Democrats' biggest gains from 2008-2020 came in these Georgia counties

[DonViejo]

First Read is your briefing from "Meet the Press" and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter.

Feb. 24, 2021, 8:37 AM EST

By Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Carrie Dann and Ben Kamisar

WASHINGTON — When former Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., announced this week that he will pass on a 2022 Senate comeback bid, he went out of his way to suggest that Georgia “is not a blue state.”

Setting aside the fact that the Peach State just elected two Democrats to the Senate and picked a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time since 1992, Republicans would be foolish to ignore the dramatic shifts that have happened in Atlanta’s suburbs since the start of the Obama era.

In fact, according to a new NBC News analysis of presidential results in every county in the U.S., three Atlanta-area suburban Georgia counties — Gwinnett, Henry and Rockdale — increased their Democratic vote share between 2008 and 2020 by more than any other counties in the country.

In Gwinnett, Barack Obama won 44.5 percent of the vote in 2008, while Biden won 58.4 percent in 2020.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/democrats-biggest-gains-2008-2020-came-these-georgia-counties-n1258716

[Hortensis]

1. It's notable that they're very diverse urban counties.

I was hoping to find some big rural shifts, but though they occurred not among the most dramatic. And goodness knows the various GOTV groups worked heroically, but change comes a lot slower to rural areas, which have their own ways, including a strong religious culture, and like them.

This WaPo article describes 2020 voting in GA's 5 major geographic regions. Comparisons show there was some shift in the Black Belt (a mostly rural, agricultural band between the Piedmont and coastal plain) between 2016 and 2020:

Just as we did before the general election, we divided Georgia into six political states. Atlanta and its suburbs are bluer than ever; the Black Belt is strongly Democratic, but with some Republican opportunities. North Georgia, South Georgia and the Piedmont region drive any Republican win,

BLACK BELT 2016 VOTE TOTAL
Donald Trump 194,353
Hillary Clinton 235,000

BLACK BELT 2020 VOTE TOTAL
Donald Trump 218,970
Joe Biden 280,140

Counties included: Baker, Bibb, Burke, Calhoun, Chattahoochee, Clay, Dooly, Dougherty, Early, Glascock, Hancock, Houston, Jefferson, Lee, Macon, Marion, McDuffie, Miller, Mitchell, Muscogee, Peach, Quitman, Randolph, Richmond, Schley, Stewart, Sumter, Talbot, Taliaferro, Taylor, Terrell, Twiggs, Warren, Washington, Webster, Wilkinson

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/georgia-senate-political-geography/