Thread by @Jake_W

I have been analyzing the results from a number of Georgia Counties from the #2020elections. This began once I started realizing that the counties that gave David Perdue more votes than Donald Trump was hardly a random distribution.
#electiontwitter

So, in order to understand how David Perdue got more votes than Trump all happened without digging into the HUGE metro Atlanta counties, I compiled a list to research.

It narrowed down to 12: Atkinson, Clarke, Crisp, Dade, Early, Greene, Montgomery, Oconee, Pickens, Terrell, Walker, Whitfield.

Clarke is Athens (UGA) and a Democratic stronghold. Only large city on this list. It and Terrell were the only counties that voted Democratic here.

Clarke gave 614 more votes to David Perdue than Trump--his best total for any county not officially in metro Atlanta (but it is in the CSA). Oconee gave Perdue over 500 more. The reason? The counties are loaded with affluent, college educated whites, and Oconee is extremely R.

Only 2 of Clarke's more than 20 precincts favored Trump over Perdue by votes, even as they lost all of them.

Of my 12 Georgia Counties, 7 gave David Perdue more votes, while 5 gave Trump more.

Ossoff, by the way, lagged Biden everywhere, and if he topped Biden in any of these precincts, it was only a tiny handful. The deficit was worst in rural South GA, especially among blacks.

So I sorted these precincts into columns based on whether they gave David Perdue or Donald Trump more votes. The results were telling...

Trump did indisputably better with rural and blue collar suburban whites.

Perdue did better with basically everyone else.

#electiontwitter

Although Atlanta area minorities did favor Trump, but that's not what I was looking at. Hispanic precincts (Whitfield and Atkinson are the two most Hispanic counties in GA by percent) were about a 50-50 split between Trump and Perdue favoring.
#electiontwitter

Rural and small town African American areas favored David Perdue over Donald Trump, sometimes by amounts that were amazing for the size of the precincts. 3-4% shifts!

This is entirely how Albany, GA, and Dougherty County gave more votes to Perdue than Trump. #electiontwitter

The precinct of Blakely in Early County gave Perdue 64 more votes than Trump out of a pool of 3600ish ballots. In Crisp County, Cordele precinct gave Perdue 76 more votes. Combined w/ a large trail off from Biden to Ossoff, it was enough to allow Perdue to win it as Trump lost

For all the stereotypes of African Americans not voting for down ballot races, the Republican voters in minority-majority precincts were far less likely to trail off down ballot in these Georgia Counties.

Rural and blue collar whites did much more.

As far as the precinct sorting goes, tho, far more interesting stuff awaited.

In Trump precincts, Trump won 74.85% & Perdue 73.97%.
Turnout was 68.12%.

In Perdue precincts, Biden won 51.27% to 47.28%. Perdue edged Ossoff 49.17% to 48.65%

Turnout? 72.31% #electiontwitter

Basically, Trump did better almost largely in places that were heavily Republican already--and blue collar, white, and rural.

Perdue did better in heavily Republican areas that were affluent and had lots of college degrees. And everywhere else, too.

David Perdue did a better job than Trump at convincing non-Republicans to vote Republican.

Or that's what the precinct results say. #electiontwitter

And for all the talk of Trump driving his base's turnout sky high, precincts that favored David Perdue in the vote count edged the Trump ones in turnout by over 4%.

Trump maxed out support in rural and blue collar areas, but he didn't max out turnout enough! #electiontwitter

To help control for heavily Democratic Clarke County possibly weighing Perdue down and to equalize the county split, I added two midsized Republican counties to the sorting list--but ones that gave Trump more votes than Perdue. I went with Houston and Glynn.

After sorting their precincts into the list, the results were:

Trump precincts:
Trump 68.54%, Perdue 67.92%.
Turnout was 67.77%.

Perdue precincts:
Trump 51.20%, Perdue 52.86%.
Turnout was 73.53%

Almost a 5% difference in turnout. #2020elections #electiontwitter #gapol

So yes, I'm a *little* skeptical of the claims by Trump diehards that the Trump led GOP was indisputably better than the "old guard", "establishment", "perennial loser" GOP.

Trump matches David Perdue's turnout in his precincts and he probably wins the state. #ElectionTwitter

Trump convinced a bunch of low turnout white precincts in rural and blue collar areas to come out in numbers that would match affluent white precincts in a (previously) good turnout Presidential year. Trade-off is that he convinced all those other precincts to go even higher.

Heck, if Trump just matches David Perdue's vote count in Cobb, Fulton, and DeKalb, he wins Georgia.

But I was trying to stay out of the Atlanta metro. Only exurban Pickens made it to my list. #electiontwitter #election2020

Long story short: Trump was by far his own worst enemy, and it's far from clear that the "old guard" GOP would have done worse than this. The precincts that gave David Perdue, far from perfect himself, more votes than him prove that.
#2020Election #Election2020 #electiontwitter

Hoping that @EWErickson, @baseballcrank, @robgreeneII, @varadmehta, @CarlPaulus, and @FormerlyCBM see this.

Donald Trump's precincts in Georgia look like the Trump and GOP base--white, blue collar, rural and suburban, lower and lower-middle class without a lot of college degrees

David Perdue favoring precincts look far more like the entire state of Georgia as a whole. #electiontwitter