Clinton and Gore were "mountain Democrats", hence they won the mountain states in the South but lost the coastal plains. More fascinating to me is how they won Louisiana.
Clinton/Gore win Georgia based on their strength in the southern part of the state. They didn't do so well up in the N Georgia mountains
True, but northern Georgia is sort of an exception, like eastern Tennessee. You see in 1960 and 1968 it was already starting to move towards the Republicans.
Also, Clinton/Gore only won Georgia in 1992, and not 1996, and they only won it by 2 points with 40% of the vote, with Ross Perot taking 13%. The reason being, with the African-American vote (concentrated in the souther part of the state) they had a hard floor, whereas whites split their vote between Bush and Perot. Their subsequent loss in the state proves the victory was an artefact of the Perot effect.
You have a good point. Clinton and Gore probably did about this same with white voters in North Georgia and South Georgia. The difference being that South Georgia had a coalition of white and black Clinton voters who delivered those counties to Bubba handily.
For example, Rabun county in the mountains was (and still is) almost entirely white.
Clinton: 40.6
Bush: 41.2
Perot: 17.8
The voters there were pretty split between Clinton and Bush, with Bush having a slight advantage.
Now Here's Mitchell County in S Georgia, which has a white majority, but the black population isn't far behind
Clinton: 52.7
Bush: 33.1
Perot: 14.1
I imagine the white vote there was similarly split, but the large black population there voting for Clinton tipped the county in his favor.
Still, I resent the idea of the Perot effect. Perot probably hurt Bush and Clinton equally, taking away social moderates from Bush and fiscal conservatives from Clinton. I think the whole idea that Bush would have won if it weren't for Perot has been used as a consolation prize for the Clinton haters. Perot or not, the nation was due for a correction in 1992. I just don't see Bush winning in any scenario.
