Daily Kos Elections' project to calculate the 2016 presidential results for every state legislative seat in the nation arrives in Georgia, where Republicans have complete control of the government but where Democrats have the chance to make some real gains next year. You can find our master list of states here, which we'll be updating as we add new states; you can also find all our data from 2016 and past cycles here.
Donald Trump carried Georgia 51-46, a bit of a drop from Mitt Romney’s 53-46 win. In 2012, every Obama state Senate district elected a Democrat while every Romney seat voted for a Republican; in the House, three Republicans and one GOP-allied independent won Obama seats and no Democrats took Romney districts. But the overall toplines mask a very important shift: Trump dramatically underperformed Romney in Atlanta’s suburbs—the very phenomenon that has made the special election in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District unexpectedly competitive—and Democrats may now have some new targets in both chambers of the legislature. (All House and Senate seats are up every two years.)
Last year, Republicans won exactly the number of Senate seats they needed to hold a two-thirds supermajority but fell two seats short in the House. In Georgia, it takes at least two-thirds of the vote in each chamber to override a governor’s veto and to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot. GOP Gov. Nathan Deal is termed out next year and if Democrats can flip his seat while holding the GOP below two-thirds in at least one chamber, the new Democratic governor would be able to check the GOP legislature. Of particular importance: If Democrats can successfully block Republicans from drawing new maps when the 2022 round of redistricting comes around, they’d be able to prevent the GOP from once again gerrymandering the state.
There’s one important thing we want to note before we dive into the data: Georgia Republicans keep tinkering with the lines. In 2014, Republicans quietly made changes to several state Senate seats, and they did the same thing to a few House districts the next year, in order to shore up potentially vulnerable incumbents. This is why you'll see two blocks of numbers in our spreadsheet, one for the 2012 presidential results under the older district lines and one for the 2016 presidential results under the new ones.
This past spring, the legislature also considered another plan to redraw several suburban Atlanta seats to protect some more at-risk members. The legislature adjourned without adopting these latest changes, but this may not be the last we’ve heard about this matter. In fact, the state NAACP is currently involved in a lawsuit aiming to prevent Georgia from using those 2015 House districts in the next election, which will take place in 2018.
We’ll start with a look at the Senate, where the GOP won the same 38-18 supermajority last fall that they also won in 2012 and 2014. Trump carried 35 seats while Hillary Clinton took 21, and three Republicans represent Clinton districts. All 18 Senate Democrats hold Clinton seats. In fact, the reddest Democratic-held district, SD-33, backed her by a decisive 61-35, so Team Blue won’t need to worry much about defense.
The bluest GOP-held Senate seat is SD-06, which includes Atlanta’s affluent Buckhead area and some of the suburbs. This district backed Clinton 55-40, but Republican incumbent Hunter Hill won a third term 52-48. However, Hunter is running for governor, so Democrats should have a good shot to flip this open seat.
Two more Republicans hold Clinton Senate seats, and at least one should also be a top Democratic target, if not both. A few weeks ago, during the run-up to the first round of the special election for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, local GOP state Sen. Fran Millar made news when he rallied the troops against Democrat Jon Ossoff, proclaiming:
"I’ll be very blunt: These lines were not drawn to get Hank Johnson’s protégé to be my representative. And you didn’t hear that. They were not drawn for that purpose, OK? They were not drawn for that purpose."
Rep. Hank Johnson is an African-American Democratic congressman, and as we noted at the time, this looked like an attempt to draw a wedge between Ossoff and the predominantly white suburban 6th District he wants to represent. Two years before, Millar was even less subtle. As the 2014 elections approached, he vowed to shut down early voting in DeKalb County because it was “dominated by African American shoppers and it is near several large African American mega churches.” The good news for Democrats is that Millar’s SD-40 backed Clinton by a healthy 54-41 margin. Millar himself won re-election by a similar 56-44 spread, but if Democrats make a strong effort to target him and 2018 is a bad year for Team Red, he could be in real trouble.
The final GOP-held Clinton seat is SD-48, which unsurprisingly is also in the Atlanta suburbs. Republican Senate President Pro Tempore David Shafer won re-election with no opposition, even though his seat backed Clinton 51-45. Shafer is a potential candidate for lieutenant governor, and his departure could also be a huge help to Team Blue.
Right now, one GOP-held Senate seat is vacant, and will be filled in a May 16 special election. SD-32 is also in suburban Atlanta—in fact, it’s right in the heart of the 6th Congressional District (Republican Judson Hill resigned to run in special; he came in fifth). Trump carried SD-32 54-40, but that’s a huge drop from Romney’s 67-31 win (the 2014 Senate redistricting did not effect this seat), mirroring the shift in the 6th District. Consequently, Republicans at least are acting like they’re concerned that Democrat Christine Triebsch could upset Republican Kay Kirkpatrick later this month.
We’ll turn to the House, where the GOP holds a 118-62 majority, two short of a supermajority. Trump carried 106 seats to Clinton’s 74: Two Democrats represent Trump seats, and 14 Republicans hold Clinton turf.
We’ll begin with those two Democrats. HD-138, which is located in the southwest portion of the state, backed Trump 53-45, but Democrat Bill McGowan, a former Americus mayor, unseated Republican incumbent Mike Cheokas 51-49. Democrats attacked Cheokas for opposing Medicaid expansion, arguing that he “chose scoring political points” over helping struggling rural hospitals. Southern Democrats didn’t have too many success stories in 2016, but this strategy may be effective in other Trump-friendly seats. The other Democrat in a Trump seat is Bob Trammell. HD-132, located in west-central Georgia, backed Trump by a narrow 50-47, but Trammell won a second term 54-46.
Finally, there’s the matter of those 14 Republicans in Trump seats. The bluest seat of the bunch is HD-40, located in—you guessed it—suburban Atlanta. Republican Rich Golick won re-election 54-46, but that was his closest race in over a decade, and Clinton carried his seat 55-41. Another three Republicans hold seats that Clinton won by at least a 10-point margin.
While Democrats have the chance to make real gains in both chambers next year, taking the majority under a GOP-drawn map will be incredibly tough. One way to illustrate the GOP’s advantage is to sort each seat in each chamber by Clinton's margin of victory over Trump and see how the seat in the middle—known as the median seat—voted. Because both chambers have an even number of seats, we average the two middle seats to come up with the median point in the chamber.
The median Senate seat backed Trump 58-37, far to the right of his 51-46 statewide win. That means that, if Democrats want to take a majority, they’ll need to win every seat that backed Trump by 21 points or less, or compensate for any defeats by winning even redder seats. The House was better but still not good, with the median seat backing Trump 55-41. That’s why it’s so important for Democrats to win the governor’s office next year and prevent Republicans in the legislature from locking them out of power for another decade.
P.S. Special thanks to Eli Spencer Heyman for providing his calculations so that we could compare our numbers to his.