Why Georgia's 2nd CD isn't competitive
With a mixture of demographics, a 30-year incumbent with crossover appeal, and a weak challenger, Georgia 2nd congressional district stays firmly in the Likely Democratic column
After the election of Joe Biden in 2020, it’s undeniable that Democrats have backslid into a position where they’d be favored to lose the House majority in 2022; and given the old GA-2’s position as a seat where Biden only won by 12.2 percentage points it became pretty obvious that the district would be in play in 2022, and after the recruitment of the once thought to be a strong candidate former U.S. Army Captain Jeremy Hunt by national Republicans, it seemed that incumbent U.S. Representative Sanford Bishop would have to start thinking about putting the gloves on to keep his seat in Congress. However, it’s only gotten worse for Republicans in what was already a long-shot bid for them, and it’s probably not going to be competitive in November.
The GA Dems are plenty strong here
Any Republican bid in GA-2 was already going to be extremely hard for them to pull off, and it’d be basically impossible for them to beat Sanford Bishop outside of a heavily red-leaning year with state level nominees that could match the late Senator Johnny Isakson’s margins in the district (he lost 49.2-48.1 in the new district lines, or a loss of 1.1 points). Additionally, they’d need a candidate that could not only run even with the statewide R nominees, but overperform them… and going up against Sanford Bishop is a herculean task, and I have my doubts that Sanford Bishop underperforms the statewide D nominees in any circumstance.
For one, the man is a fundraising machine, and he’s able to get as much PAC money as he wants, which means he can dominate the airwaves with his bipartisan track record to max out his black support and even gain crossover white support (and he’s been very successful at doing that.)
How successful, you may ask? Well, the SplitTicket Wins-Over-Replacement model has him overperforming the fundamental metrics by 2.4 points in 2020, and while that might seem like a little amount, it makes it much harder for Republicans to win…
The Republican Achilles Heel
Even assuming that they were somehow able to force Sanford Bishop into a situation where he’d be in a fight for his life, there’s one glaring problem; how can they win a 49.3% Black VAP district? There’s two predominant theories I’ve seen that could precipitate such an event;
Republicans can gain enough black support to push themselves over the 50% line
The district can be flipped by the environment as seen in 2010
Obviously, theory number one is not happening, so I think the second theory is more compelling. Bishop only won by 51.4-48.6 (+2.8 pts) in a district that’s relatively similar to the current GA-2’s shape, it would immediately suggest to the aloof observer that Bishop was in for a wild rodeo. But looking at it deeper, redistricting between 2005-2022 has made it an apples to oranges comparison for 2022.
Here’s what the 2007-2013 version of GA-2 looked like using President 2008 data, overlapped with the new GA-2. This version of GA-2 was Obama+8.9, or only 1.7 points to the left of the nation.
Compared to the 2020s version of the district, the 2020s version is much bluer just comparing 2008 and 2020 data, but in my opinion that is apples to oranges. I’ve mapped the 2020s version of the district using 2008 data, to show simply how much bluer the new 2008 district is compared to the old 2008 district (you can thank the addition of Macon to the district for it being so much bluer).
While a few census blocks might be off, I’m pretty confident that the 2020s version of the district was Obama 56.6-42.9 (+13.7). If these lines were used in 2010, it’s not unreasonable to assume that Bishop would’ve won by 7-9 percentage points (just using a uniform swing); and considering 2010 was R+7, it’s not unreasonable to assume Bishop would’ve won by more than 15 points if 2010 was somehow a neutral year and the 2020s lines were somehow adopted. While Bishop’s crossover appeal has somewhat dissipated since then, it’s still there, and this goes to show how winning a racially polarized black near-majority district is almost impossible for Republicans. Unless…
The Good Candidate Argument
Even though the national GOP already knew their chances were weak to win this seat, thinking that it would be a large red wave year they decided to go for an eleventh-hour attempt and so they recruited former U.S. Army Captain Jeremy Hunt as their candidate in this seat. He was thought to be an above-average candidate by the GOP and by pundits, both because of his hypothesized black crossover-appeal and his rhetoric;
- Nate Hochman/National Review/1/21/22
To be honest, he was a good candidate, and he could’ve kept the margin at least within a few points. He raised $993,000 dollars, and even though he spent almost all of it on the primary, he probably could’ve generated enough money to fight the good fight in the general, and maybe even get a little, small bit of black crossover appeal (though I doubt that second part.)
…but none of that mattered in the end.
The local GOP in this seat was weirded out by national Republicans trying to coronate Jeremy Hunt, so after the first primary result they consolidated around Chris West as their candidate in the runoff, and at the end of the day, politics is local and Chris West won despite Hunt pouring a million dollars into the primary. Chris West is no Jeremy Hunt; he hasn’t raised half of what Jeremy Hunt did, never-mind spent half of what Jeremy Hunt did. Kyle Kondik said this better than I can;
- Kyle Kondik/Sabato’s Crystal Ball at UVA Center for Politics/7/28/22
In Memoriam
After a rocky few months, the GOP’s chances in this seat have gone from being the highest they’ve been in years to becoming quite a tricky lift. Combined with demographics and pure partisan lean plus Sanford Bishop’s appeal, I believe GA-2 is firmly LIKELY DEMOCRATIC.