Georgia
			15 votes
			Bush - 17 points
			The last time this state voted Democratic....
			... NAFTA was signed.
			Race
			- Heavily white - Large African-American population - Small Latino population
			Like elsewhere in the South, Bush won the white vote in a cakewalk by a better than 3-1 margin. Here however he also carried the Latino vote by 13 points. Kerry, of course, took the black vote by a better than 7-1 margin.
			Age
			All groups - Bush
			The older they were the more Republican. Bush took 52% of the youngest voters and 64% of the oldest.
			Economics
			Poor and working class - Kerry Middle and upper classes - Bush
			Quite a sharp split here - one common in the South. Wide margins of voters under $30,000 gave Kerry a huge boost. But in the lower middle class the advantage shifts to Bush and above $50,000 its a Republican landslide. Kerry's support was very limited outside the bottom fifth of the economic totem pole.
			Politics
			- Average partisanship - Significant Republican tilt - Below average Democratic loyalty - Excellent Republican loyalty - Independents tilt significantly Republican
			There are no positive signs here for Democrats. Republicans hold a 42-34 advantage over Democrats. It's an advantage Bush bolstered with a 21-point win among independents. As if this news wasn't bad enough, the defection numbers reveal more problems. Roughly one out of every 33 Republican voters broke ranks to vote for the opposition. That number for the Democrats was nearly one out of eight. As I said, no good news.
			Ideology
			- Strong conservative tilt
			Better than two of every five Georgians are conservative. Only 14% are liberal. Interestingly, the moderates, who slightly outnumber the conservatives, actually voted for Kerry by five points. But that didn't stop the GOP steamroller.
			Religion
			- Heavily Protestant - Significant Catholic population
			Almost three quarters of the state is protestant. About a tenth is Catholic. It didn't matter. They both loved George W. Bush by wide margins.
			Demographics
			-  Predominantly suburban population - Large rural population - Significant urban population
			Bush even won the urban areas here - though just barely. He won by wide margins in the suburbs and rural areas. None of this is a big surprise but the one interesting thing is that while Bush won the rural areas he actually LOST the small town vote which is rather uncharacteristic though it reflects a national trend that showed Bush much weaker in small town America than in outlying rural areas. This was definitely true in Georgia, Michigan and Iowa. In Georgia, he scored 45% in small towns and 75% in outlying areas. Nearly 50% of Georgia's population is in the city of Atlanta or its suburbs. Unfortunately for Kerry, they vote very differently from each other. Atlanta voted for Kerry 2-1 but its suburbs voted overwhelmingly for Bush - as did the rest of the state.
			Other factors
			Both the war and Bush are very popular here with 57% and 59% approval ratings respectively.

The Land of the Blue

Where centrism and progressivism meet