The New York Times - USA (2020-11-09)

THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2020 N P7

“I want to make America great again,

but not at the cost of lives and jobs, be-

cause I am a self-employed small busi-

ness owner and I have been affected by

the pandemic. It’s hitting home now. I

want America to be great again, no mat-

ter who wins. This is not us.”

Theresa Thompson-Liggins,55, Omaha

“I hope people see that the medical leaders

that are trying to lead us are trying to help

us through something absolutely horrible.

My dad is a physician, and I’m going into

medicine. It’s really disheartening when

people have stopped listening to the people

that try and keep us healthy and safe.”

Emily Bonn,28, Charleston, S.C.

“I hope that we can get back on track to

where people aren’t focused so much on

race and being treated different and work

together as a team again. You can’t have a

great nation without the whole team work-

ing together. Football, basketball — you

can’t have one good player and have a great

team. We need to work together.”

Mickey Rainwater,49, Houston

“I want to see the virus beat as soon as

possible. I want to see the troops all come

home. I hate the players kneeling for the

national anthem. They don’t respect the

flag. I am very proud of my country and my

service.”

Bob Brown,78, Omaha

CALLA KESSLER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES CAMERON POLLACK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES TAMIR KALIFA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES CALLA KESSLER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

CONTINUED ON PAGE P10

Election

tial transition in Washington, as
both parties pour money and re-
sources into what may be an epic
political battle, in a state that was
considered safely Republican just
a decade ago.
“It’s going to be hand to hand,
street by street, and either one of
them can win,” said former Gov.
Roy Barnes, the most recent Dem-
ocratic governor in the state.
The runoff contests will take
place in a Georgia that bears little
political resemblance to the state
that voted out Mr. Barnes in 2002
after he engaged in a contentious
effort to remove the Confederate
battle emblem from the state flag.
The population surged to 10.6
million in 2019 from 7.9 million in
2000, and the foreign-born popu-
lation now exceeds 10 percent of
the state’s total. Atlanta has gone
from corporate bland to youthful
dynamic, with its indoor food mar-
kets, destination dining scene and
rich entertainment culture, in-
cluding a hip-hop scene that
drives trends worldwide. In 2004,
70 percent of voters were white,
according to exit polls. This year,
white voters made up 60 percent.
Until the 1970s, Georgia was
virtually a one-party state, with
conservative Democrats domi-
nant. But as conservative voters
moved en masse to the Republi-
can Party, Democrats were left
concentrated in places like the
city of Atlanta, adjacent and ur-
bane Decatur, and smaller cities
with significant African-Ameri-
can populations.
In the last few years, however,
distaste for Trumpism has spread
and demographic change has ex-
ploded, giving Democrats new
strength in the vote-rich northern
suburbs of Atlanta — like Cobb
and Gwinnett Counties, which
were once bastions of Republican
power.
Hillary Clinton carried Cobb
and Gwinnett even as she lost the
state in 2016. This year, Mr. Biden
won them again. And he added to
her margin in the state, especially
in the counties that are home to
Georgia’s most important second-
tier cities — Augusta, Columbus,
Macon, Savannah and Athens.
In recent months, the pandemic
has slowed the Georgia economy,
with unemployment rising to 6.4
percent in September from 5.7
percent in August. Covid-19 cases
are increasing too; over the past
week, each day has averaged
2,242 new cases, an increase of 42
percent from the average two
weeks earlier.
A new generation of Democrat-
ic candidates has left behind the
fiscal and social conservatism of
its forefathers to embrace a rising
demographic coalition of Black
voters, college-educated subur-
ban women and a more politically
engaged younger generation.
Even if Mr. Biden’s victory was
ultimately delivered by Northern
industrial states like Pennsylva-
nia, his slim margin in Georgia
points to the future of the Demo-
cratic Party, which could come
into clearer view in the Senate
runoffs.
Republicans will try to stop
Democratic momentum, hoping
that Mr. Biden’s strong perform-
ance here was more about Mr.
Trump’s divisiveness than the
G.O.P.’s loosening grip on the dy-
namic South. For Democrats, win-
ning both seats would leave the
Senate at a 50-50 split, with the

vice president, Kamala Harris, the tiebreaker. Even one Senate seat could prove that the demographic changes that Democrats have long predicted would favor them in swaths of the Sun Belt have fi- nally arrived. And the lessons learned through the organizing of Black and young voters and the energiz- ing of the suburbs are being watched by Democrats in other Sun Belt battlegrounds like Texas, and in Deep South states like South Carolina and Mississippi, where truly competing with Re- publicans remains a distant dream. When Ms. Harris campaigned in Gwinnett County in the week- end before the election, support- ers waved signs in Chinese and Spanish. As a lively crowd waited for the candidate in the vast park- ing lot of a multipurpose arena, Munir Meghjani, 32, a commercial real estate agent, said Ms. Har- ris’s multicultural roots resonated in the changing county.

“I see more and more people like me,” he said. “I see more and more people of color. I see diversi- ty increasing every single day, not only in Gwinnett County, not only in Atlanta, but across Georgia. We’ve always been here, but we’ve always just stayed at home.” Xiang Li, 36, who works for an insurance company and lives in the county, voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 but said he couldn’t this year. “I’m voting Democrat in the runoff because of what McConnell has done to the Senate,” Mr. Li, a registered independent, said in reference to the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell. “Next election after that, I’ll see what’s going on. I’m hoping the Republi- can Party comes back to nor- malcy.” Despite the changes, the Re- publican Party here remains well organized, powerful and popular, especially in rural and exurban communities. Democrats had hoped to gain control of the State House to pressure the Republican

governor, Brian Kemp, to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, enact changes to the voting system and give them some voice in the redrawing of congres- sional and state legislative maps after the 2020 census. But they are likely to pick up only a couple of seats. The Repub- licans even picked off the House’s minority leader, Bob Trammell, an embarrassing Democratic loss. And redistricting could cost Dem- ocrats some of the gains they have made. With a President-elect Biden, “Democrats will be fat and happy, and Republicans will be scared and mobilized, and maybe even angry,” said Brian Robinson, a Re- publican political strategist in Georgia. “And they’re going to want to build a red wall in the Sen- ate.” The intense political spotlight on Georgia is not entirely unex- pected. In 2012, President Barack Obama’s strategists weighed whether to compete in Georgia before deciding that other states

provided an easier path to victory Four years later, Mrs. Clinton won more raw votes than any Demo- cratic nominee in history, a sign that some suburban revulsion for Mr. Trump had already begun. Opposition to Mr. Trump accel- erated the political changes in 2018, helping Democratic candidates flip a House seat and nearly win another in Atlanta’s suburbs. That seat flipped Democratic this month, so far the only straight Democratic pickup in the country. (Democrats also won two districts in North Carolina that had been redrawn to favor them.) Meantime, Democrat Stacey Abrams lost the closest race for governor in a quarter century. Rather than try to woo more conservative white voters, Ms. Abrams focused on turning out in- termittent and Black voters while embracing an unapologetically liberal platform. Her New Georgia Project has registered hundreds of thousands of new voters and inspired other emerging activists.

Julius Thomas, 24, a risk ana- lyst broker who grew up in the small coastal city of St. Marys, Ga., moved to Atlanta in 2018, the year Ms. Abrams lost the gover- nor’s race but gained national stature. Mr. Thomas helped found a non- profit group, the People’s Upris- ing, whose voter registration drives have targeted young people of color — a recent Juneteenth drive featured Atlanta rappers like Lil Baby. “There’s a culture shift that’s happening among young Black people where it’s no longer cool to sit out civically,” he said. “On your Twitter feed, you’re seeing people say, ‘If you haven’t voted, what’s wrong with you?’ ” In the north Atlanta suburbs, Laurie Jules, 39, also Black, said she sees the change. “In high school, voting was something my parents did,” said Ms. Jules, who is studying for a

degree in business administra- tion. “I have a teenager in high school who is a junior, and her and her friends talk about policies, politics. They go to rallies.” Some of the changes in Georgia mirror the nation, with urban ar- eas growing more Democratic, rural regions moving Republican and the suburbs left as the country’s political battlegrounds. In Georgia’s suburbs, college- educated women have become a powerful force, forming volunteer networks and organizing for local and national candidates. Taking a break from putting up Christmas decorations, Debbie O’Dekirk and Kassie Jones, two friends in the affluent northwest Atlanta suburbs, where neighbor- hoods are dotted with farmer’s markets and lush town squares, described how they had turned against Mr. Trump. Ms. O’Dekirk, 67, initially liked that the president wasn’t a typical politician, voting for him in 2016. But she expected him to take guid- ance from more experienced Re- publican leaders once he entered office. “The exact opposite happened,” said Ms. O’Dekirk, a retired retail executive from Cobb County. “It was the biggest disappointment I’ve ever had in my life, as far as any president.” Ms. Jones, 68, supported Mrs. Clinton four years ago and was devastated when she lost. Since then, she has become increasingly vocal about her support for Demo- crats — a trend she sees in her suburban neighborhood where signs for both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump dotted the lawns. “When I first came to Georgia, it was just this private little society of Democrats,” said Ms. Jones, a former banker who moved to the state shortly before Mr. Trump was elected. “But the more con- cerned they got with the president, the more people started to speak up.” Ms. Jones, who volunteered for Mr. Biden’s campaign, has already starting talking to her neighbors about the runoffs. “I’m so proud to be part of Geor- gia now,” she said. “But we’ve got to get everyone to understand their job’s not done yet.”

NICOLE CRAINE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

AUDRA MELTON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Clockwise from left: A protest of the election results at the State Capitol in Atlanta on Saturday, as Joseph R. Biden Jr. appeared to be

close to carrying Georgia; a Biden rally in Macon, Ga., in October; and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, center, and Jon Ossoff, right, who

both qualified for runoffs against incumbent Senate Republicans, with the rapper Common in Atlanta a week before the election.

LYNSEY WEATHERSPOON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A RISING COALITION

Focus Is Georgia, Where Demographics and Politics Are Changing

Shifts that hearten

Democrats in other

Sun Belt states.

From Page A1

Isabella Grullón Paz contributed
reporting from New York.