After looking over 2008 election results in various counties and congressional districts I’ve come across an interesting phenomenon that occurs in some high growth suburban areas versus others. Some areas seem to have changed very radically in the last 20 years and others have stayed largely the same. Forsyth County, GA (where I’m from) has seen ENORMOUS growth since the early 90s and was for a time the fastest growing county in the country but contrary to other high growth areas in the South such as the I-4 corridor in Florida, Northern Virginia, Charlotte and the Research Triangle in NC, Forsyth County really has not improved at all in terms of election numbers (Obama got under 20%). This along with Cherokee County which is also growing at a decent yet slower rate are where the GOP really runs up the score (80-20 in 100K plus counties isn’t too fun for Democrats statewide).
The people in Forsyth County now are largely transplants from the Midwest and North East and come to Forsyth for the great schools, good quality of live as well the low property taxes available in these suburban/exurban counties as well as the lily white populace (forgive my cynicism), golf courses a plenty, and big fundamentalist churches.
I’ve always been perplexed as to why some high growth areas change politically and why others don’t. Do these transplants come here and assimilate with other like minded conservatives or do they come from areas that are already conservative? Do they seek out conservative Republican areas or is it just the nature of the beast in the suburbs/exurbs still (I feel that the exurbs are becoming worse and the suburbs better in the South)?
I’d appreciate anyone who has an experience living in one of these high growth suburban areas and what their analysis may be.
Another GA topic touched on in GA 2011 redistricting has been addressed below:
Democrats had control of the state legislature, governor’s mansion, and all but 2 statewide executive offices until 2002 and then from there saw a free fall starting with the GOV and state senate in 2002, then the state legislature in 2004 and finally the SOS and Lt. Governor in 2006* leaving us with only an 80 year old Ag Commissioner and two African Americans in as Attorney General and Labor Commissioner (although both hold promise for future elections as GA becomes more and more black, especially Michael Thurmond the Labor Commissioner).
However things shifted dramatically back in Democrat’s favor in 2008 as Obama focused early on making GA a swing state (something he pulled back on later) cutting into 2004 margin by nearly 6 points. Yet the state party was somewhat ill prepared in picking up state legislative seats with only a net gain of 2 in 2008.
Demographic changes and a revised message more appealing to moderate suburban dwellers is the key to Democrats future. I might take until 2016 or 2018 until Democrats see a major statewide victory but it looks pretty inevitable gains will be made.
*Both ran for Governor, creating a highly divisive nasty primary that culminated into a nasty November result (worst performance ever for a Democrat for governor).
Further is a more detailed analysis of Georgia’s electoral future:
Atlanta’s population has been growing at a pretty healthy clip last I checked and it is now big as it was 20 something years ago which is incredible considering the opposing trend that was 50 plus years old (it is also becoming whiter and more liberal). That growing move-in trend will continue to have a significant electoral impact as strategies for winning the state are devised. While the black-majority rural areas and mid-size cities will continue to play an important role, the white conservative rural areas will largely be avoided (sans-Jim Marshall) in the coming years.
Fulton and Dekalb will grow to play an enormous influence in GOTV efforts and Gwinnett and Cobb counties will become important swing regions as they grow and diversify as Rockdale and Douglas already have. Again as mention above the forgotten yet increasingly important strategy will be to stop the bleeding in the 100K population suburban area counties such as Forsyth and Cherokee (smaller yet growing counties like Columbia, Jackson, Paulding, Barrow and Walton are pretty brutal as well). The key to victory lies in mitigating our losses in these new red bastions as we make greater inroads in the older, more built up suburbs while executing brilliant GOTV stragies in Fulton, Dekalb, Clayton, Richmond, Muscogee, Chatham and Clarke (Again I don’t think the Atlanta only campaign, while gaining credibility as a statewide strategy, could work without these mid-size cities involved example: Martin in 2008).