Turning Red States Blue Hinges On A Shaky Strategy

The Democrats drive to boost turnout faces roadblocks.

- Margaret Newkirk

Five years ago, when Stacey Abrams was Democratic minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, she created an organization called the New Georgia Project with an eye on a beguiling set of figures. The first was 1.5 million, the number of people who’d moved to the state since 2005. The second was 20 percent, the proportion of those migrants who were white. And the third: 700,000, the estimate of how many minority Georgians weren’t registered to vote.

Now Abrams is trying to become the first black woman governor in U.S. history. Her chances will depend in large part on how those numbers manifest themselves on Nov. 6. Abrams has been preaching the demographics-as- Democratic-destiny doctrine for years. She’s spearheaded minority voter registration drives in Georgia and become an advocate for expanding voter rolls and ballot access nationwide in a way that would bolster her party.

That destiny assumes, though, that the new electorate votes, enabling Democrats to deliver unprecedented midterm turnout despite what they say are Republican efforts to suppress Democrat-leaning voters. Five years after Abrams formed the New Georgia Project to register minorities, the drive has yet to move the needle on any statewide race. The shift that was going to erode Republican dominance in the state has yet to materialize.

Some Democrats wonder whether this year will be any different. “There’s a very, very good chance that demographic, policy, and political elements are going to converge someday, and they may well converge this November,” says Vincent Fort, a former state senator and member of the legislative black caucus. “But I have cautioned my Democratic brethren not to depend on demographics too much.”