Henry County District Attorney Jim Wright, a Republican, has announced that he will not seek reelection, creating what promises to be a competitive race for his position. Because candidate qualifying has not concluded, we don’t yet know who the candidates are, much less who each party will nominate. However, Georgia’s recent history of demographically-driven election results suggests that Democrats should have a significant but not insurmountable edge in the upcoming election.

Demographic Determinism in Georgia Elections Straight ticket voting has become so ubiquitous in Georgia that candidate quality is not hugely important in open seat races. Henry County “went blue” for the first time in decades during the senatorial and gubernatorial election of 2014. The demographic trends that brought this about show no sign of stopping. Henry County insiders agree that even a solid Republican candidate will have difficulty carrying the county in 2016. I suspect that Wright understood this and chose to retire rather than risk ending his career on a sour note. Georgia’s 2014 senate and gubernatorial elections had eerily similar results. Statewide, Purdue won by 8.0% and Deal by 7.8%. In 2012, a completely different election cycle, Romney outpolled Obama by 8.0%. In Henry County’s 2014 election, the senatorial and gubernatorial elections had margins only 0.08% apart. Indeed, racial demographics and population density alone explain about 90% of the

variation in Georgia’s county-level election results. This means that Georgia elections can be modeled without the benefit of polling. There are two ways to model the 2016 election in Henry County. First, we can assume that voters in Henry County behave like demographically similar voters statewide. The Secretary of State’s office publishes a race and gender breakdown of the active voters in each county. By applying the vote shares for each demographic to the Henry County electorate, we can estimate how Henry County will vote. As of 2014, 48.6% of Henry County’s population were nonHispanic whites, while 40.6% were black. The county’s active voters were slightly whiter, mainly because Latinos are less likely to be eligible to vote, and less likely to vote even if they are eligible. The current breakdown of active voters is as follows:

African American

40.8%

Latino or other

5.5%

White

53.7%

If the 2014 vote shares hold, Democrats should capture 53.9% of the two-party vote in Henry County in 2016. Alternatively, we can deemphasize state-wide voting behavior and project from Henry County’s 2014 results, where Democrats won 50.3%

of the two-party vote. Recent trends suggest that the proportion of Henry County’s population which is black increases roughly 0.9% per year, and the white proportion decreases the same amount. Applying historical vote shares, Democrats should win 51.4% of the two-party vote in 2016. However, this ignores the differences between the midterm and quadrennial electorates. The quadrennial electorate is younger and more diverse than the midterm electorate, giving Democrats a roughly 2% boost in Presidential years. (Remember, Jason Carter ran even with Obama even after benefiting from two years of demographic change). This suggests that Democrats should win 53.4% of Henry County’s two-party vote in 2016. The bottom line is, in 2016, Democrats should win 53 or 54% of Henry County’s two-party presidential vote.

The District Attorney Election Down-ticket races are low-information, partisan contests molded by Georgia’s sprawling ballot. This was true in 2012 and will be true again in 2016. Thus, the starting point for understanding the 2016 District Attorney election is the 2012 contest. In 2012, every Henry County ballot contained at least 15 contests. The district attorney’s race was the seventh item of the ballot. Few voters paid much attention to this race, so party preference explains 90plus percent of the 2012 result. At the top of the ticket, Mitt Romney polled 46,774 votes in Henry County, compared to 43,761 for President

Obama, a 3.3% margin of victory. The libertarian candidate polled 0.9%. Down ballot, the retirement of long-time District Attorney Tommy Floyd created an open contest for his job. Wright defeated Democrat Darius Patillo 46,243 to 41,581, a 5.3% margin of victory. Wright outperformed the top of the Republican ticket by 2%. This was a solid showing, giving him a stronger performance than any Republican who ran county wide against a Democrat. There are three explanations for this performance. First, Wright was the heir apparent to Tommy Floyd, under whom he served as senior assistant district attorney. Floyd was the district attorney for over three decades, and enjoyed far greater popularity and name recognition than is typical for the office. While Wright was relatively obscure until he ran, he was well known and well respected by the courthouse gang. My first Henry County jury trial was against him. He was and is an earnest career prosecutor, and those who wanted continuity in the district attorney’s office supported him. Wright almost certainly received the support of several hundred lawyers, county employees, and grateful crime victims who usually vote Democrat. Second, Democrats are slightly less conscientious voters than Republicans. Roughly 5% fewer votes are cast in the race for district attorney than in the Presidential election, and Obama voters constituted an outsized share of the falloff. The race for Public Service Commissioner illustrates this effect. Can you name the public service commissioners, much less explain their platforms? If you can, you are more of a politics geek than your humble scribe. And I forecast

elections for fun. Most voters know nothing about the candidates for Publice Service Commission, so the vote is a great proxy for party preference. In Henry County, the Democratic candidate lost the twoparty vote by 3.7%, or 0.4% more than in the Presidential race. The halo effect created by Wright’s service under Tommy Floyd probably explains why he outperformed both Romney and the Republican candidate for Public Service Commission. Third, Wright likely outspent Patillo. I have not reviewed any campaign finance disclosures, but Patillo’s campaign was practically invisible. I drive most of the major roads in Henry County in the course of my practice, and saw perhaps one or two Patillo signs. Wright’s advertising was more conspicuous. This makes sense. The Georgia Republican party is more flush than the Democratic party. Furthermore, Wright was able to raise money from the courthouse gang, including employees of the District Attorney’s Office who wanted continuity. Wright’s 2012 performance represents roughly a “best case scenario” for a Republican candidate in an open race for district attorney. He was the logical successor to a popular incumbent and relatively well financed. Yet these advantages had only a modest effect. He outperformed Romney by 2.0% and beat his party’s candidate for Public Service Commissioner by 1.6%. A slight Republican advantage in down ticket races is likely to persist, as Republican voters tend to be older and have deeper roots in Henry County, giving them more reason to care about down ticket races than Democrats. However,

Republicans can no longer rely on the Tommy Floyd halo effect nor can they count about out-spending the Democrats. Other things constant, the Republican candidate for district attorney is likely to outperform the Republican Presidential candidate by roughly 0.4%. These realities explain Wright’s decision not to seek reelection. Even if Wright were to repeat his feat of outperforming his ticket by 2%, he would capture only 48 or 49% of the two-party vote and go down in defeat. The harsh reality also creates a negative feedback loop: it encourages qualified Democrats to run, encourages insiders to donate to Democratic candidates, and suggests that those writing checks to Republican candidates are probably supporting a lost cause. While a strong and lucky Republican candidate could win, I wouldn’t bet on it.