Wayne Flynt, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at Auburn University and an authority on Alabama history, predicts the political environment in Alabama will follow Georgia's example in 10 years.
In the 2020 election, Georgia's results stunned many with the high-profile races that went to the Democratic Party.
Joe Biden became the first Democrat to win the Peach State since Bill Clinton won it on the way to the presidency in 1992. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock were also able to capitalize on a topsy-turvy election cycle to turn both of Georgia's U.S. Senate seats blue.
During an appearance on Mobile radio's FM Talk 106.5, Flynt said the aging demographic combined with the growth of the African-American community will push Alabama to be more like its neighbor to the east.
"[T]he demography of Alabama, of course, is changing," Flynt said. "And you have to remember during the COVID period, the population of virtually every state in terms of growth -- in terms of babies born and people dying, there are a lot more people dying than people being born. So, the first thing you start off with is American demographics are changing, and that's probably a permanent change. There just are not going to be as many babies being born because there are not going to be as many families having eight or nine children as they once did.
"Secondly, you've got racial change. Alabama is going to increasingly have more and more African-Americans in the population as a percentage. If you think about it -- Georgia for instance and the dramatic changes in Georgia politics -- Georgia has about 10% more African-American population than Alabama does. Alabama is basically around 26% African-American. Georgia is around 35%. If you take the increasing percentage of Blacks in the Alabama population plus the younger people in the population, plus the political attitudes of older white people in the population who represent a significant portion of the total elderly population, who are going to die off in the next 20 years, like me, what you've got is a state in a decade that will look more like Georgia than it does look like present-day Alabama."
He concluded by saying that if we look at Georgia now, that's exactly what we will see coming in Alabama.
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