Would Georgia be a D state without the mountains?

[old timey villain]

If the northern border of Georgia was moved 50 miles south you would get rid of the deep red mountain counties and some of the even deeper red northern suburbs, where most of the Republican votes exist in the state. What's left would be Metro Atlanta, the black belt and the coast.

Although I would be sad to cede the beautiful North Georgia Mountains, wouldn't this improve Democrats' performance in the peach state?

[old timey villain]

If the northern border of Georgia was moved 50 miles south you would get rid of the deep red mountain counties and some of the even deeper red northern suburbs, where most of the Republican votes exist in the state. What's left would be Metro Atlanta, the black belt and the coast.

Although I would be sad to cede the beautiful North Georgia Mountains, wouldn't this improve Democrats' performance in the peach state?

Isn't that kind of a pointless question? If you remove the most Republican part of the state of course its going to improve the Dem's performance.

Not necessarily. There could be enough Republican strength elsewhere to win the state outright, but by a smaller margin. And I'm only moving the border 50 miles south, so there are still a lot of those GOP areas in the state.

[old timey villain]

awesome guys! What if you only moved the border 30 miles south? This way you still have Cherokee and Forsyth counties.

[old timey villain]

Interesting.  The far North of Georgia is quite a Republican bastion, but wasn't North Georgia LBJ's best part of the state in 1964?  Things have changed.

there was no backlash against LBJ in 1964 up there because there were no black people in North Georgia to integrate. The northern part of Georgia is really different from the rest of the state- more like appalachia- and politics reflected that.