James_September-October_2026_web - Flipbook - Page 80
along with a little current commentary and some evidence to support what I wrote back then:
“The elite media will scoff at a potential Donald
Trump candidacy for president. They will consider it
a publicity move and a bluff. The Washington insiders will write off Trump as completely unquali昀椀ed to
be a presidential candidate, much less president.
“And as usual, they will be wrong… neither bigname politicians nor a dismissive D.C. press corps
should dissuade Trump from running for president.”
And no, I had nothing to do with persuading him
to run, so no “thank you” notes or hate mail.
CONTEMPLATING GEORGIA PARTISAN POLITICS
So much for national predictions, but James is a
true Georgia magazine. So let’s talk Georgia.
I’ve written and said on television many times over
the past ten years that Georgia will inevitably move
back to having a Democrat-dominated state government. In a relatively short time the landscape has
shifted. The state’s two U.S. senators are both Democrats. The Public Service Commission, usually the first
statewide positions to herald a shift in power, is still
majority Republican but hanging by a thread.
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Furthermore, the early polls in Georgia’s U.S.
Senate and gubernatorial races both showed the
Democrat incumbent leading the Republican nominee
by several points and the race for governor very tight.
In the blink of an eye Atlanta’s immediate neighboring counties have all become dominated by
Democratic officeholders. The exurbs are starting
to shift. And cities in north metro Atlanta that were
designed to be GOP safe carve-outs are controlled by
Democrats as well.
This is nothing new to me having grown up in a
Democrat-controlled Georgia and having served in
the Georgia House of Representatives when Democrats controlled both chambers and the governor’s
office. But whether 2026 ends up being the year that
the dam breaks in favor of Democrats remains to be
seen. There are two hidden forces battling one another to help determine that outcome: demographics
and election reform.
First, demographics. Georgia is now a majority-minority state. None of the very Republican “red
states” that border it are, and they are trending in
the opposite direction. As they become more solidly
Republican and primarily white, Georgia becomes
more racially diverse and Democrat.
Yet unlike the first go around, the Democratic
base in the emerging new party is not just AfricanAmerican and whites. It is Hispanic Latino, Asian
and numerous other nationalities. The polls at the
moment show these groups leaning Democrat.
The other competing force is election reform. When Jon Ossoff won his U.S. Senate seat
in 2020, he had the benefit of a chaotic election
system. Absentee mail-in ballots flooded the state.
“Zuck-bucks” paid by the Meta founders’ foundation
augmented voter turnout in metro Atlanta Democratic strongholds. Drop boxes were all over the
place and all too many not closely monitored. Voter
harvesting was so blatant that even I unwittingly
walked in on it being coordinated while staying
at a local hotel for a Christmas visit. Voter ID was
questionable.
The pandemic allowed for chaotic rules which
forced election monitors far away from those counting the ballots. Sure, it can be argued that none of it
happened. But the longtime Georgians who know
Georgia politics know it did.
So how many votes did it cost Republicans that
year? I’ve always said it is impossible to quantify. But
the number was not insignificant.
So, you take the number of new, diverse Democratic votes, add in affluent white females who have
drifted more into the Democratic column, and do
the math. I don’t think any of the nominees of either
party for either top position will win by the absurd
