Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2020-08-31)

◼POLITICS BloombergBusinessweek August 31, 2020

Battleground

Georgia

36

TheresidentsoftheoncereliablyRepublican

AtlantasuburbofJohnsCreeksignaledin 2018 that

theirpoliticswerechanging,alongwiththeworld

beyondtheirmanorhomesandundulatingcountry

club fairways. In an excruciatingly close guberna-

torial race between Democrat Stacey Abrams and

Republican Brian Kemp, voters in Johns Creek pre-

cincts favored Abrams by 51% to 48% (she lost the

election). This came two years after Johns Creek had

voted for Donald Trump, and it chose John McCain

over Barack Obama by a margin of 2 to 1 in 2008.

Now, President Trump’s bid to rile up suburban

voters with warnings about crime and low-income

housing that critics have called racial dog whistles

doesn’t seem to be resonating in Johns Creek and

places like it. “I’m afraid he’s a little too late,” says

Brian Weaver, a Black 62-year-old elected last year

to the city council. Johns Creek, he says, is “one of

the most diverse cities in the country.” The town is

still majority White, but barely, at 53%. Earlier this

month, the city’s White police chief was forced to

resign for criticizing the Black Lives Matter move-

ment on social media.

Places such as Johns Creek, says Mark Rountree,

a Republican political consultant in Georgia, are

leading a shift in the state’s politics. “That was a lily

White suburb in the far north,” he says. “It’s gone

very Democratic.”

Georgia is the only state with two U.S. Senate

seats up for grabs in November, and both contests

are competitive. One of the races is a special elec-

tion that pits all candidates against each other;

20-odd candidates are vying for the seat vacated

by Republican Johnny Isakson when he retired

last year. The seat has been held since January by

Kemp appointee Kelly Loeffler, who is running to

keep it. Because of state election rules, at least one

seat, and possibly both, could remain undecided

until a runoff next January, raising the possibility

of Georgia belatedly deciding control of the Senate.

Two Republican victories would have been a

given a few cycles ago, but that no longer holds.

“The demographics are changing so quickly,”

says Seth Bringman, a spokesman for Fair Fight,

a Georgia-based voting rights organization that

Abramsleads.“Averyredstateis rapidlybecoming

more and more blue.”

Georgia has been one of the main arenas for the

social and cultural struggles that have played out

nationally in 2020, with huge street protests demand-

ing police reform and racial justice, the frightening

spread of Covid-19, and a fierce debate over reopen-

ing schools and businesses. The killings of two Black

Georgians, Rayshard Brooks and Ahmaud Arbery,

in separate incidents earlier this year sparked out-

rage, with videos of their death going viral. And

the pandemic has twisted itself around state poli-

tics, pitting the mayor of Atlanta, Democrat Keisha

Lance Bottoms, against Governor Kemp in battles

over mask mandates and reopenings.

“There are all these scenarios out there now

that just make Georgia more competitive,” says

Jessica Taylor, a Senate analyst at the Cook Political

Report, which rates the special election as “Lean

Republican” and the other race as a toss-up. There’s

“the whole Ahmaud Arbery story, the Rayshard

Brooks story, the suburbs that have become so

diverse, and Trump,” Taylor says.

“I think there’s going to be record turnout in

Georgia this fall,” says Matt Lieberman, a candi-

date in the special election and the son of the for-

mer Connecticut senator and presidential candidate

Joe Lieberman. The Harvard-educated 48-year-old

former elementary school principal is a Democrat

running on gun control, protecting Roe v. Wade, and

cleaning up Washington. He has faced calls to drop

out following allegations of a racist character por-

trayal in a novel he published in 2018. He’s said criti-

cism of the book is political and he won’t withdraw.

Also vying for Isakson’s former seat is Raphael

Warnock, 50, the senior pastor of Atlanta’s famed

Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King

Jr. once served as co-pastor. Warnock is the choice of

Atlanta

Georgia Voting

Winnersofthe 2012

presidentialelection

and 2018 gubernatorial

election,bycounty

◼BothDemocrats

◼BothRepublicans

◼Republican,

thenDemocrat

(MittRomney,

StaceyAbrams)

◼Democrat, then

Republican

(Barack Obama,

Brian Kemp)

Counties that voted for

Romney, then Abrams

840k

votes

Counties that voted for

Obama, then Kemp

85k

votes

DATA: GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE; MIT ELECTION DATA; SCIENCE LAB

● Both of the state’s Senate races this fall are

competitive, thanks to changing demographics