Why Georgia May Be Bluer Than It Appears

[wyldwolf]

For all the hype about “Purple Texas,” the real front in the Democratic demographic offensive is Georgia.

No other plausibly competitive state has seen a more favorable shift for Democrats in the racial composition of eligible voters over the last decade. The pace of demographic change is so fast that Michelle Nunn, a Democrat, is locked in a tight race against the Republican David Perdue for an open Senate seat — even with an off-year electorate that is favorable for the G.O.P.

The pace of demographic change might even be fast enough to outpace the polls.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/09/upshot/why-georgia-may-be-bluer-than-it-appears.html?smid=tw-share&abt=0002&abg=1&_r=0

[aikoaiko]

1. True, but it depends on them getting to the polls.

GOTV

[JustAnotherGen]

2. I had an interesting conversation

Back and forth last week - different topic entirely - but my comments here also apply to this -

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=908957

Atlanta is interesting - I know too many people (black folks, well educated, professional) that have moved down there the past 10/12 years from the Great Lakes area . My uncle also pulled up shop from Birmingham in the late 80s and moved himself and his business to Atlanta because Birmingham was just still too anti black people at that time.

So basically you've had a large influx of affluent, well educated blacks into the Atlanta area - and I wonder what the crime rate is of Atlanta vs that of Detroit?

I just find Atlanta an odd choice for many reasons. It's just one of those places that even I considered moving to for better financial and social opportunities because it does have a bit of a reputation for being the black elite mecca.

I think that has a lot to do with it. The last time I was in Atlanta it was very difficult to hear a Southern Accent.

A lot of hard flat A's and NYC accents.

And the thing is - the 'elite' black folks? We vote. Often against our own economic interests but for social justice and equality.

I think things are looking up in Georgia.


Aside - I have a few folks I went to high school with down in the Fulton County/Atlanta area now. One returned after his MBA at Harvard and working on Wall Street. Now he's doing Venture Capital in his own boutique firm while attending theology school. . . and he's heavily invested in Carter campaign - money, time, canvassing, resources. If you ask him - Carter IS the new Governor and after that - it's just more of a chipping away to a large liberal 'center' in the state.


ETA from the article -

But this factor doesn’t fully explain the low estimated share of the black vote.

A few possibilities might explain the rest of the difference. One of those is a technique known as “trimming weights” — in which pollsters don’t weight underrepresented groups up to their targets because it would require individual respondents to be weighted too heavily.

Pollsters often choose to trim weights if a single respondent starts getting weighted more than a few times over. Often, this involves undersampled demographic groups that lean Democratic, like young and nonwhite voters. As a result, many surveys fall a bit short of their targets for nonwhite voters; it was one of the many reasons the Gallup poll fell short of its targets for nonwhite voters in 2012.

[pstokely]

4. lot of Yankee transplants in Atlanta

often more Cubs fans than Braves fans when the Cubs play the Braves

[packman]

3. Oh, if it would only be so

[n2doc]

5. We can hope

Certainly looks more likely that Georgia will turn blue before Texas.

[Dustlawyer]

6. If the DNC would restart the 50 state strategy Texas would improve dramatically.

As it is, all we see are Tea Party ads and a few from Wendy Davis.

[IronLionZion]

7. Get them registered and out to the polls

GOTV!