As Gov. Nathan Deal, U.S. Sen.-elect David Perdue and all Republican statewide constitutional candidates savor their Nov. 4 election victories, special attention should focus on “the numbers.” A comparison of how metropolitan Atlanta votes compared to the rest of Georgia is instructive. It’s a big, big gap!
In the U.S. Senate race Democrat Michelle Nunn actually carried the 29-county metro Atlanta area (by about 19,000 votes, a barely 1 percent margin), but lost in the rest of the state by a whopping 21 points— 59.5 percent to 38.6 percent. Metro Atlanta accounted for 59 percent of the state’s total vote on Tuesday night. Similarly, Barack Obama got just under 50 percent in metro Atlanta (which had 28 counties in 2012) but only 40 percent in the rest of the state.
Georgia outside metro Atlanta is obviously far more Republican, and politically conservative, than metro Atlanta. Perdue won the same 10 congressional districts by virtually the same healthy majorities as GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney did in 2012. Perdue even tallied his best percentage– 77 percent– in the Gainesville-based 9th Congressional District held by U.S. Rep. Doug Collins.
It is also obvious that many voters who told pollsters they were “undecided” ultimately decided they would vote for Perdue as well as for GOP Gov. Nathan Deal. Interestingly, Nunn’s support among whites (especially white women) dipped in the final days.
My research indicates that Nunn was waxed 69 percent to 24 percent by white women. Why? Perhaps two main reasons: 1) The TV ad featuring her fawning over her father, former Sen. Sam Nunn, as he vouches for her abilities was a sign of weakness. What confident, strong female prospective voter who stands on her own two feet wouldn’t recoil at that? 2) The state Democrat Party flyer basically saying a vote for Republicans would lead to Ferguson-type police shootings of black youth created a white backlash. A large majority of white males had already abandoned the Democrat Party and its candidates; many white females offended by news of the divisive flyer no doubt joined their male counterparts by Tuesday.
A final observation:
Republican voter turnout in the Peach State and other key battleground states was boosted by the efforts of evangelical Christians. Exhibit A is the effective national get-out-the-vote targeting/follow-through operation by the Georgia-headquartered Faith and Freedom Coalition headed by the savvy Ralph Reed (a former Georgia GOP chairman). Indeed, according to a just-released poll by Public Opinion Strategies, conservative Christians made up almost one of every three voters in the overall 2014 Republican electorate– obviously playing a decisive role in critical GOP victories. “Their share of the electorate exceeded that of the African-American vote, Hispanic vote and union vote combined,” Reed proudly notes. “They will be equally vital in 2016. Politicians of both parties ignore this constituency at their peril.”
