Flipped

January 17, 2022
Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Bluestein debuts with a richly detailed account of how Georgia’s political landscape has evolved in recent decades, culminating in the 2021 run-off victories of Democratic senators Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff. Bluestein notes that Democrats dominated the state for much of the 20th century “with the unwavering support of rural white voters... who backed segregationist and racist measures that disenfranchised Black residents.” That dominance began to change in 1980, however, when President Jimmy Carter, the former Georgia governor, and veteran Georgia senator Herman Talmadge both lost reelection bids. Over the following decades, Democrats “struggled to recruit even fringe candidates,” while Republicans consolidated their grip on the state legislature and governor’s office. In the 2000s, however, shifting demographics, including a 5% increase in eligible Black voters, began to work in Democrats’ favor, and Stacey Abrams built an impressive grassroots campaign to identify and mobilize liberal voters during her 2018 run for governor. The state may flip back in 2022, however—Republicans have already overhauled voting laws in their favor. Enriched by Bluestein’s impressive access to insiders on both sides of the aisle, this is a valuable study of a state likely to play a big role in national politics for years to come.