This really does feel like the old Hartsfield coalition its just happened beyond the city limits, said Professor Kruse, the historian. That alliance includes white college-educated suburbanites who, like the downtown business leaders before them, he said, arent necessarily personally liberal but who see the forces of illiberalism as being hostile to their own interests.
Now it is dog whistles and political conspiracy theories that are bad for business.
This larger Democratic coalition may also prove fragile, in some of the same ways. The Atlanta Way, for one, has often left out the interests of lower-income African-Americans.
I dont think its a strong enough coalition to create more equity in terms of improving majority-minority schools, or building more affordable housing, said Deirdre Oakley, a sociologist at Georgia State. And some of these suburbs, with their rising diversity, still dont want Atlanta transit.
But the coalition will have a chance to demonstrate its might again soon, in the Senate runoffs, and in a governors race likely to include Stacey Abrams again in 2022.
One way you could characterize what happened a month ago is this was the first time maybe the first time ever where urban Georgia outvoted rural Georgia, said Charles S. Bullock III, a political scientist at the University of Georgia.
That urban tally includes Savannah, Macon and Athens, but now, also, voters in suburban communities that, a generation ago, defined themselves as anything but urban.
Quoctrung Bui contributed to this article.read more
How Atlanta’s Politics Overtook the Suburbs, Too
