New Voters Are Registering in Georgia Faster Than the GOP Can Purge Them

The 2018 Gubernatorial race in Georgia was a controversial one. Democrat Stacey Abrams lost to Republican Brian Kemp by a little over 50,000 votes. Prior to the election, Kemp, then Georgia’s Secretary of State, was accused of illegally flagging and delaying the voting applications of black voters.

The 2020 elections in Georgia will again be hotly contested with multiple congressional and senate seats up for grabs. The state has continued to purge voters from the rolls at a rapid rate. According to a new report from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, though, new voters are signing up at a rapid rate and outpacing the purges.

A heavy percentage of these new registrations come from voters aged 18-34, normally fertile ground for Democrats. The share of white identifying voters is also decreasing as its stood at 59% compared to 62% in 2016.

Mike Carnathan from the Atlanta Regional Commission told the AJC, “We’re seeing an aging cohort that’s majority white, and then you’ll see an increasing younger age cohort [that’s] majority nonwhite. That’s exactly what the future of metro Atlanta holds when it comes to the composition of the population.”

The Democratic Party of Georgia’s Scott Hogan said, “In every way, that benefits the Democratic Party. Georgia is in play. The state is going to go blue. It’s just a matter of when: this year.”

The state of Georgia is increasingly being considered a purple state with real opportunities for Democrats in 2020.