Suburbanites are saving the Democrats in Georgia -- and elsewhere

MARIETTA, Ga. — Cobb County was established in the 1830s by White Americans on land that had been occupied by Cherokees, who were forced to move west in what is now known as the Trail of Tears. It is named after Thomas W. Cobb, who was a U.S. congressman and senator representing Georgia in the early 19th century and owned enslaved Black people. Perhaps the most important figure associated with Cobb is former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who represented the county in Congress in the early 1990s and is in many ways the intellectual godfather of today’s Republican Party.

But Cobb has changed dramatically. It’s now run by a majority-Black county commission. And Cobb is part of a group of suburban counties in the Atlanta area that has become increasingly Democratic and turned Georgia into a swing state.

In the 2004 election, Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry lost Georgia by 17 percentage points, including a 25-point defeat in Cobb. Two years ago, Joe Biden very narrowly won Georgia, in part because of his 14-point victory in Cobb. Sen. Raphael G. Warnock carried Cobb by 16 points in this month’s election and will need a similar margin to defeat Republican challenger Herschel Walker in their Dec. 6 runoff.

The electoral transformation of Cobb County is part of a broader shift happening in U.S. politics. Over the past decade, Americans who live in rural areas, a group that already leaned toward the Republicans, has become even more conservative. Urban areas are increasingly Democratic, but cities such as Detroit and Philadelphia were already so left-leaning that there wasn’t much room for Democratic growth. What’s been the saving grace for the Democrats in the 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections has been voters in suburban areas backing the party, particularly around Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia and Phoenix.