Joe Biden’s astonishing win was powered by an ongoing surge in the Atlanta suburbs, where large numbers of voters have been demonstrating their distaste for Donald Trump ever since the 2016 elections.
Despite a deliberate GOP gerrymander, both the 6th and 7th Districts saw some of the biggest swings in the country four years ago, a trend that continued this year as Biden flipped both seats. The 6th, which supported Mitt Romney 61-37 in 2012, went for Trump just 48-47 last time and Biden 55-44 in November. Freshman Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath easily won a rematch with the woman she ousted in the midterms, Republican Karen Handel, winning 55-45.
As for the 7th, it had been the most diverse district still held by a Republican, and it’s undergone a similar transformation: After going 60-38 for Romney, Trump won it by a much narrower 51-45 spread in 2016, and Biden carried it 52-46. It also gave Democrats their lone House pickup that wasn’t aided by redistricting, as Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux beat back Republican Rich McCormick 51-49 to pick up the seat left open by retiring GOP Rep. Rob Woodall, who nearly lost to Bourdeaux in 2018.
Perhaps most interesting of all, Biden’s third-best improvement came even further out in Atlanta’s northwestern suburbs, deep into Republican turf in the 11th District. This seat, held by Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk, narrowed from 67-31 Romney to 60-35 Trump, then made a similar jump again this year, voting for Trump 57-42. That’s still a long ways from competitive (Loudermilk won reelection 60-40), but the pattern should worry the GOP.
In fact, Biden improved on Clinton’s performance in all 14 of Georgia’s congressional districts on every metric: his margin against Trump, his own vote share, and his raw vote totals (though Trump’s vote totals also increased across the board). Democrats, however, may not get to enjoy the fruits of the Peach State’s metamorphosis for much longer since Republicans will exert total control over the next round of redistricting and are certain to impose another heavily gerrymandered map on voters.
The Senate results, meanwhile, help shed some light on the areas that the runoff campaigns might target. Both races followed the same pattern as the presidential contest: The majority Black 5th District in the heart of Atlanta yielded the best results for Democrats, while the rural 9th in the state’s northeast corner—which is represented by Collins—gave Republicans their best numbers. And in most cases, Democratic Senate candidates ran just one to two points behind Biden.
There were, however, some gaps, the most notable of which came, perhaps surprisingly, in the 6th. Ossoff’s 51-46 win there was about six points back of Biden’s 11-point margin despite the fact that Ossoff rather famously lost a close special election in 2017 in the district. The same thing played out in the special election, where Democrats combined for 52% of the vote and Republicans 46. It’s possible that a sizable chunk of traditionally Republican voters here were receptive to Biden’s appeal as the answer to Trump, but still retained their loyalties further down the ballot.
Unsurprisingly, Collins’ best district was his own, the 9th, where he beat Loeffler 45-28, making it the only district he carried. Loeffler won the other seven Trump districts and made her top showing in the rural 14th in the northwestern part of the state, which was won by pro-QAnon Republican Marjorie Greene. Warnock prevailed in the six Biden districts, as did Ossoff.
We also have a detailed map of the presidential results for you to explore, and if you haven’t done so yet, you’ll want to bookmark our complete data set for all 50 states, which we’re updating continuously.
Source: http://feeds.dailykosmedia.com/~r/dailykosofficial/~3/HZNJsa7j0w8/-Biden-s-win-in-Georgia-was-powered-by-more-gains-in-the-Atlanta-suburbs-where-he-flipped-two-seats