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DUN
10 | Commentary
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COMMENTARY
Metro Atlanta’s suburbs hold the future of Georgia politics in their hands
Right now, I feel like were living in
the most interesting state in the world,
to adapt a line from a popular beer com
mercial. Not only does Georgia, with
its two Senate runoff elections, hold
the fate of the Senate, and hence of the
balance of power in Washington, in its
hands, but it’s also the only state in the
Deep South to have voted for Joe Biden.
What’s more, two of the very few bright
spots for Democrats at the Congressio
nal level were Lucy McBath’s retention
of the local seat she flipped in 2018 and
Carolyn Bordeaux’s flipping of another
suburban seat.
How we got here is, I think, an inter
esting and illuminating tale. Everyone’s
easy answer is to credit Stacey Abrams
with the feat of “turning Georgia blue,”
as one headline inaccurately put it. She
certainly had a hand in it, working to
register and mobilize hundreds of thou
sands of voters. But as one observer re
cently noted, none of what Abrams ac
complished would have been possible
without Atlanta, whose economic dyna
mism attracts people from all over the
country.
Consider these numbers. More than
half the almost 5 million votes cast in the
presidential election came from coun
ties in the Atlanta metro area. Cobb,
DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties
alone accounted for about 1.7 million
votes, giving Joe Biden a 625,000 edge
over Donald Trump. Of course, the pic
ture gets a bit more clouded when you
factor in all the other metro counties,
but it’s clear enough that the Atlanta
metro area makes Georgia competitive.
No other major Southern city has the
same effect on its state’s political com
plexion. Not Charlotte, not Nashville,
and certainly not Birmingham or Co
lumbia.
The closest southern analogue to At
lanta’s outsized influence is the Virgin
ia suburbs of Washington, D.C., where
Joe Biden’s 500,000 vote margin (out of
roughly 1.5 million votes cast) overcame
Donald Trump’s slight 50,000 vote edge
in the rest of the state.
Since 2008, Virginia and Geor
gia have followed similar trajectories.
Barack Obama added nearly a half-mil-
lion voters to the Democratic columns
in both states back then. Joe Biden dupli
cated that feat this year, adding 431,000
votes in Virginia and 594,000 votes in
Georgia.
This comparison takes a bit of lus
ter away from Stacey Abrams’s accom
plishment. Virginia Democrats were not
exactly lost without her in 2020. Also,
Georgia Republicans have a much larg
er margin outside Atlanta than their Vir
ginia counterparts do outside the D.C.
Joseph Knippenberg is a professor
of political science at Oglethorpe
University in Brookhaven.
suburbs. But they shouldn’t rest too
comfortably on that cushion, not only
because it didn’t produce victory at the
Republicans have
to hope that they
can retain their
appeal to
non-metro voters
while distancing
themselves from
the Trump
persona in the
metro area.
presidential level in 2020, but because
that’s not where the state’s voting popu
lation will grow in the future. Retaining
the non-Atlanta base is necessary, but
not sufficient, for long-term Republican
success in Georgia politics
In a word, the Atlanta metropolitan
area holds the future of Georgia politics
in its hands. Both parties have strong in
centives to improve upon their perfor
mances ITP and OTP.
For Democrats, the two keys are hold
ing onto the affluent, White voters who
moved from splitting their tickets in
2016 to voting “D” in more races in 2020,
and increasing turnout among Black
and Latino voters. Since Donald Trump
will not always be around to help them
with the former effort, they will have to
find ways to differentiate their candi
dates from the louder progressive voic
es that tend to dominate the nation
al party. We can expect to hear more of
the intraparty debate that has been evi
dent in the aftermath of the disappoint
ing results below the presidential level.
As for the other challenge, I will restrict
myself here to saying that claims of vot
er suppression are a better mobilizing
tool than they are a description of facts
on the ground. There are lots of votes to
be gotten from people of color, but those
who aren’t already voting are going to
be very difficult to get to the polls.
Republicans have to hope that they
can retain their appeal to non-metro
voters while distancing themselves from
the Trump persona in the metro area. In
the January special elections, the task is
straightforward, for they can argue that
the only way that President Biden can be
the moderate he claims to be is if there’s
a Republican Senate to balance a Demo
cratic House.
After that, the test will be whether
Georgia Republicans and their nation
al counterparts can articulate a nation
alist and populist message that isn’t as
abrasive and offensive as that offered
by the current occupant of the White
House. I take it for granted that there’s
no going back to the party of Mitt Rom
ney, however much some of those who
would be in the executive suites if they
weren’t working from home would want
it. That party doesn’t win enough votes
outside the metro area to counterbal
ance its inevitable deficit around the Pe
rimeter.
None of us really wants to pay much
attention to politics for the next two
months, but we can’t avoid it. Democrats
and Republicans have a lot at stake, in
the short term and in the long term. For
Georgians, the question is whether pur
ple is a stop on the way to blue or a con
dition that we’ll, so to speak, enjoy for
the foreseeable future.