With governor’s race, Georgia auditions as 2020 swing state
Move over, ATLANTA —
Ohio. Make room, Florida and Pennsylvania. Georgia wants in on the swing-state action.
The state’s gubernatorial contest comes into greater focus Tuesday after Republicans choose between Brian Kemp, who is endorsed by President Donald Trump, and Casey Cagle, who is backed by the incumbent GOP governor. The victor in their party runoff will take on Democrat Stacey Abrams in her bid to become the first African-American woman elected governor in the U.S.
Abrams, a 44-year-old former state House leader, faces significant hurdles in a state that remains deeply conser- vative outside its metropol- itan areas. No Democratic nominee for governor or U.S. Senate has carried the state since 1998. Bill Clinton was the last Democratic presidential candidate to win here — in 1992.
Yet in the last decade, GOP standard-bearers have typi- cally garnered no more than 53 percent of the vote. Some Republicans say that margin isn’t enough as African-Amer- icans, Latinos, Asian-Amer- icans and white transplants become a larger share of the electorate. The themes that will likely dominate the general election campaign for governor, including immi- gration and race, will help determine whether Democrats can become consis- tently competitive in the Deep South after years of stinging defeats.
“This is a light-red state,” GOP pollster Mark Rountree said. “I don’t think Geor- gia will be a national after- thought for either side anymore” regardless of what happens in November, he added.
A close loss for Democrats will still be a loss. “There are no more moral victo- ries in Georgia,” says Democratic consultant Tharon Johnson. It’s time for Demo- crats to capitalize on demo- graphic changes and a “talented candidate” who should have plenty of campaign cash thanks to her national celebrity, he says.
Georgia’s potential evolution toward swing-state status comes at a critical time for Democrats. Gains in coastal and Sunbelt states — Virginia, North Carolina and potentially Arizona — could offset growing challenges for the party in the upper Midwest, where Trump shocked many Democrats in 2016 by sweeping a band of states that Hillary Clinton’s campaign had considered a “blue wall.”
Ohio and Iowa are of par- ticular concern for Demo- crats long-term, given that Trump’s victory margin in both states neared double digits in 2016.
“These changes in states like Georgia aren’t occurring in a vacuum,” said Demo- cratic pollster Zac McCrary. “The party cannot afford to get in a situation where their only path to 270 (electoral votes) has to include Ohio, so we need to bring a state like Georgia online as a pos- sibility.”
That reality and Abrams’ candidacy have been enough to draw visits already from senators — and potential Democratic presidential candidates — Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who sought the Democratic nomination in 2016 and is considering a repeat bid, has also endorsed Abrams and told The Associated Press that he’d come to Georgia if Abrams asks.
Party interest spiked when Abrams won what initially was expected to be a competitive primary in May with 76 percent of the vote.
“I started getting a lot of calls then,” recalled Johnson, the Democratic consultant. “‘Can she win?’ ‘Can she win?’ they’d ask.”
The question is whether Republicans can continue to rely on a large share of the white vote outside Georgia’s cities to ensure victory.
“Predicting the tipping point is impossible ... but if Stacey just tells people what she thinks, the votes are out there,” says Democrat Jason Carter, who is former President Jimmy Carter’s grandson and ran for governor in 2014, losing by eight percentage points.
Since Carter’s loss, which he notes came in a midterm that was bad for Democrats nationally, Democrats have flipped several state legislative seats in the northern suburbs of Atlanta. In 2016, despite losing by five percentage points statewide, Clinton led Trump in the populous suburban Atlanta counties of Cobb and Gwinnett. No Democratic presidential nominee had done that since Jimmy Carter, himself a former Georgia governor, in 1976.