Could Georgia turn blue, and what does that mean for politics?

The hundred-plus Georgia Republican politicians who met at the Capitol this week did the usual greeting rituals of hugs and handshakes and back slaps with some real satisfaction. A Republican president will take office next year and the newly elected state Legislature is still nearly two-thirds Republican.

But they’re fighting the idea that the big Georgia story out of this election is blue votes.

“It is essential, I think, that we unite now as a caucus,” Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, said to the state House Republicans who gathered for officer elections Monday. “The other side is the enemy, it’s not our people. They, I think, have gotten a little emboldened.”

The “emboldened” other side he was talking about are Georgia Democrats.

Republican Donald Trump carried Georgia’s presidential vote, but Democrats have spent the meantime crowing about previously red places that voted blue, including Hillary Clinton’s wins in suburban Atlanta’s Cobb and Gwinnett counties. Those came with relatively little spending from her campaign.

“If you looked at the counties we flipped, it’s because we had diverse candidates running, and we were not only talking to those who normally vote in elections, but particularly in House races, we reached out to communities and candidates that were not the norm,” said House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, D-Atlanta.

All 236 state legislative seats were up for election this year. However, the party headcounts next year will be pretty similar to this year. Democrats picked up two House seats and one in the Senate from Republicans. Republicans picked up one Democratic House seat and a Milledgevillle seat vacated by an independent.

In the midstate, most state lawmakers ran without opposition in the general election.

And Middle Georgia’s two biggest counties voted in 2016 about like they did in 2012. In Macon-Bibb, Hillary Clinton nearly matched Barack Obama’s 60 percent win in 2012. In Houston, Trump, like Republican Mitt Romney, got about 60 percent of the vote.

In Baldwin and Washington counties, Clinton finished first, but didn’t break 50 percent.

Republicans tended to win rural counties throughout the country. Trump picked up a few that Romney didn’t in 2012: Twiggs, Peach, and Dooly.

Presidential Election Results, 2016

“What saved Trump in Georgia is he wrapped up rural areas,” said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.

He said the blue votes in Cobb and Gwinnett were one of the most interesting “tea leaves” of the election.

Bullock said he wouldn’t be surprised if Cobb and Gwinnett voted for Republican candidates for governor and other state offices in 2018. But he said he thinks the trend there is Democratic.

Broadly across the country the story of Trump’s win is in part a story of who turned out, said Kerwin Swint, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University. He said voters were pretty turned off by both candidates.

But Trump, Swint said, “was able to appeal to, specifically, white working class voters in a way that no Republican has since Ronald Reagan.” That includes things such as talking about renegotiating trade deals and bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. Also, said Swint, Trump had an “anti-establishment appeal.”

But in Georgia, it’s up for debate how much politics will change.

“I doubt that it has many ramifications for Georgia,” said Bullock. For any fundamental change in Georgia politics, he’s looking toward the 2020s, when many expect the state to be bluer.

Republican disagreements

Indeed, next year, just like this year, Republicans will hold the governor’s office, top statewide elected offices and the Legislature. But there’s a reason Ralston urged his caucus to unity: Republicans don’t agree on everything.

Earlier this year, Republican Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed two high-profile measures passed by Republicans: one that gave some legal protection to same-sex marriage opponents and one that would have allowed concealed carry of handguns on parts of college campuses.

There’s been some talk in Georgia of expanding eligibility for Medicaid — publicly financed health insurance for poor people — in line with what’s envisioned in the federal Affordable Care Act. But the U.S. just elected a president who promises to repeal the law known as Obamacare.

Abrams, who’s been at the front of urging some kind of expansion, said she doesn’t think the issue is dead.

“I think we still have to face the fiscal reality that Georgia has a large population of uninsured and underinsured, that we’re still losing our rural hospitals,” Abrams said.

She said Democrats will seek common ground with Republicans on things such as transportation and health care.

Indeed, part of the political chatter in Atlanta isn’t much different from what it was before Nov. 8: when might Georgia elect a Democratic Legislature, governor or president?

Plenty of Republicans say the party needs to be ready for a Georgia that’s not as dependably red as it has been for the last 10 or so years. At the caucus meeting, one Republican pointed out that though Trump won the state, it was with a none-too-comfortable 51 percent of the vote.

Clinton took 46 percent and Libertarian Gary Johnson to three percent.

Ralston closed the meeting on a note of confidence, though.

“I read a report last week at how they thought they had a great night because they just missed here and they just missed there, they just missed here all over the place,” Ralston said of Democrats. “It reminded me of a friend of mine who told me one time that only a loser calls losing winning.”

This story was originally published November 16, 2016 at 5:06 PM with the headline "Could Georgia turn blue, and what does that mean for politics?."