On the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, President Joe Biden is visiting Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta to pay tribute to the late civil right pioneer, who helped lead the drive for equal voting rights for Black Americans. Georgia is also the state where the political importance of Black voters is clearest. They are one of the biggest reasons Georgia has swung from a red state to a purple one.
President Joe Biden is heading back to Georgia. On the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, he’s visiting Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where the civil rights pioneer once preached. The trip makes a lot of sense, not just to pay tribute to King, but also because King helped lead the drive for equal voting rights for Black Americans.
The Peach State is in many ways the place where the political importance of Black voters is clearest. They are one of the biggest reasons Georgia has swung from a red state to a purple one.
The current list of swing states in American politics mostly features places where Black voters don’t play an outsize role – states such as Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin. Even in swing states where Black voters make up at least 10% of the voting public (e.g., Michigan and Pennsylvania), the Black portion of the electorate in the 2020 election was comparable to what it was nationwide (12%).
Georgia is the big exception. According to US Census data, 33% of 2020 presidential election voters in the state were Black. That ranked second nationally behind deep-red Mississippi. Georgia’s own records show that a slightly smaller 29% of 2020 voters whose race was known were Black (or 27% when we include voters for whom race was unknown). That’s still the highest percentage in any swing state by far.
