Cobb County and the 2020 General Election: Part 1 – Cobb County Courier

Were going to run a series of articles looking at Cobb County and the 2020 General Election in some detail. The numbers in the article are from the current state of the election on the countys results page. There is a recount in progress, but it is not expected to significantly shift the numbers.

This is part one of that series.

This first installment is just an overview of the bigger picture by comparing the results in the presidential race with one of the U.S. Senate races.

In later articles well dig into the county commission district and precinct levels for various races.

During the 2016 election when Hillary Clinton received the largest number of votes within Cobb, there was some speculation that those results were nothing more than dislike of Donald Trump among some suburban Republicans, and that the county was still solidly Republican.

The 2020 election dispelled that notion, and shows that Cobb is an increasingly majority Democratic county.

Democrats swept all the countywide seats, in addition to giving President-elect Biden and Democratic senatorial candidate Jon Ossoff the majority of votes from Cobb in their two races.

Lets compare two maps from the results website. They will give a clear idea also of where Democrats are strong, and where Republicans are strong.

The first is the map of the presidential race, a screenshot from the Cobb County election results web page. If you want to zoom in, find your own precinct, and see more information you can visit the interactive version of this map by following this link.

In the map above, the precincts voting for Joe Biden are in green, and the votes for Donald Trump are in dark blue.

As you can see from the map, Bidens strength was in South Cobb (including Mableton and Austell) and Powder Springs, Smyrna, Marietta, the City of Acworth and the City of Kennesaw.

Trumps votes were concentrated in the northwest and northeast corners of the county.

The total votes cast for president was 393,746. Biden received 221,846 or 56.34 percent of the vote, Trump received 165,459 votes or 42.02 percent, and Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgenson received 6,441 or 1.64 percent of the total.

A good test of the effect of Donald Trumps unpopularity with a segment of Republican voters is to compare the map above with the U.S. Senate race between Jon Ossoff and David Perdue.

The Ossoff-Perdue map above shows that the general trends are similar, but Perdue outperformed his fellow Republican Trump at the edges of northeast Cobb, and in one of the Vinings precincts.

So there is probably at least some percentage of Cobb residents who are Republican voters, but did not vote for Trump, and they seem concentrated in the more affluent parts of the county.

Below are two tables. The first shows the precincts won by Trump. The second the precincts won by Biden. To see a list of precincts with the addresses of their voting sites follow this link.

One precinct, Bells Ferry 02, was an exact tie between Biden and Trump at 1127 each, with 51 votes for Libertarian Jo Jorgenson.

In future articles well look at more specific numbers at the precinct level, and get a firmer grip on voting preferences across the county.

The second in the series will look at Cobb Board of Commissioners races.

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Cobb County and the 2020 General Election: Part 1 - Cobb County Courier