QUITMAN, Georgia — President Joe Biden’s White House and, by extension, his 2024 reelection campaign are out to prove the close Georgia win last time was no fluke.
If Biden can claim a second Peach State victory while facing taunts that, at 81, he’s too old for a second term and concerns by fellow Democrats over the president’s languishing approval ratings, it would prove he has real and lasting support in Georgia. However, it’s unclear how much time, effort, and resources the Biden campaign will devote to Georgia.
Biden’s likeliest route to a White House return, by again defeating former President Donald Trump, doesn’t necessarily go through Georgia and its 16 Electoral College votes. In 2020, Biden was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992. Biden prevailed 49.47% to 49.24% — or 11,779 votes, one less than the number Trump famously, and futilely, leaned on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find for him, which was revealed in a recorded phone call.
To earn at least 270 electoral votes this November, the president could win Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He could lose Nevada and still snag a second term with a single electoral vote in Nebraska. It’s something he nabbed in 2020, and he was the first Democrat to do so in the elector-splitting state since 2008.
“I don’t know that Georgia is the No. 1 on Biden’s list,” Emory University political science professor Andra Gillespie said in an interview from Atlanta. Georgia, Gillespie added, “makes the medium list of competitive contests. It’s just a question of whether it’s on the short list in October.”
The presidential race in Georgia will be another battle royale between the urban and suburban vote in and around Atlanta, which strongly favors Democrats. The deep blue vote contrasts with heavy Republican support in outlying exurban and rural areas, such as Brooks County, in south-central Georgia, just north of the Florida state line. Its county seat, Quitman, is a 3 1/2-hour drive to Atlanta, and the town is perhaps best known as the home of James Pierpont, author of the classic Christmas song “Jingle Bells.” The 16,000-plus-person county also has a less festive history, as it was named after pro-slavery Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina, who severely beat abolitionist Sen. Charles Sumner with a cane on the Senate floor in 1856 for delivering a speech attacking slavery.
In 2020, Brooks County gave Trump 60.01% of its vote to 39.30% for Biden, even as the Republican president lost statewide and in the all-important Electoral College.
In recent statewide elections, places such as Brooks County have seen their votes overshadowed by the Atlanta megapolis. But there’s no assurance it will happen in November.
“I think we have to be prepared that 2020 and 2024 are going to look different,” Gillespie said. “That’s going to change how the parties reach out to voters. And how the absence of COVID-19 affects the nominees of both parties.”
Changing Demographics
Biden’s 2020 presidential win coincided with Democrats capturing both Senate seats in the Peach State, though statewide elections otherwise still favor Republicans.
What Democrats have had going for them is changing demographics in the state of more than 11 million people. Per 2022 census figures, Georgia is about 50.4% non-Hispanic white and 33.1% black. That is alongside a fast-rising Latino community, at 10.5%, with the growing Asian American population at 4.8%.
The population churn is due, in part, to large employers increasingly landing top recruits for professional-class jobs. Many of these new Georgians bring with them distinctly non-conservative politics as they fill executive and management roles in companies and government agencies, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the Coca-Cola Company.
“Every year, metro Atlanta becomes a greater share of Georgia’s population. That helps Democrats immensely,” Gillespie said. “The shift of professionals who are not from Georgia, and the movement of African American voters, certainly has increased Georgia’s competitiveness.”
Still, in 2020, Biden got a boost from below by the down-ballot candidacies of Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Both did well in November, helping Biden win Georgia. Both Democrats then won in the early January 2021 runoffs. But in 2024, there are no Senate races or other major contests on the Georgia ballot.
“Republicans still have a numerical advantage in Georgia,” Gillespie said. “Though Democrats have shown that under extenuating circumstances, if they put together very strong get-out-the-vote efforts, they can win.”
It all puts a premium on political organizing, said David McLaughlin, Democratic chairman in the 14th Congressional District. The northwestern Georgia seat is held by firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). And in 2020, Trump would have trounced Biden there 68.1% to 30.6%.
Still, Democratic organizing efforts for Biden in GOP enclaves can contribute to a statewide win for the Democratic ticket, McLaughlin said in an interview.
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There’s considerable black voter turnout possible in and around Rome, McLaughlin’s hometown, plus Dalton, an Appalachian foothills town about a dozen miles south of the Tennessee state line, which was once known as “the carpet capital of the world” since it hosts a swath of mills and factories to process synthetic fibers such as nylon.
“The Latino population is booming. We need to get out and register them as voters and get them engaged,” said McLaughlin, host of the influential internet political talk radio show Kudzu Vine.
