It’s a long shot, but this is an election where polling has made a lot of long shots seem a little less long. I’m talking here about Georgia possibly being in play. The demographics are moving in the right direction for Democrats to eventually become competitive:
Ever since Barack Obama came within 6 percentage points of beating John McCain in Georgia in 2008, the state’s Democrats have pointed to a wave of minority, young, and transplanted voters as proof that their deeply Republican state was on the cusp of turning blue, or at least purple. Although whites now make up 58 percent of active voters in Georgia, down from 72 percent in 2002, the demographic shift remains a slow process, and Democrats have yet to capitalize on it in a statewide race.
And 2016 is special, because the Republicans have nominated such a very special candidate. One question is whether the Clinton campaign can put into play a strategy Georgia Democrats have used successfully in state legislative races:
Since 2012, Democrats have flipped five Georgia state House seats, despite a Republican redistricting that year. Rather than focusing on likely voters, Democrats are shifting tactics to persuade minorities to go to the polls for the first time.
That’s something Brenda Lopez did this spring to win the Democratic primary for a state House seat in what used to be the Republican stronghold of Gwinnett County, northeast of Atlanta. Asians and Hispanics now make up more than half the district’s population, but they account for only 8 percent of its electorate. Of 1,040 registered Asian-Americans in Gwinnett’s 99th district, only 10 voted in the presidential primary earlier this year. Of 1,506 Latinos registered, 7 voted. “People say these are low-propensity voters, and I correct them: These are no-propensity voters,” says Lopez, who repeatedly visited first-time voters and will now run without a Republican challenger in November. “You can’t just have the demographic change. You have to do the outreach to bring them in.”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump could drive away some of the white middle-class suburban voters who have helped keep the Republican Party dominant in Georgia. And while Georgia remains a long shot, Trump notwithstanding, it’s valuable to make Republicans sweat—and spend time and money—over states they should dominate, even as polling shows what should be swing states moving firmly into the blue column.