Despite the lack of a strong effort by the Obama administration to campaign and win in Georgia, approximately the same number of African-American voters came out to cast their vote – 34 percent – as they did during Obama’s historic run to the White House in 2008.
Of course, this won’t change the outcome of the presidential election nor help Obama carry the state. GOP candidate Mitt Romney will take conservative Georgia, a staunchly red state, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s political insider Jim Galloway.
The top two counties that produced the most votes — 17 percent of all early votes cast — are considered Democratic territory and are the two counties with the most heavily-populated black residents in the state. Not coincidentally, they are also the two counties that have a part of the city of Atlanta in their districts:
– DeKalb: 160,820;
– Fulton: 153,122;
– Cobb: 124,025;
– Gwinnett: 107,788;
– Henry: 62,723.
The secretary of state’s office reports that 201,132 mail-in ballots have been received, and 73,168 remain outstanding.
Here’s a further breakdown of the numbers, according to the AJC:
Total early votes cast: 1,882,558
Black female: 406,784
Black male: 228,286
Total black: 635,070 (34 percent)
White female: 606,884
White male: 504,476
Total white: 1,111,360 (59 percent)
Asian-Pacific female: 6,874
Asian-Pacific male: 5,285
Total Asian-Pacific: 12,159 (.6 percent)
Hispanic-Latino female: 9,007
Hispanic-Latino male: 6,559
Total Hispanic-Latino: 15,566 (.8 percent)
Native American female: 212
Native American male: 196
Total Native American: 408 (.02 percent)
Other: 104,101 (5.5 percent)
The strong turnout could have future implications, however. According to the Marietta Daily Journal (a suburban Atlanta newspaper), Gov. Nathan Deal discussed what this may mean moving forward in this Deep South state:
“If the vote in 2012 shows a dramatic increase in Democrat turnout and Democrat votes versus Republicans even though we may still have a majority of the vote and even though our electoral votes in the Electoral College may still and hopefully will go to Gov. Romney, those differences in the vote totals of one side versus the other will be the primary indicator of whether or not we will see a significant effort of resurgence in the Democratic Party.”
One way the strong black voter turnout in Georgia could have immediate implications is regarding the vote on Amendment One, the charter school measure.
