Swing Districts: Split tickets common in South Georgia’s 151

Love and support can mean two different things in Georgia House District 151, especially in the presidential race that pits GOP nominee Donald Trump against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. “I love Hillary. She’s an awesome lady. All around respectable,” said Tye Lewis, a 25-year-old mother of three. “But I’m ready to see something different.” (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

Love and support can mean two different things in Georgia House District 151, especially in the presidential race that pits GOP nominee Donald Trump against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. “I love Hillary. She’s an awesome lady. All around respectable,” said Tye Lewis, a 25-year-old mother of three. “But I’m ready to see something different.” (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)


10 days until vote

Saturday marks 10 days until Americans vote in federal and state races on Nov. 8. All year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has brought you the key moments in those races, and it will continue to cover the campaign's main events, examine the issues and analyze candidates' finance reports until the last ballot is counted. You can follow the developments on the AJC's politics page at http://www.myajc.com/s/news/georgia-politics/ and in the Political Insider blog at http://www.myajc.com/s/news/political-insider/. You can also track our coverage on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GAPoliticsNews or Facebook at https://facebook.com/gapoliticsnewsnow.

HOUSE DISTRICT 151

Represented by state Rep. Gerald Greene, R-Cuthbert

Population: 53,409

Median income: $31,488

Median age: 40.5 years

Percent with a college degree: 13.8 percent

Percent Georgia natives: 76.0 percent

White: 39.1 percent

Black: 56.0 percent

Hispanic: 3.2 percent

Asian: 0.6 percent

Multirace: 0.2 percent

Other race: 0.1 percent

Source: The Georgia Legislative Navigator on MyAJC.com

HOUSE DISTRICT 151

Represented by state Rep. Gerald Greene, R-Cuthbert

Population: 53,409

Median income: $31,488

Median age: 40.5 years

Percent with a college degree: 13.8 percent

Percent Georgia natives: 76.0 percent

White: 39.1 percent

Black: 56.0 percent

Hispanic: 3.2 percent

Asian: 0.6 percent

Multirace: 0.2 percent

Other race: 0.1 percent

Source: The Georgia Legislative Navigator on MyAJC.com

Georgia isn’t blue or red. Vast portions of the state, from peanut country in rural South Georgia to the fast-growing Atlanta suburbs, are a purply stew.

And those sections — call them the swingiest of Georgia’s swing districts — could decide not only the state’s tight presidential race but also the elections down the ballot.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution visited five state House districts scattered across Georgia where the race for the White House seems the tightest.

One of them is District 151, a majority-black district in southwest Georgia that, against all odds, sends a conservative Republican back to the statehouse every two years.

DAWSON — This stretch of southwest Georgia farmland is the thorn in the side of Democrats. That’s because election after election, House District 151 defies political logic.

The majority-black district voted overwhelmingly for President Barack Obama in 2012. Yet voters keep returning Republican state Rep. Gerald Greene to the Capitol.

And though Democrat Hillary Clinton is likely to carry the area next month over Donald Trump, interviews with voters across the district suggest the split-ticket mentality is deeply rooted.

Meet Tye Lewis, a 25-year-old with three kids and two jobs — one working retail at a downtown Dawson clothing store and another in housekeeping at the local hospital. Her husband, Quintrell, works in sanitation and drives trucks on weekends.

And, she laments on a recent afternoon, no matter how hard they work, they can’t escape the feeling that they’re slipping behind. They don’t have money for the vacations they enjoyed when they were growing up; they barely make enough to cover expenses.

Her pick for president boils down to a sole concern: “making more money.”

“I love Hillary. She’s an awesome lady. All around respectable. But I’m ready to see something different,” Lewis said. “I know he’s a jerk. But what we’ve been doing isn’t working. We need to start making some big changes.”

Still, others see a Clinton victory as a harbinger of the booming 1990s her husband, Bill Clinton, presided over while in the White House. Christina Coleman, who works at a nearby poultry plant, said Bill Clinton is the main reason she cast an early ballot for his wife last week.

“She’s done a good job and so did her husband,” Coleman said, browsing in a beauty shop. “Besides, Trump acts too crazy for me. He’s got something going on.”

She, too, worries about the area’s economy. But jobs are plentiful, if not high-paying, thanks to a growing poultry business. And she said she’s no fan of the negativity she hears from Trump and other Republican candidates.

“We are doing all right,” she said. “I don’t even pay attention to all the talk. My mind is made up.”

She probably would have voted for Greene’s Democratic opponent, too, if he had one. But a controversial ruling seems to have saved him for another election.

Democrats recruited James Williams, a retired law enforcement officer, to challenge Greene this cycle. But he was disqualified due to a redistricting error that showed he actually lives in a different district.

The party instead is relying on Kenneth Zachary, a pastor who is running as an independent backed by Democratic leaders. Greene, himself a former Democrat who flipped to the GOP six years ago, has support from Republican heavyweights and decades of experience at the Capitol. He was first elected in 1982.

Vickie Coleman doesn’t hesitate to say she’ll back Greene next month. He was her social studies teacher, after all. But ask her about the presidential election, and you get a torrent.

“It would take me forever to tell you all my thoughts,” she said. “But I’ll boil it down: I am leaning toward Trump and I don’t like Hillary.”

Vickie Coleman, no relation to Christina Coleman, is making a complicated tradeoff with her decision. She’s willing to forgive Trump for some of his more egregious comments — his boasting about groping women, his crude language — for his promise of a better future for her daughters.

“I want to get our nation back on our feet. South Georgia is hurting, and I’ve got friends without jobs,” she said. “And the problem is immigration. Our country will let anyone and everyone in. And the Republicans, they can help fix it.”

Other swing districts: