South state. It isn't.

Yes, Kentucky it different from Arkansas, even though I don't consider AR the deep south. But the region that has helped Kentucky democrats is Appalachia. If Kentucky Appalachia trends away from the democrats the way WV is, you'll see the entire state trend R in the next few cycles statewide and nationally.

By the way, what kind of democrat is Steve Beshear? I assume he is moderate to conservative considering his win last year. But what makes him so popular up there?