Georgia Democrats ride national blue wave into power in history-making election

Within an hour of polls closing Tuesday, it was clear that Democrats had made a strong showing and that U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff would be re-elected by a large margin.

But what unfolded after that far exceeded what even the most optimistic Georgia Democrat could have imagined.

By about 9 p.m., it became apparent that not only would former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms become Georgia’s first Democratic governor since Roy Barnes left office in 2003 but that the entire slate of Democratic statewide candidates would share in the victory, flipping offices like agriculture and insurance commissioners that had been considered relatively safe for Republicans. House Democrats are also poised to take control of the state House of Representatives for the first time in more than two decades.

“I’ve been at these elections a lot of times when we went home crying, and so it was hard for me to believe when the results came in as early as they did,” House Minority Leader Carolyn Hugley, who could be in line to be the chamber’s next speaker, told reporters Wednesday. “I’m like, OK, is that really real? And then they kept coming, kept coming, kept coming. So it was overwhelming. I was so very excited.

“We’re excited not only for the Democrats, but for the people of Georgia, because this shows people that elections matter and that your voices can be heard and your votes will matter,” she added.

What happened on Tuesday will be discussed by Georgians for years – and shape the state’s future for generations, starting by transforming the state government next year. As the dust settles in the aftermath, here are five of the biggest initial takeaways from a historic election.

How far did the blue wave reach?

Democrats have a lot to celebrate, with victories this year far exceeding the traditionally blue stronghold of metro Atlanta.

Bottoms made gains across middle and southwest Georgia, winning over a majority of voters in eight counties where voters picked Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in the 2022 midterms: Burke, Clay, Fayette, Houston, Jefferson, Peach, Sumter and Washington.

Emory University political science professor Andra Gillespie said that Democratic candidates made strides with many key groups, including independents and white voters in the state.

“The national mood was sour, and Democrats were able to ride that wave in places that we didn’t expect,” she said. “But I think it remains to be seen whether or not voters who were dissatisfied with Trump are going to stick with Democrats.”

But Georgia Republicans did have one bright spot in all the election news, managing to hold on to their nine seats in the U.S. House even as a number of congressional seats across the country flipped Democratic. But Gillespie noted that the margins of victory in many House districts were much tighter this year than they normally are, signaling widespread dissatisfaction with GOP leadership.

“I think Republicans should heed the margins and recognize that there was discontent in their districts even when they won, and that voters in their districts contributed to the Democratic sweep of the statewide offices,” she said.

The energy benefited down-ballot Democrats too, bringing a wave of new lawmakers to the Legislature and changing the balance of power.

Even before the polls closed, some conservative voters said they felt the tide changing. Joel Pirtle, a 50-year-old IT manager from Henry County who voted for Collins and Jackson, said that he would not be surprised if Democrats managed to flip his state representative’s seat, which is currently held by Republican state Rep. Noelle Kahaian. Kahaian did end up losing her seat to truck driver Mishael White, who is a Democrat, by nearly 8 points, according to unofficial results from the secretary state’s website.

“I’m seeing Georgia going more and more Democrat, so I would not be surprised if it does. I don’t necessarily agree with it, but we’ll see what happens when it does. If it works out, great. If it doesn’t, then we’ll vote again,” Pirtle said.

Trump was on the ballot

In the weeks leading up to the election, Trump made stops across the country, including in Georgia, where he held two rallies last month calling on the GOP faithful to vote as if he were on the ballot.

His intention was to fire up low propensity voters who support Trump but inconsistently turn out to support other Republican candidates.

He may have achieved the opposite. Many Democratic and independent voters who were interviewed at the polls said they were encouraged to get out and vote in opposition to Trump.

Woodstock retiree Judi Smith, who is 74, said she voted for Ossoff and Bottoms because she said she wanted to send a message to the Trump administration.

“I just want Trump and all of those people out of office,” she said.

“Everything about Trump, all of those people, all of that corruption, it just needs to be over and done with,” she added. “And all of the hatred that they have sown in this country, it’s just horrible.”

Voters in Henry County who backed Democrats said that a change of party control was overdue. Keisha Thompson, a 48-year-old federal employee who saw many of her former colleagues lose their jobs due to funding cuts from the Trump administration, said she had a simple goal.

“We just need to make some change. We need to change it from whatever color it is to blue,” Thompson said.

Trey Hood, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, said that Democrats outperformed Republicans because of what he called a “national repudiation of Trump.” He said they tied current economic issues like high gas prices due to the war in Iran to the White House.

Some Republican voters said Trump had no influence on their decisionmaking.

“It’s got nothing to do with Trump,” said Brad Baldwin, a 65-year-old retiree in Henry County who voted straight Republican. “No, no, no. I vote for a guy I want to vote for. I don’t care if he likes Trump, hates Trump. I can’t wait for Trump to get out of office just so people will shut up about it.”

Split-ticket voters were not a significant factor

During the 2022 midterm elections, Georgians chose Kemp, a Republican, and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, during the same election, largely thanks to independent and split-ticket voters who helped both candidates across the 50% minimum threshold amid tight electoral margins.

But this year, split-ticket voters weren’t the tiebreaking force they had been in 2022, with independents breaking “very hard for the Democrats this election cycle,” Hood said.

“There’s hardly any roll off if you go downballot, down the constitutional offices in Georgia. I mean, the margin is almost the same. So it was just people checking the Democratic box all the way down the ballot,” Hood said.

Ossoff, who was running as an incumbent, won with nearly 60% of the vote, according to unofficial results from the secretary of state’s office. Bottoms received more than 54% of the vote, numbers that Gillespie said signal widespread enthusiasm among Democratic base voters and gains among demographics that have tilted towards Republicans in recent elections.

“The reason why [Democrats] won this time is they were able to get over the hump with white voters in ways that we have not seen them do, even in the elections of Joe Biden, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in previous cycles,” Gillespie said.

That’s not to say that every voter cast their ballot along party lines, though. Jordan Fuller, a 36-year-old tech support worker in Union City, said he doesn’t vote consistently for either party. He cast his vote for Ossoff and the Republican nominee for governor Rick Jackson this year, citing his disapproval of Bottoms’ mayoral record.

“I’ve already experienced Keisha,” he said. “She was the mayor of Atlanta, and I’m not much of a fan of how she handled some things.”

But other independent voters turned away from Republican candidates altogether. Gillespie said the data shows Democrats overperforming among independent voters in this election cycle.

Steve Bigler, a Gwinnett County voter, said he has voted for candidates of both parties throughout his life, but he went into this year’s election hoping to enact some guardrails against Trump’s policies in the federal government.

He supported both Kemp and Warnock in 2022 and would have voted for Kemp again if that was an option. But he said Jackson’s early campaign ads, including one where he warned that immigrants who broke the law would end up “deported or departed,” made him uneasy.

“I believe in supporting law enforcement and all that,” Bigler said. “But come on, let’s just get a little humanity into our politics.”

Conrad Gill, another Gwinnett County resident, chose Ossoff in the Senate race and voted for Bottoms in the governor’s contest, fearing that Jackson would be too closely tied to Trump and his policies.

“I was leaning toward Jackson until the ad came out about his affiliation with Trump and his statements about ‘he’s going to be Trump’s man, he’s going to be Trump’s best friend as a governor’ and all of that,” Gill said. “I didn’t want to vote for him based on that because I don’t think Trump is doing a good job. I don’t think he’s honest. I don’t think he’s fair. I think he’s very corrupt.”

But Gillespie said it remains to be seen whether this year’s midterm election results were an outlier or part of a larger political realignment within Georgia.

Future support from independent voters, she added, will likely depend on “whether or not [Democrats] are going to deliver on the policy promises that they [made], and whether or not they’re going to look like they can govern effectively. If they don’t govern effectively, then what I suspect is that independent voters could possibly defect.”

What’s next for the parties?

Outgoing Georgia Republican Party Chair Josh McKoon said that in the short term, the state party will help Republican state Rep. Mike Cheokas keep his seat in a runoff.

But in the long term, the plan is to do a thorough review of the election results to develop a platform that better resonates with voters ahead of 2028, when he feels prospects for Republicans will be “very positive.”

While Democrats ran on making life more affordable for Americans, McKoon thinks that Democrats will “pursue a far-left agenda that is totally out of touch with where most Georgians are.”

“I think there’s going to be a lot of anger with national Democrats by the time 2028 rolls around here at the state level,” McKoon said.

He hopes that when 2028 comes around, voters will be ready to “take a fresh look at Republicans and probably realize there is a reason that Republicans have run this state for two decades.”

House Minority Leader Carolyn Hugley, who is in line to become the next speaker, said House Democrats plan to stick to the pocketbook issues that she acknowledged is ushering her party into power, at least for now.

“What Georgia citizens have told us is affordability is the number one issue. And so you can expect the issues that we put forth in this first legislative session are going to be focused on meeting that challenge of affordability,” Hugley told reporters this week.

For his part, Democratic Party of Georgia Chair Charlie Bailey said he hopes to use the wins in Georgia to boost the state’s importance in the eyes of national Democratic groups and PACs.

“We will certainly be making the argument, as we have been for at least as long as I’ve been chair, that we have to expand into the South if we’re going to be a truly national party with a national, governing majority,” Bailey said in a Zoom call with reporters Wednesday. “We are the ultimate battleground in Georgia, but we’ve got to kind of lock it down here, you know?”

To do so, Bailey said Democrats will expand into year-round organizing in Georgia for the first time.

“That’s going to take a lot of resources, and we’ll be leaning on our partners to send those resources down here, and I’m optimistic we’ll get some takers,” he said.

Georgia Recorder Editor Jill Nolin contributed to this report.