Let’s Talk CJ

12:50:45 Welcome to Episode 31 of the let's talk government podcast, Southern politics and racial and ethnic politics. We do want to thank one of our listeners for sending in the suggestion to talk about the elections in Georgia, last year that led to this podcast.
12:51:00 I am joined by Dr. Kevin personnel and Dr. Fred Slocum from the political science program in the department of government at Minnesota State University man Kato.
12:51:11 So let's kind of start with a broader view of Southern politics and racial and ethnic politics, and maybe even just talk about the process of elections and some of the southern states.
12:51:22 I know we talked about majority and plural elections So Dr Slocum Do you want to kind of talk about the process there.
12:51:28 Sure. Um.
12:51:36 Most states around the country, use a plurality election system so often called SM SP single member of simple plurality, which means that and Minnesota is one of those states that uses that and and that is SMSP systems, the winner of the most votes is
12:51:49 elected to a seat.
12:51:53 End of story. So I mean that was the case and the Minnesota governor's race for example in 1998 when jesse ventura one, the governor's race with only 37% of the boat, and a three candidate race.
12:52:05 And most southern states use that system, however, Georgia, does not Georgia has what's called a majority run off electoral system in which, whether for state or federal office, the candidate that wins the most votes is not guaranteed election.
12:52:26 Unless that candidate also wins a majority of all the votes cast. So in Georgia what's required is a majority rather than a plurality the winning the most votes majority has at least one vote more than 50% of all the votes cast.
12:52:40 And if if no candidate wins a majority in Georgia.
12:52:44 The race will be forced into a runoff between the two top finishers.
12:52:50 And then the winner of that race with with only two candidates in the race and the winner of that race is will have a majority of the votes and is therefore he liked it, and that that is why, Georgia had a two stage election process.
12:53:05 In, 2020 for the US Senate seats there.
12:53:09 The,
12:53:12 the Republican incumbent senators.
12:53:23 David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler were the leaders in the about vote totals after the 2020 election, however they were both sort of a majority of all the votes cast.
12:53:27 And so they had to defend their seats and they run off which was held on January 5 of this year, and the to a lot of analysts surprise including my own my own surprise.
12:53:39 The Democratic challengers to them. JOHN us off, and Raphael Warnock defeated the republican incumbents, and thereby claimed those Senate seats and the runoff elections that were necessitated by virtue of the republican incumbents winning a plurality
12:53:55 but short of a majority of all the votes cast in November.
12:53:59 Well, we're going to come back to the Georgia elections because it is really fascinating. So, but before we do that, Fred is, Georgia, the only one that has the majority vote system in the southern region.
12:54:12 No Louisiana does as well.
12:54:14 Okay. To my knowledge, they are the only say it's that do.
12:54:19 So when we think about Southern politics we kind of have to come to mind of racial politics, you know, white and black and white voters and black voters.
12:54:29 But is there more to that makeup and racial and ethnic politics in the south, versus, then just a white voters and black voters.
12:54:38 There is an increasing extent, particularly in the states along the Atlantic seaboard from Virginia down to Georgia, so Virginia the Carolinas and Georgia are, you know, all of them have substantial black populations.
12:54:55 And they also are generally growing states South Carolina a little bit less than the others, but they're generally growing at a faster clip than the rest of the South is.
12:55:06 And furthermore the white voters and those states, with the exception of South Carolina tend to be a little bit less conservative more willing to support democrats and elections.
12:55:16 like Arkansas and Tennessee, where, generally speaking voter poll racial polarization and voting is less in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia than it is and the entire event in South Carolina and interior states of the South, the Mid South region like
12:55:36 like Arkansas Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Mississippi white voter white tendency to vote republican is very very high in those states but less so along the Atlantic seaboard well before we start talking about because I have some campaign strategies I'm going
12:55:52 to turn to dr personnel, have there been any changes in court rulings or laws about voter voting rights and district thing that would be impacting the different voting mechanisms in the south.
12:56:05 Well probably probably the biggest one was the decision and 2013 over the in Shelby beholder.
12:56:14 When the Supreme Court weighed in, there were provisions in the 1965 Voting Rights Act, where states and local governments who had a history of segregation and discrimination against black voters had to whenever they want to change their voting laws,
12:56:31 laws, they had to get pre clearance from the Department of Justice, and demonstrate that the laws they were passing wouldn't have a disparate effect. In other words, wouldn't affect black voters more than white voters because they kind of establish that
12:56:45 they had, you know, poll taxes literacy tests, all these kinds of things that were designed to reduce the ability of African Americans to go out and vote.
12:56:56 So there was this rule in place since 1964 and then later in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And those were thrown out in 2013 as argued by the Chief Justice john roberts said, Look, it's been like 50 years, America has changed.
12:57:14 It's unfair to make these counties and states continue to go through this press proxy brother is practice.
12:57:21 Famously Ruth Bader Ginsburg, of a liberal member of the court, who oppose the decision argued that getting rid of these voting rights protections for African Americans in these places in the south, was like throwing away your umbrella because you're
12:57:39 not getting wet anymore so she argued that they need to continue to be in place.
12:57:44 That's probably the biggest change in that the Supreme Court invalidated part of the Voting Rights Act and said it's no longer necessary. And many people are you still that those protections are still necessary there's still some tendency and some of
12:58:07 places to try to reduce voter turnout by African Americans. Well, as we keep talking about ethnic politics. There is another case that just came up recently, I know Arizona is not considered a southern state but Dr partial Would you be able to talk a
12:58:18 little bit about the case of the Attorney General of Arizona versus the Democratic National Committee that just happened this last year, and that impact on ethnic politics.
12:58:27 Yeah, that that wasn't a recent case it almost carried off, where the Shelby beholder decision came from. In that there was a ruling, where, Arizona, like if somebody voted in the wrong precinct right they may be in the same right county or the right.
12:58:46 Obviously the right state of Arizona, but they voted in the wrong precinct.
12:58:50 Their whole ballot would be invalidated, even though clearly if they're in Arizona, they should count them for governor statewide offices the presidential election, but the Secretary of State of Arizona said nope, you're entirely invalid.
12:59:04 And the group of indigenous americans i believe it was from that Navajo tribe argued, look, given that way that their addresses, among many Navajo, it's hard to know what precinct you're is people sometimes go to different precincts the wrong one.
12:59:25 Also, noting that precincts in some of these areas where you vote gets changed a lot more than it does say in a rich suburb. And so they argued, having this rule is unfair right maybe the person voted for the wrong state legislator, but they voted in
12:59:42 the governor's race they vote in the presidential race the board and wherever you should get least combos, throw out the ones that they're voting in the wrong place that it affects and but count the other ones, and the Supreme Court, and a 63 decision
12:59:55 the six, what we call conservative members of the court against the three liberal members of the court said no.
13:00:04 The ruling was perfectly fair we're upholding that ruling, and it does not matter that the law has a disparate effect between whites and minorities. It's still constitutional because they said, We don't know that that was the intent of the law.
13:00:20 So that was a situation where the court wave right in and, and I mean further got rid of the language of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and said, even if it has a racial effect.
13:00:33 If that's not the intent. You can do it. And I think a lot of people are concerned that further efforts to reduce minority vote and make it harder for minorities to vote, or throw out ballots are sort of empowered by this decision by the Supreme Court
13:00:50 and the fact that it's 623 suggests that this might be the trend of the Supreme Court for quite some time because, quite a few members of that six are not very old, they'll probably be on the court for another 30 years.
13:01:05 So it's always interesting when you hear about what the supreme court does but we also know that there's some states that are passing more restrictive voting rights laws so I'll turn it over to whoever wants to talk about how does those restrictions on
13:01:17 on voting rights laws and requirements impact voter turnout and then how do you see that voter turnout changing in the southern states as related to like Georgia.
13:01:28 Well there are the argument made by many civil rights activists, is that more restrictive voting laws are have the effect of an artist and are intended to disproportionately discourage voting among people of color and past research has shown that and
13:01:51 past incidents have shown that practices like moving polling places out of heavily minority neighborhoods, or, or stationing election observers and polling places where there were those coming in to vote are predominantly people of color have that impacts
13:02:13 there was a federal consent decree from New Jersey in 1982 I believe where, New Jersey republicans were ordered to were required to stop posting observers, and polling places and heavily minority neighborhoods in places like New York.
13:02:29 So I mean there's a lot of concern among civil rights activists that the intent of more restrictive voting laws, is to that the underlying intent is to crack down on minority voting and and to engineer and electorate that is that has a higher percentage
13:02:46 of white voters.
13:02:49 Yeah, I should I should point out here that in that brand image VENC case that I was just talking about.
13:02:57 I don't remember which member of the Supreme Court asked the, the, the, the Republican Party, the Republican Party of Arizona's lawyer who is there, answering questions about the case, they, they asked him what was the interest of the republican party
13:03:15 and passing this law.
13:03:18 And he argued that the law he said something along the lines of, it puts us at a competitive disadvantage to not have that law, so he openly expressed the idea that that would advantage, his party as an argument that the courts inside with him.
13:03:37 Hmm.
13:03:37 So.
13:03:39 Oh, go ahead friend, and I'm and along the lines of voter ID laws as well you know voter ID laws.
13:03:47 One voter ID law, out of Indiana was upheld by the US Supreme Court in 2008. However, that doesn't uphold all voter ID laws but en en route to that.
13:03:59 Supreme Court ruling that case was heard in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and a conservative federal judge who sat on that circuit court and Richard Posner
13:04:11 had ruled in favor of a lot of allowing the Indiana voter ID law to stand on while on the court but he later.
13:04:19 And one of his legal writings he's a non legal scholar reversed himself saying that, that, that the primary purpose of voter ID laws was to discourage or put a damper on minority boating.
13:04:33 The.
13:04:33 But, as Kevin said the Supreme Court has required demonstration of intense to discriminate rather than simply disparate impact in terms of the impact of voting laws on people of color.
13:04:46 Well, and also empower the secretary of state because that becomes much more powerful position because they run, usually are the overseer of elections in each of the states.
13:04:56 So it seems to give them a lot more power than most people even realize
13:05:01 that instead of there, there is some concern that instead of having this under sort of the power of sort of objective, non partisan local officials that are just counting ballots right, literally, like a, like john roberts describes calling balls and
13:05:35 Attorney General Secretary of State, or putting it into the hands of the state legislature. that's one of the concerns that there's been changes in state laws that regardless of how the outcome comes the state legislature can come in and say, well, we're,
13:05:50 we're sending our presidential like doors, a different slate right they can say well we think somebody else one, so we're sending it other than what the nonpartisan objective.
13:06:03 So there's a lot of concern that this is getting moved from just people kind of counting balance. Balance to being allowing more partisan decisions over how ballots are counted.
13:06:14 So in addition to reducing voting.
13:06:18 I don't know if you're if this is the best place to mention it, but there are a variety of other, like sort of laws, I think, Fred talked about a few of them that are sort of in reaction to the large voter turnout of 2020.
13:06:35 Different states have reduced the number of ballot boxes, particularly in areas where minorities live, they've reduced the timeframe people have for early voting.
13:06:46 So like if you're absentee voting or just no excuse. Early voting you want to send in by mail or drop it off instead of be there on election day. They shrunk the timeframe, making it harder to do.
13:07:01 And then, of course, there's the famous one in Georgia, where they said that outside groups would not be allowed right there sometimes these long lines to vote, particularly in places where African Americans boat, and that you would not be allowed to
13:07:19 have them food and water under the idea that that people would have them water trying to influence their vote.
13:07:26 Well they're, they're also standing outside for, you know, a couple of hours at a time.
13:07:32 A person needs, maybe a drink of water, right. So, I was really controversial and it's particularly controversial because some of these groups have a very popular way for African Americans to vote in a lot of these areas is what's called souls to the
13:07:49 polls, where as a church right is that, there tends to be like as a church, to get sort of organizing for all the black churches to get people to go vote early go vote together, go to drop boxes on a Sunday as opposed to like normal election day.
13:08:08 And a lot of these laws are seen as ways to make it harder to do the souls to the polls.
13:08:16 Well, that's interesting. I've never heard of the souls to the polls so.
13:08:21 So let's talk about what are some of the different campaign strategies of the Democrats and Republicans in the southern politics.
13:08:30 Hi. Yes.
13:08:33 The, the strategies for the Democratic and Republican parties are very different, and the South.
13:08:42 The South has historically been home to a large amount of racial polarization and voting. And so that kind of dictates different campaign strategies for the parties for Democrats.
13:08:54 The primary strategy is twofold. First off to mobilize large numbers of votes of people of color, especially black people and African Americans especially because their votes tend to go lopsided lead to Democrats, typically 85 or more percent of black
13:09:13 votes that are cast go to Democrats and southern races.
13:09:18 Sometimes over 90%.
13:09:21 And meanwhile, however Democrats have to be careful. So to avoid losing too much ground among white voters and and a state where racial polarization is very high like Mississippi.
13:09:35 Perhaps the most racially polarized state, the overall population is about 37%, black, mostly African American, the white population amounts to about 60 or 60% 60%.
13:09:52 But no democrat really has a snowball's chance in a very hot place and Mississippi because the white vote typically breaks at or more percent Republican.
13:10:03 And so it doesn't matter how many votes blacks, you know, Democrats can generate from the black community they're bound to lose on a statewide basis.
13:10:12 On the other hand in a state like North Carolina, the white vote does not break so lopsided Lee Republican, as in Mississippi, and in North Carolina, a candidate can win with a biracial multiracial Strad Democratic candidate can win with a vibrational
13:10:29 multiracial strategy by mobilizing the black vote, and to a lesser extent the Latino or Asian but which also tends to lean democratic while still winning a respectable share of the white vote.
13:10:42 If. Generally speaking, if the democrats can get 40% or more of the white vote. They are doing well, if the democrats are held to 25% or less of the white vote.
13:10:52 They are likely to lose for Republicans, the reverse is true, Republicans want to run up large white majorities or white large majority is among the white vote.
13:11:05 And, and the process they typically ignore and often seek to actively suppress the black vote or votes of people of color.
13:11:13 So for the republicans The, the road. The road to victory is the role of white majorities for democrats the, the route to victory is the rule of biracial multiracial coalition.
13:11:25 So you definitely have like a scientific method to figuring out what would be a majority, and what would lean one way or the other. So what does your research tell you about how to increase the voter turnout How could the parties increase that voter turnout
13:11:39 what can they do.
13:11:41 Well there's been a lot of political science, obviously political scientists are interested in what what causes people to vote or not.
13:11:49 And one of the things that there's two researchers Gerber and green, who started this research by me they've been doing it for a while but they really took off in the early 2000 late 1990s and early 2000s, where they wanted to see like this male affect
13:12:06 people sending the mail phone calling them canvassing door to door and what actually does the best job dollar for dollar of turning people out. And what they found was, it's really difficult to have much effect with male, or even phone calls, not to say
13:12:22 that those are completely worthless. And granted, these are political scientists and they can't. So their message has to be something along the lines of be a good citizen and go vote, as opposed to go vote for Bob Smith, you know he's going to lower your
13:12:37 taxes or he's going to save the environment or whatever right there's no, it's difficult as political scientists exactly replicated. But still, it was there most of the findings were that going door to door was the main way to influence people and get
13:12:52 them to actually vote that was the one way to demonstrate statistically significant increases and votes. A lot of the follow up research in the past two decades on this has really focused on the importance for candidates and parties to have a personal
13:13:09 relationship with the voter obviously if you're running for Senate, you can't know every voter, but having somebody who actually talks to them in person, and lets them vent frustration or ask them or why, why wouldn't, why wouldn't you vote for my candidate,
13:13:26 something that gives a personal connection dramatically increases the likelihood that somebody who wasn't going to vote will vote. And another thing that's been found in research is.
13:13:39 I'm just doing this one time is not quite enough like if I show up as a candidate. And believe me, I'm not ever running for office.
13:13:47 If I was to show up as a candidate and say, Hey, will you vote for me in November. And then I disappear until two or four years later Six years later, to ask for your vote again.
13:13:59 People will say, Where were you, you've got my full but you didn't want to talk to me otherwise. So there really is like building a relationship with voters in a sense that you're there for them.
13:14:09 goober and green and a lot of other political scientists have found that it's this relational thing that's super important even more important than necessarily agreeing with people on the issues that, that, that it's like if people really strongly it's
13:14:25 if it's the issues that matter to them. You're not going to persuade them to change their mind on issues but you can persuade them that you're a good person who are listening.
13:14:36 So before we were going to come back to Georgia in just a moment but I'd like to just been a minute or two talking about the current governor race in Virginia, it's really tight between the Democratic candidate and the Republican candidate.
13:14:49 And what do you guys see is that going to be an influential race does it tell us anything about what to expect in the upcoming year or two.
13:14:59 That's hard to say, although it's commonly perceived as a bellwether Virginia has off year elections cycle for statewide elections so and so there's often a tendency among those analyzing are absorbing politics to view that as a bellwether.
13:15:20 I think it's.
13:15:24 To the extent that elections are nationalized.
13:15:28 I think it can, as more likely to be a bellwether of what can occur and 2022 however, every state is different. Virginia politics are commonly subdivided between northern Virginia.
13:15:45 And the rest of the state that division is a little bit simplistic but Northern Virginia is where Democrats draw most of their support. Due to the large populations of America of resonance with more education, including many federal government employees
13:16:01 and places like Arlington and Ruston and the other suburbs and excerpts of the Washington DC area.
13:16:07 Republicans tend to draw their support from southern and western Virginia, especially the rural parts of the states and places like Danville in the south and the mountain regions in the West like Lynchburg, and then the suburbs are you know of Richmond
13:16:20 and Norfolk are real battlegrounds between the two parties and most elections, so.
13:16:28 But generally, Virginia was once, you know, a kind of a lock for republicans and presidential and most statewide races into the 90s. And now the state is much more closely divided.
13:16:41 However, the democrats have one for out of the last five Governor's races and have one most of the statewide executive offices since 2001, which shows a shift and generally the growing parts of the state has been in the northern parts near Washington
13:16:55 DC, where the democrats tend to run strongest and the, the more rural areas of the state are studying population are shrinking and so the overall demographic trends with the diversification in the north and the large number of federal workers and and
13:17:17 educated professionals tend to bode well for Democrats over the long term in the state. Yeah, I think, I mean, there's another issue here besides the fact that just generally speaking, if you just had a generic republican and generic democrat running
13:17:26 in Virginia. 10 years ago you would have thought that the republican would probably win. Now you think that just probably a slight margin for the democrat and Terry McAuliffe who's running as the Democrat, has already been governor one so he's got good
13:17:42 name recognition. I don't know exactly how Virginia has perceived his time as governor, but you know he's got good name recognition and they nominated, again, I think the republicans when they they nominated young kin, they probably were shooting for
13:17:59 somebody who's more of a moderate, which is, in a way, recognizing that Virginia is shifting. Um, you can argue whether younger is a moderate or not.
13:18:10 He certainly tried to distance himself from Donald Trump, while Virginia Republicans. Some other Virginia republicans sort of embrace Donald Trump so there is a level where maybe this isn't so much even about national trends, as just is Donald Trump still
13:18:26 an influential aspect is it going to turn out is his sort of like, is he going to turn out a Republican voters in Virginia. Right now, McAuliffe has a pretty consistent, three or four point lead in the polls.
13:18:44 But it's off your election. So, you know, everybody's got to turn out there people that I'm pretty sure the democrats are trying to say, here's just another Trump, you know if you're a democrat you better get to the polls.
13:18:55 While the republicans have got kind of a mixed message of No No he's not Trump he's in good moderate or, you know, just kind of conservative guy that you want to vote for.
13:19:07 But still, pull in those Virginia Trump voters.
13:19:09 I kind of agree with Fred, I don't know that this is going to be a great measure of national trends, because Virginia, I mean one thing we find in political science.
13:19:19 Right. The South is different from the northeast is different from the Midwest is different from the west and so forth, but almost every state is really different from other states, and everybody seems to know that for their own state, but they don't
13:19:32 seem to realize like, you know, as a, as a Montana and I would have said, Minnesota, Wisconsin, what's the difference they're both a bunch of corn and flat.
13:19:40 Right.
13:19:42 But now that I've lived here I realized how different Minnesota is from Wisconsin and Minnesota is definitely like the Twin Cities is different from southern Minnesota is different from the iron rage, you know, we know that in here.
13:19:54 It's the same thing in every state you go to.
13:20:05 And so, I don't know how much Virginia gets attention because it's like the only movie playing in the theater, as well go watch it. Yeah, New Jersey, but New Jersey is not getting a lot of it has the governor's race to this fall but but New Jersey's race
13:20:14 race is not really up for grabs the way Virginia is as right now.
13:20:18 So this is a good segue to come back to Georgia for kind of your final ideas and thoughts.
13:20:24 So we had the runoff. So between the November 2020 elections and the runoff in January 2021. You had voices talking about invalidating the elections you have rumors of Trump calling the Secretary of State in Georgia to influence how they were going to
13:20:43 call the vote, and do the runoffs I you have Stacey Abrams that's a big advocate in Georgia who they claim they helped get Biden elected, how does this all come together and why, why did we pay so much attention to the GA run off votes and elections for
13:21:01 the Senate seats.
13:21:03 Well, because, first and foremost, because that Georgia, those Georgia races on January 5 the runoff races decided they make up of the Senate, and it was the case that Democrats had to win both of those seats in order to gain a marginal majority in the
13:21:18 Senate, with they're holding the vice presidency to break tie votes.
13:21:24 Had republicans one either of those two Senate races in Georgia, Mitch McConnell would would again be senate majority leader.
13:21:33 And, and Biden's agenda probably would be dead in the water.
13:21:41 So, and so that was consequential that Democrats won both of those races lifting them to 50 votes in the senate with, and with Vice President Kamala Harris able to break ties democrats gained a nominal majority in the chamber.
13:21:53 So it helps them out unified democratic control and Congress, I'll be at by very narrow margin and both chambers.
13:22:01 Yeah, yeah.
13:22:03 Fred is entirely right about the immediate effect of that the difference between a binding minister as much as people are talking right now about Joe Manchin and Kristen cinema, that would be irrelevant to Democrats are passing joe biden's policies.
13:22:19 If either of those two seats in Georgia had gone differently.
13:22:23 So I think in the short term, if, to the extent that two or four years is the short term, is that, but in the long term. I think there's a big idea that like, wow, Georgia.
13:22:37 To democratic senators that something had changed in the south right because we have these maps of the US elections and they almost all look the same, from Clinton on through to 2016 and 2016 there's a change, which winds up with Trump winning.
13:22:55 Now you see Georgia that's been consistently republican going for Biden at the presidential level and two democratic senators and people say, Is this a new politics are we moving into a new era.
13:23:09 And for that you mentioned Stacy Abrams.
13:23:13 A lot of this has been credited to her and I think.
13:23:16 Fair enough. she, she lost 2018 gubernatorial election.
13:23:36 And he was really strict about some voting laws and throughout, something like 700,000 ballots are not balanced but registrations saying oh we're cleaning up the voting laws voting roles.
13:23:50 And it turns out that those were disproportionately African Americans, Stacy Abrams is African American, and she's a Democrat. So, when she lost by like 50,000 votes.
13:24:00 People said, can't use this power of Secretary of State, to, to take the election away from her. She did concede right so she, she said, I can see, but what I'm going to do is work on voter turnout.
13:24:17 And so a lot of other places are saying a lot of other places that want to see I voter turnout whether you're Republicans or Democrats. I'm kind of looked at that and say well how did that happen.
13:24:27 How did she increase voter turnout and if you look at voter turnout for Georgia, Georgia, ran consistently behind national averages. It's like a lot of southern states with low voter turnout.
13:24:40 As we especially if you go back to the, you know, 80s 90s, but as we got closer to the 2000s, they start getting closer and closer to the national average.
13:24:51 And then, in both 2018 and 2020 they actually exceeded now Minnesotans week that in this state was let me say we, I'm in Minnesota always exceeds the national average.
13:25:04 But to have a southern state do that is quite a thing. And the fact that it happened when Stacy Abrams was running for governor. And then when she did her big push afterwards to increase voter turnout is sort of this idea that that that her work is her
13:25:20 work worked, and that that might be a key.
13:25:24 I don't know that you can replicate that everywhere, or do what you have in Georgia is a changing demographics, right, increasing proportion of the population is African American, including a lot of African Americans are moving into Georgia.
13:25:40 So, that was a group that she can reach out to you don't necessarily have that in every single state.
13:25:47 And then just different regions of Georgia are more diverse. So the diversity gives her group, a population that may not have as high voter turnout rates that she can actually target.
13:26:01 So like if somebody was to try to do something like this in Minnesota.
13:26:05 It's a bit tougher, because there's not as many groups, there's not like an automatic group like, sure, college students don't vote in as high a number, but Minnesota college students vote in pretty high numbers, so you don't have a sort of automatic
13:26:18 pool to go to to boost up their voting rates and turn people out.
13:26:24 Anyway, sorry that was that was me sidetracked into that issue so I think my phone's about to run out of power but quickly Georgia.
13:26:34 I think as a model for mobilizing people of color to vote, Stacey Abrams came unexpectedly close all the falling short and the governor's race in 2018 in Georgia and then decided to make a continuing project of voter mobilization, and especially African
13:26:52 American voter mobilization, but Abrams's project also included the, you know, reflected the reality that Georgia also was seeing increased shares of Asian Americans and Hispanics and the state electorate.
13:27:06 And that most of those. Most of those more diverse populations are in the greater Atlanta area, and what's striking about Georgia politics is how in the 80s and 90s, the suburban counties haven't ladder were solidly a conservative and very heavily white
13:27:21 that is no longer the case and flick hot counties like Cobb and to Calvin Wynette counties that much more diverse populations somewhat more socio economically diverse as well, and the democrats have expanded their urban base in the Atlanta area to now
13:27:38 incorporate strengthen much of the suburbs in order to offset the republicans strength in the rural areas of the state.
13:27:45 Well that's a perfect segue into wrapping up with Fred's phone getting ready to die but thank you, Kevin and Fred I love talking with you guys about this I always learned something new and it's interesting how influential the southern politics can be
13:27:58 on the entire United States so I think I Oh sorry. No, go ahead. I just want to have a little bit of battery power left I have 10%, so I can, I could field and other question.
13:28:11 Yeah, so I was, I was just going to add one more thing before we go, a lot of what we've talked about, we've been talking about, like, voting and turnout patterns between Republicans and Democrats, but I think it's only fair to point out that if we go
13:28:25 back in time just a couple of decades, you would have seen that it was that it was democrats right a lot of the democrats were segregation this. And a lot of these things that came from the Voting Rights Act.
13:28:37 Were you know they were partisan because it was the democrats address. So this isn't necessarily like Democrats have always been good and Republicans have always been bad, it's, it's, it's, it's more complicated than that.
13:28:50 Right now. Yeah, but it was a now in Georgia, it's one way but it didn't necessarily have to be.
13:28:57 Historically, it was Southern Democrats who oppose civil rights laws at the, at the federal level in the 60s, but northern democrat strongly favorite them, and then coalition with northern Republicans, so I mean in terms of passage of the Civil Rights
13:29:11 Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 so that was a bipartisan northern coalition that I should those that secured passage of those civil rights laws and Congress.
13:29:25 But what's happened since the 1960s is that the once numerous contingent of Southern Democrats has struggled to travel greatly, and most Southern Democrats that most seats that were once held by Southern Democrats are now.
13:29:43 So, white Southern Democrats and therefore white conservative Southern Democrats in the 60s and before.
13:29:49 White Southern Democrats and therefore white conservative Southern Democrats in the 60s and before. A majority of those seats are now held by white conservative Republicans on the one hand, or in the case of concentrated black majority districts. Black democrats who generally are liberal and they're voting behavior on the other.
13:30:01 generally are liberal and their voting behavior on the other. And you know that's another topic beyond this podcast, but the drawing of majority minority districts has concentrated black voters in ways that allow black members of Congress to be elected
13:30:17 and almost all those members are Democrats and represent pretty safe districts. But there has been a polarization by both race and party and southern congressional delegations.
13:30:26 But that has in terms of numbers that is working republicans favor. As many of the old Southern democratic seats are now held by white conservative Republicans throughout the region.
13:30:37 So in some states like Arkansas. There are no democrats and no people of color in the congressional delegation and other states like Mississippi there is one black democrat but three white Republicans and the delegation and the Alabama there's one black
13:30:53 Democrat, and six white Republicans and the congressional delegation so you do see a market polarization both unraced based on race and party combined.
13:31:04 That's amazing. Absolutely.