Hillary Clinton still has 347 Electoral College votes, the same as in Sabato’s first Crystal Ball prediction, but he moved Georgia and Arizona to Leans Republican from Likely Republican.
Sabato writes:
Both states typically vote several points more Republican than the nation, but they are both becoming more diverse…Georgia has a significant and deeply Democratic bloc of African-American voters as well as a growing, educated, white-collar professional class that might be turned off by Trump. While Trump is still a favorite in both places, we see Clinton having the potential to grab one or both if she ends up winning a big national victory, so we’re moving Arizona and Georgia from Likely Republican to Leans Republican.
While Sabato consistently has near-perfect accuracy in his across-the-board picks, I still don’t think Georgia is going to vote blue any time soon. President Obama got Democrats sort-of close but Hillary is no Obama. Moreover, minority voters make up a pitifully low percentage of registered voters so I just don’t know where the new Democratic voters are coming from. And for nearly 20 years (!) I’ve heard that Georgia is just a few years away from flipping thanks to minority voters.
So what say you, GAPol aficionados?