Becoming an Informed Voter

Becoming an Informed Voter

The Political History of My District and State

In terms of Georgia’s political history, like the rest of the Deep South (traditionally defined to include the states of Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana), conservative Democrats dominated the whole state, including the state’s 6^th congressional district which is of interest of this paper (Weigel & Tierney, 2020). That dominance lasted for more than a century, from the end of the Reconstruction. That dominance is believed to have ended around the 1992 presidential election when conservative Democrats left the party, never to return. Since then, Georgia is considered one of the swing states capable of influencing outcomes of presidential elections in unpredictable ways. The transition from a Democrats-dominated to a swing state was facilitated by the fact that the state’s electorate has grown and become increasingly diverse. For example, in 2004, 70% of all voters in Georgia were White.

How My Congressional District and State Have Voted in Presidential and Congressional Elections

Consistent with an increasingly White-majority electorate, since 1992, Georgia’s and Georgia’s 6^th congressional district’s voting patterns in both presidential and congressional elections have been characterized by stiff competition and narrow victory margins, even as Republicans have won most of the elections. As a matter of fact, Joe Biden’s narrow win in Georgia in 2020 was the first time in twenty-eight years that a Democratic presidential candidate won the state (the Democrat last win having been Bill Clinton’s in 1992). It is instructive to note the significant difference in how the two Democratic victories were achieved. When Bill Clinton won Georgia three decades ago, he did so by racking up small victories in rural counties across the state. By contrast, in 2020, Joe Biden won courtesy of significant wins in Atlanta and its suburbs, even as he lost in a majority of rural counties.

My State Leans Both Republican and Democrat

The fact that Republicans have been winning most of the presidential and congressional elections over the past three decades may suggest that the state of Georgia leans Republican. However, the picture is much more complicated when one considers the six political “states” Georgia has been divided into: North Georgia, Atlanta, Atlanta’s suburbs, Piedmont, Black Belt, and South Georgia. Each of these leans differently. Compared to the rest of the state, the voting population in Atlanta is predominantly urban, is more non-White than average, and is more college-educated. The state’s capital receives thousands of new residents each year, and these serve to make Atlanta to lean more toward Democrats. The voting population in the Atlanta Burbs is similar to that in Atlanta. Like Atlanta, a steady stream of escapees and immigrants from other states has served to cause the Burbs to lean toward the Democrats. North Georgia is predominantly rural and White, and has fewer college-educated voters than average. This is the region of Georgia that supports the Republican Party the most. The Black Belt mostly Black and rural, and has fewer college-educated residents than the state average. The region’s majority-Black fifteen counties have consistently voted for Democrats even as the Whiter counties have continued to gravitate toward the Republican Party. Similar to North Georgia, Piedmont is predominantly rural and mostly Republican, even though it is less Whiter than the North. Like Piedmont and North Georgia, South Georgia is overwhelmingly Republican except small cities which lean toward Democrats.

Political Parties Relatively Even

Despite these regional variations, overall for the state of Georgia, the two parties are relatively even with neither dominating the elections. Taking presidential elections as an example, between 1992 and 2020, the biggest difference between the percentage of popular votes garnered by Democrats and Republicans was 16.4% in 2004 when the Republican G. W. Bush got 58% of the votes against the Democrat J. Kerry’s 41.4%. In other years, the race was hotly contested and the difference between the two parties small. For example, in 2020, the Democrat J. Biden got 49.4% of the votes against the Republican D. Trump’s 49.3%, a difference of 0.1%. In absolute terms, that was a difference of approximately 10,000 votes out of the five million cast.

Party Support History

As shown in the preceding paragraphs, until 1992, Georgia was an overwhelmingly Democratic state. However, that is no longer the case with a majority of the state’s six political regions supporting the Republican Party and only a minority supporting the Democrats. This change is mainly explained by the fact that over the years, the state has become predominantly White and, for the most part, Whites support the Republican Party. Zeroing in on Georgia’s 6^th Congressional District, we find that for a long time, the District has been supporting Republicans. Of the eleven general elections and one special election held between 2000 and 2020, Republicans won all except the 2020 one (Ballotpedia, n.d.). The proportion of elections received by Republican candidates ranged from 50.5% to 100%. Only the 2020 general election was won by a Democrat, the incumbent Congresswoman Lucy McBath. The main factor explaining the 6^th District’s overwhelming support for the Republicans is the fact that the District is majority-White (57.5% of the District’s 765,793 residents).

How My Representative and Senator Came to Power

Congresswoman Lucy McBath came to power after winning the 2018 general election for U.S. House with 50.5% of the votes cast, becoming the first Democrat to represent the district since its re-drawing in 1993 (Ballotpedia 2, n.d.). She became the Democratic candidate in the 2018 election after defeating Kevin Abel in the Democratic primary runoff election (Ballotpedia, n.d.). Earlier that year, the Democratic primary election for U.S. House Georgia had attracted four candidates, with McBath and Abel emerging first and second with 36.3% and 30.5% of the votes, respectively. Meanwhile, John Ossoff is the current senior Senator for Georgia. He assumed office on January 20, 2021 after winning in the general runoff election on January 5, 2021 (Ballotpedia 3, n.d.). In the runoff election, he defeated the Republican David Perdue 50.6% to 49.4%. The two advanced to a runoff after defeating Shane Hazel in the November 3, 2020 general election for U.S. Senate.

Sponsored Legislations

One of the legislations McBath has sponsored is the gun safety legislation. The Congresswoman did not include this legislation in her campaign when she ran for office, instead promising to co-sponsor a clean DREAM Act as one of her first actions in the House. However, it is worth noting that gun safety is an issue McBath is very passionate about, having lost her son to gun violence. A shooter shot and killed her son Jordan Davis in Jacksonville, Florida in 2012 after he objected to the music Jordan was playing in his car. That experience led her to become the spokesperson for Everytown for Gun Safety before she went into elected politics. It also led her to vow not to stop fighting until all our public places are safe for everyone. The gun safety legislation aligns with the biblical principle of the sanctity of human life: Thou shalt not kill (Exodus 20:13). On his part, Senator Ossoff is not on record as sponsoring or co-sponsoring any bill yet.

Interest Group Ratings

According to Vote Smart, the various interest groups rate my Congresswoman as follows: Americans for Democratic Action (ADA, 80%), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU, 71-100%, various years), American Conservative Union (ACU, 4-7%, various years), and Family Research Council (FRC, 4-13%, various years) (Vote Smart, n.d.). As for my Senator, data on his ratings are quite scant, possibly because he has been in office for barely a year. Two of the four organizations (ADA and ACU) have no ratings on him. Meanwhile, he has an ACLU rating of 100% and an FRC rating of 0%.

My Congressional Delegation is Liberal

Based on these scores, I would classify both my Congresswoman and Senator as liberal rather than conservative. This is because both have the highest ratings from some of the country’s most liberal interest groups while simultaneously having very low ratings from decidedly conservative interest groups like FRC and ACU (Barudi, 2021). Both sets of interest groups measure a member’s adherence to liberal or conservative values. The ADA is committed to the promotion of liberal values, the election of liberal people into public offices, and the passage of liberal laws. Even though the ADA’s influence reached climaxed following the election of John F. Kennedy as president in 1960 and the subsequent appointment of its members into key positions in Kennedy’s administration, the organization remains influential to date, especially because of its ties with the Democratic Party.

Conclusion

By and large, by virtue of being liberal, my congressional delegation does not reflect my values because I consider myself conservative. However, to the extent that my Congresswoman sponsored the gun safety legislation, she reflects my values because I believe too many guns in private hands are a serious threat to public safety that must be addressed expeditiously. Also, my Congresswoman reflects my values to the extent that she supports “Dreamers” and the DREAM Act and is opposed to extreme immigration policies. The first version of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act was introduced in 2001. Partly because of the bill’s publicity, young undocumented immigrants have been described as “Dreamers” (American Immigration Council, 2021). Since its original introduction in 2001, at least eleven versions of the bill have made their way into Congress. While the various versions differ from each other significantly, if enacted, the Act would have provided a route for undocumented people who came to the U.S. as children to obtain legal status.