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12 | Commentary
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After Trump, the blue deluge hits
suburban Republicans
Around Town
* A fc* M 4 •
Joe Earle is editor-
at-large at Reporter
Newspapers and has
lived in metro Atlanta
for over 30 years. He can
he reached at joeearlefa)
reportemewspapers.net
The way Fran Millar sees it, the big
change shouldn’t surprise anyone. You
could watch it coming. It showed right
there in the numbers as election followed
election. The much-talked-about “blue
waves” that swept away Republican red
ground in north DeKalb, Sandy Springs
and Buckhead has been building for the
past couple of elections.
“The wakeup call was in 2016,” Millar
said recently as he surveyed the local po
litical landscape after the 2020 election.
Support for Republicans eroded that
year, he said, and continued to disap
pear in 2018. This year, once the big wave
washed through, only Democrats were
left standing.
The surprise isn’t necessarily that
more Democrats won local elections, but
where they won them. Although Repub
licans still control the state Legislature,
candidates with a “D” after their names
have claimed districts once considered
safe harbors for Republicans. Democrats
now represent parts of the north Atlan
ta suburbs that once elected big-name Re
publicans such as former U.S. Congress
man Newt Gingrich, former state Sen.
Tom Price and former state Rep. Wendell
Willard. And, of course, Millar himself.
“The Democrats have taken the hill,”
said former state Rep. Ed Lindsey, a Re
publican who represented a chunk of
Buckhead for about a decade. “Whether
Republicans can have a resurgence is yet
to be seen.”
Millar served in the state Legislature
for 20 years. He was a state rep. for a doz
en years and a state senator for eight
more. He said he won 10 of 11 elections
he ran. In his Senate elections, he regu
larly claimed more than 60% of the vote.
Then, in 2016, “the Democrat who ran
against me did nothing but a Facebook
campaign” and still collected 44% of the
vote. “I knew that wasn’t good.”
Two years ago, he lost to Sen. Sally
Harrell. “I went from 62% [of the vote in
2016] to 45% in T8,” he said. “That pretty
well says it.”
What changed? Demographics, he
said. Dunwoody’s just not the same place
it was when he moved there 40 years
ago. Back then, it was part of the “Repub
lican Suburbs,” mostly White commu
nities filled with cul-de-sacs surround
ed by single-family houses lined up like
guards. No more. Nowadays, he said, At
lanta is like Chicago or New York or oth
er big cities scattered around the country
where the suburbs politically have be
come an extension of the city and “most
of the area is blue.”
“What I didn’t see was the population
shifting so quickly, the demographics
shifting so quickly,” he said.
Millar’s quick to say that by “demo
graphics,” he doesn’t mean exclusive
ly race. That’s part of it, but not all. Oth
er factors he cited include the changing
politics of some suburban women, in
cluding blowback against President Don
ald Trump; the rise of the tech industry
and the younger people who work in
tech; the spread of multifamily homes;
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and the groundswell of new voters orga
nized by former gubernatorial candidate
and Georgia voting rights champion Sta
cey Abrams.
But Lindsey, a lawyer who’s 61 and
who spent nearly a decade in the state
House and was the Republican whip, be
lieves local Republicans’ problem in his
old Buckhead district was simply Trump.
“In large part it is, quite frankly, Presi
dent Trump,” he said.
“It’s a matter of turning off from the
president, to be candid,” he said. “He sim
ply wasn’t well-regarded in this area.
I don’t see a shift in people’s attitudes
about policy so much as a shift in atti
tudes about leadership style.”
At age 70, Millar, who runs a small
marketing firm, misses doing the kind of
work he did in the Legislature and work
ing with other lawmakers. “I do miss do
ing legislation on things that matter,” he
said. “You just don’t turn it off after 20
years.”
But he has no plans to try to try for
elected office again. After all, it might not
be as much fun as it used to be. DeKalb
is very divided, he said, and local politics
sometimes devolve into the kinds of divi
sions that now regularly split the coun
try. “I’m old-school,” Millar said. “I can sit
down and do a deal with Michael Thur
mond [DeKalb’s Democratic CEO].”
After the 2020 elections, Republicans
appear likely to do a little soul-searching
both nationally and locally.
Lindsey argues the challenge facing
both parties in Buckhead will be to nom
inate candidates who can appeal to con
servative voters. “The question is now
that we’ll be living in a post-Trump era,
will those folks migrate back to Republi
can candidates who are right of center,
or are they in the Democratic camp?” he
said. “That’s going to be the challenge for
the Democrats and that’s the challenge
for Republicans.”
Millar argues that for Republicans, a
change needs to come. “I think you have
to appeal to people with things that mat
ter - find issues that matter to people.
I’m pro-life, but I don’t think abortion
and guns are the way... Traditionally, peo
ple vote their paychecks. They didn’t this
time because of the pandemic and the
personal issues of the president.... You’ve
got to adapt. You can’t do the same-old,
same-old.”