Democrat turnout high in Georgia's primary election — Trump effect may be at work

Suddenly, Democrats are almost as numerous as Republicans in deep red Georgia.

And it may be because of President Donald Trump.

Where Georgia voters are unhappy, Democrats see a chance to capitalize.

“To some degree, it's not even that people are voting for the candidate, they're just voting against the Republican that's in power,” said Brooke Miller, associate professor of political science at Middle Georgia State University..

For every 10 folks who voted for a Republican in this year’s primary for governor, nine people pulled a Democrat ballot. In the last two gubernatorial election years, it’s been more like five or six Democrat ballots for every 10 Republican ones.

By that measure, Houston County is even more Republican than the rest of the state, but even so, for every 10 Republican GOP primary votes, there were 7.5 Democratic ones.

Among the biggest reasons for the sudden shift: Trump.

"The lower his approval ratings, the more likely people are to lean Democrat and you're going to energize the Democratic party," Miller said.

Trump got an 80-percent approval rating in an April poll of 507 Georgians who identified themselves as likely GOP primary voters. The margin of error is 4.4 points.

In a poll of 473 likely Democratic voters in the same month, Trump got a 7 percent approval rating. The margin of error is 4.5 points. Both polls were conducted by the University of Georgia for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and WSB-TV.

Trump wasn't the only reason for the Democratic swing. Stacey Abrams and Stacey Evans were in a red-hot race for the Democratic nomination to succeed Gov. Nathan Deal, who can't run again because of term limits.

Democrats also have benefited from bigger money flowing into their campaigns.

For example, Democratic donors across the country are mobilizing millions of dollars to try and elect black candidates to high office. Democratic donor Susan Sandler has already spent $1.25 million on a super PAC in support of Abrams’ primary bid and plans to raise $10 million more for the general election, according to Politico.

And there are a lot of open seats this year — Democrats see that as a good time to spend, when they don’t have to overcome a Republican who has the advantage of incumbency.

Seth Clark, a Macon Democratic strategist who worked with Evans, still sees challenges for Democrats.

“The excitement alone is not enough to win in places like Houston County yet,” he said.

“We have work to do with convincing independents and some moderate Republicans … that’s just math,” Clark said.

Abrams, however, has often said that Georgia is not a red state, but that it’s “blue and confused.”

Her campaign has emphasized mobilizing the Democratic base, making sure they get out and vote instead of staying at home.

She’s got the support of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, which is fine for the base. But those 2016 Democratic presidential hopefuls are liable to energize Republicans to make sure no friend of Sanders or Clinton takes office in Georgia.

Republican State Sen. Larry Walker III of Perry said it looks like Abrams energized her base and had an effective ground game.

Walker said he thinks it's possible that the fact that five GOP candidates were running for governor might have dampened Republican turnout a bit. Voters got a rather heavy barrage of ads, especially at the end.

But he doesn’t sound worried. In Houston County alone, there were still 2,000 more Republican votes in a very low-turnout election than Democrat votes.

“To characterize it as a blue wave I think is wrong,” Walker said. "I think it was a blue ripple."

This story was originally published May 25, 2018 at 5:41 PM with the headline "Democrat turnout high in Georgia's primary election — Trump effect may be at work."