When Tom Price vacated his seat in the House of Representatives from Georgia District 6 to become the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in the cabinet of President Trump, the State of Georgia held a special election in that District to seat his replacement. The Establishment's media, that is, the anti-Trump, left-leaning voice of the Democratic Party, reported incessantly that this election should be viewed as a referendum on President Trump himself.
- CBS News: Georgia Special Election Viewed as Referendum on President Trump
- NBC News: How a Referendum on Trump Became Most Expensive House Race Ever
- ABC News: Trump Faces Early Referendum in Georgia Congressional Race
- New York Times: High-Stakes Referendum on Trump Takes Shape in a Georgia Special Election
- USA Today: Georgia House Race, Seen as Trump Referendum, Heads to a Runoff
After the victory by Republican Karen Handel in the special election for Georgia District 6, CNN anchor Don Lemon said, "What’s interesting is that, breaking news, a Republican wins in Georgia, it shouldn’t be breaking news. This is the way it should happen."
Three counties comprise District 6 in Georgia, Cobb, DeKalb and Fulton. Republican Handel destroyed Ossoff 61% to 39% in Cobb while also winning handily in Fulton, 53% to 47%. In DeKalb, Ossoff beat Handel soundly 58% to 42%.
In the 2016 presidential election, all three counties went for Hillary Clinton. Clinton won Cobb, 47.9% to 45.8%. In DeKalb and Fulton, Clinton destroyed President Trump. Clinton won Fulton, 67.7% vs 26.8%. Clinton won DeKalb by a lopsided 79.1% vs 16.2%.
So it is a rather big deal that Handel won this special election considering the demographics make-up and voting pattern in this district.
According to Pew Research (Reflecting a racial shift, 78 counties turned majority-minority since 2000, APRIL 8, 2015):
From 2000 to 2013, 78 counties in 19 states, from California to Kansas to North Carolina, flipped from majority white to counties where no single racial or ethnic group is a majority, according to a new Pew Research Center. Of these counties, those in Georgia stand out for having four of the five biggest percentage-point swings in their white-population share.
For example, in Henry County (pop. 211,000 in 2013), 35 miles south of Atlanta, the population’s white share fell from 80.1% in 2000 to 49.8% in 2013. In Gwinnett County (pop. 859,000 in 2013), also near Atlanta, the population dropped from 67.0% white to 41.6% over the same time period.
This trend stems from a flat or declining number of whites in each of these four Georgia counties (Douglas and Rockdale are the other two), combined with a large and growing black population and a smaller Hispanic population that is also increasing in number. (In recent years, many blacks have moved to the Atlanta area from Northern states as part of a return migration to the South.)
According to facts presented in a Washington Post article from 2014:
- Nonwhites are more Democratic than whites.
- The Georgia electorate is becoming more nonwhite.
- The share of registered voters in Georgia that is white declined from 72 to 59 percent over the past decade.
- Nearly 3 of 4 active registered voters older than 65 are white while less than half of those under 30 are white.
According to AOL News, May 2016, eighty-one percent of Georgia's population growth in the past decade came from minorities.
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