We've all been discussing if Georgia will go blue. I think it will, and I wanted to take Georgia’s voting temperature another way besides the polls we obsess over. I decided to follow the money. And because we’ve already established in countless other postings that to win Georgia it's going to take more than Atlanta proper and Dekalb county, I decided to focus on that bastion of New South, New GOP suburbia- Cobb County. Peter Applebome discussed Cobb County in his interesting book of the New South and the rise of the right, Dixie Rising. It was Cobb County that gifted Newt Gingrich to the world. It was Cobb County where segregationist Governor Lester Maddox lived out his days. Cobb is the belt buckle of the Solid Republican South. So what does the money tell us about Cobb?
First, the methodology of this decidedly unscientific study. I obtained a list of Cobb’s zip codes. Next I fed the zip codes into CampaignMoney.com, which gives you the total amount of money given by zip code per party, and also gives you a total. For comparisons sake, I also ran all the numbers for 2004. The 2004 numbers reflect all monies raised; for the 2008, only the amounts raised through August are available. After I had the info about all of Cobb’s zip codes, I did the math. There were definitely some surprises.
Cobb County residents donated $4,059,289 to political candidates, parties, and organization in 2004 (that year Georgians voted for the President, naturally, and we also had a Senate race, just like we do this year). Out of that, $3,053,747, which is 75% of the total, went to the Republican party or candidates. Democrats raised $567,237, or 14% of the total. Roughly 11% of the money raised went to other groups (like EMILY’s List or third party candidates).
Let’s contrast that with this year. Residents of Cobb have donated $2,565,739 to political candidates and groups through the end of August. Out of that, $1,384,864, or 54% has gone to Republicans. The Democrats have raised $724,497, or 28%. 18% of the money raised went to other groups or candidates (I have a feeling Cobb resident Bob Barr has received a fair hunk of that 18%).
What does this mean for Democrats? That means that AS OF AUGUST we have raised over double the entire take for 2004. Also, we have doubled the percentage of all monies donated in Cobb since 2004. Doubled. The Republicans, however, have fallen over twenty percentage points in money raised in this Republican bastion of evangelical values.
Looking zip code by zip code is also really interesting. Only in four out of twenty-three zip codes did the amount of money raised or the percentage of the total raised in that zip code go down for the Democrats. It went down either monetarily or by ratio in nineteen Cobb County zip codes for Republicans.
Particular zip codes also tell fascinating stories. 30066 is the zip code for a wealthy, well-educated (and overwhelmingly White) suburb in one of the most conservative areas of the county. 2004 saw 83% of their donations going to Republicans versus 7% for Democrats. This year Democrats have received 73% of donations, versus 18% for Republicans. 30082 is a gentrifying but still diverse area that in 2004 gave 31% of their donations to Democrats, but this year have given 56% of the total to Dems. Meanwhile the Republicans have gone from 62% to 28% of the total.
Okay, money doesn’t tell us everything. I’m also not naïve enough to believe that Cobb will go red. I think it will go purple. If enough of these solidly GOP areas go purple, combined with Atlanta and other heavily Democratic areas, it will give Barrack Obama and Jim Martin the popular votes they need to carry the state. After all, taken as a whole Georgia’s money is very equally divided. The state has raised $15,048,566 for all presidential candidates. Democrats have received $7,775,756 of that money, giving them a slight edge over the Republicans who have raised $7,272,811.
Remember to give until it hurts to down ticket races or Obama, and then keep right on giving.