Dr. Charles Bullock: Obama Could Carry Georgia, But Several Factors Must Come Together

Dr. Charles Bullock, a University of Georgia Political Science professor, has an article in InsiderAdvantage Georgia that has some fascinating facts and statistics. The whole article is worth reading, but at least read what is in bold.

Barack Obama, poised to become the Democratic presidential nominee, has begun running television ads in Georgia. This investment confirms the rumors that Democrats believe that his candidacy gives them some hope of carrying parts of the South, including Georgia. Attempting to secure a few southern states makes good sense for Democrats who lost all 11 states in both 2000 and 2004. When Republicans sweep the South, Democrats have to win 70 percent of the electors in the rest of the nation. That is a stiff challenge, although both Al Gore and John Kerry came close to hitting that target. Nonetheless, if Obama could take a few southern states, as Bill Clinton did in both of his victories, he would have an easier road to the White House.

What are Obama’s prospects for carrying Georgia? Obviously he must do far better than the two most recent Democratic presidential nominees. Gore lost Georgia by 300,000 votes while Kerry performed even worse, coming up 550,000 votes short. A recent InsiderAdvantage poll shows the Georgia electorate equally divided with John McCain leading Obama 44.3 – 42.7 percent while 5.6 percent prefer Libertarian Bob Barr.

Three variables will determine whether Obama wins Georgia. The one which the Obama campaign seems to be emphasizing involves increasing African-American participation. Democratic strategists speak of a half million unregistered blacks. Democrats regularly get 90 percent or more of the black vote; Obama might do even better. However a mobilized African American electorate by itself will not put Georgia in the Obama column. He will also have to do better among white voters than most recent Democratic candidates. Kerry got less than a quarter of the white vote in Georgia. In 2002 when Governor Roy Barnes and Senator Max Cleland lost reelection bids, they managed only 31 percent of the white vote. In the past, Democrats have needed almost 40 percent of the white vote to win. The third factor which affects the share of the white vote Obama would need is Barr’s performance.

If Obama boosts black participation, then the share of the white vote he needs drops. Is he on his way to increasing the African-American vote? One way to raise the black vote is to sign up the half million unregistered. Georgia registration has gone up by a bit less than 500,000 since 2004 but most of these new registrants are not black. African-American registration has gone up by 160,000 since Kerry lost. Focusing just on this year, black registration is up 120,000 since December. The increased black registration during the first five months of 2008 has hardly changed the racial makeup of Georgia’s electorate. The latest figures from the Secretary of State show that blacks constitute 27.95 percent of the registrants; at the time of the 2004 election blacks made up 27.2 percent of Georgia’s registrants. If the Georgia registered electorate is to become substantially blacker, Democrats will have to do far more between now and October when the books of eligible voters close than they have done thus far.

Not every registrant makes it to the polls. Is it possible that blacks might turn out at a much higher rate than whites? In 2004, 80.4 percent of white registrants and 72.2 percent of black registrants cast ballots. African-Americans cast 25.4 percent of Georgia’s votes that year. If blacks turnout at the same rate as they register (which would be a ten percent increase), 28 percent of November’s voters will be African American. Substantially increasing that share may be difficult since newly registered voters tend to vote at lower rates than those who have a history of going to the polls.

Eliminating the turnout gap between blacks and whites so that 28 percent of the vote came from African Americans might be possible. If Obama got 95 percent of that vote, he would still need almost a third of the remaining vote, a vote that is overwhelmingly white. This scenario assumes that Obama needs to get 50.1 percent of the total vote.

Bob Barr’s candidacy lowers the share of the white vote Obama would need. If Barr retains the 5.6 percent share shown in the recent poll and the assumptions above remain unchanged, then Obama could secure a plurality with as little as 29 percent of the white vote. Barr’s experience as a four-term Georgia member of Congress should help him in the Peach State, but is 5.6 percent likely? Recent Libertarian presidential candidates have gotten less than two percent of the Georgia vote while members of that party running for state constitutional offices generally come in with less than three percent. If Barr manages only 2.8 percent of Georgia’s vote, Obama would need almost 31 percent of the white vote – a share achieved by Barnes in 2002 but four points more than Mark Taylor drew in his 2006 gubernatorial bid.

Exit polls suggest that young people provide Obama’s best prospects for attracting white voters. The June InsiderAdvantage poll showed Obama beating McCain by better than 2:1 among voters younger than 30 but losing by an even larger margin among voters older than 64. An insurmountable challenge for most candidacies that have banked on a strong youth vote has been to get these registrants to the polls. Will Obama’s charisma and his call for change succeed where so many others have failed?

For Obama to carry Georgia in November, multiple factors must come together. He will need to mobilize unprecedented levels of turnout among African Americans and young whites and hope that Bob Barr eats into John McCain’s support. If these events coincide, 2008 could become only the fourth election since John Kennedy when the Democratic nominee wins the Peach State.