Democrats’ formula for winning elections is changing in Georgia

In Georgia, a rule of thumb has long guided Democrats to success: the 30-30 rule.

The rule states that Democratic candidates need 30% of white voters to vote Democratic and Black voters to make up 30% of all voters in order to win an election in Georgia. One of the foundations of the rule is that almost all of the Black voters in the state will vote for a Democrat.

In practice, the formula is not as precise. The rule largely has held true, although in the past several presidential and midterm elections in Georgia, Black voters have hovered just a few percentage points below 30% of all voters in races won by Democrats, and winning Democratic candidates have received slightly less than 30% of white voters’ support. Over time, political scientists predict the benchmark will gradually decrease, as other racial groups in the state grow in size and white voters become a smaller share of the electorate.

“The small changes in the size of the Latino and Asian population, small changes in the rate of Democratic support for Black voters, are the difference between winning and losing,” said Bernard Fraga, a political scientist at Emory University.

Since the 2008 presidential election, more Hispanic and Asian American voters have been participating in elections. In 2008, the two groups made up roughly 2% of voters in the presidential election. In 2020, their share had grown to 5%. This increase in vote share is due, in part, to the children of immigrants who were born in the state reaching voting age.

As these groups continue to grow, a Democratic candidate may not need as much support from white or Black voters because some of these voters can fill in the gaps. Both Hispanic and Asian American voters lean Democratic, but their votes are not guaranteed for the party.

These groups have already begun helping Democrats win. Instead of 30%, Black vote share hovers around 27% in elections won by Democrats over the past four years, Charles Bullock, a political scientist from the University of Georgia, said in his book “The Changing Political South.”

In the 2020 presidential election, Black voters cast 27% of ballots, and 29% of white voters supported Joe Biden. Although neither group reached 30% support, Biden won the election by a razor-thin margin of about 12,000 votes.

While Democrats depend on Georgia’s Black voters to turn out for elections, they also need to capture a share of white voters. In the 2016 presidential election, 28% of the voters were Black, but Hillary Rodham Clinton only won 21% of white voters, leading to a loss.