White voters in Georgia still hold a majority but continue to see their share of the electorate shrink.
Of the more than 6 million Georgians registered to vote in the presidential election Tuesday, whites represented less than 60 percent of the state’s eligible voters for the first time in modern state history, according to new numbers released by the Secretary of State’s Office.
Whites represented 58.8 percent of the registered electorate as of Oct. 9, the numbers show. In November 2008, the percentage of Georgia voters who were white stood at 62.7 percent. Four years before that, it was 68.1 percent.
Black registered voters remained steady at 29.9 percent, the same as it was in November 2008 after rising from 27.7 percent in 2004.
The biggest difference, however, came from a growing pool of voters who declined to identify themselves by race or ethnicity and instead chose to be identified as “other.”
The percentage of voters identified that way rose to 7.8 percent in October, reflecting a steady rise over the past eight years. In November 2008, those in the “other” category came in at 4.7 percent. Four years earlier, it was 2.7 percent.
“The total population of Georgia is about 30 percent black, although voter registration is historically lower among blacks, mostly because of (the lower registration rate) of black males,” said Steve Anthony, a political science instructor at Georgia State University and a former top aide to longtime Democratic House Speaker Tom Murphy.
Anthony said the rise in the percentage of people identifying as “other” could be skewing the data, although he said both major parties in Georgia should be taking note.
“It’s certainly going to have political ramifications,” Anthony said. “The Republicans on paper are losing their core voters. If the trend keeps going, the Republican Party is in more and more trouble given the current paradigm.”
The trend matches what is happening to Georgia’s overall population. The state has begun experiencing demographic shifts that show an increase in African-American, Latino and Asian-American voters in some areas.
It also mirrors what is being seen nationally. Over the past four presidential elections, the percentage of white registered voters in the U.S. peaked in 2004 at 67.9 percent, only to fall back to 66.6 percent in 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The result would seem more likely to help Georgia Democrats in the future, although the state GOP is dominant here now. Republicans have won all statewide races of late and are pushing this Election Day for a two-thirds “supermajority” in the Legislature, a majority so large Democrats would be unable to block proposed changes to the state constitution.
“In Georgia, even with the shrinking white population, our party has grown,” state GOP spokesman Chris Kelleher said. “We like to reach out to all the voters in all of Georgia. We don’t cater to or shape our message to one particular race or one subset of voters.”
State Democratic Party Chairman Mike Berlon, who has acknowledged his party still needs time to regroup after losing power in 2002, said “there’s not much question the white voting block in Georgia is starting to erode.” It now becomes a contest to see which party benefits. It’s no surprise Berlon thinks it’s his.
“As the number of white voters drops, and as the number of minority voters increases, it makes it more manageable” to attract more voters, Berlon said.
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