Black eligible voters in Georgia have played a significant role in driving the growth of the state’s electorate over the past two decades. Between 2000 and 2019, Georgia’s eligible voter population grew by 1.9 million, with nearly half of this increase attributed to growth in the state’s Black voting population, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of new census data.
As an emerging battleground state, Georgia’s changing electoral makeup has been the focus of renewed attention in the 2020 election cycle. Biden won the state by a very narrow margin, but it was the first time a Democratic presidential candidate had won Georgia in nearly three decades.
In 2019, the Black voting population in Georgia reached a record high of 2.5 million eligible voters, making up a third of the state’s total electorate. Over the past two decades, the share of Black eligible voters increased by 5 percentage points. This was the highest growth rate of any racial or ethnic group in Georgia, and also the largest percentage point increase among Black voters in any state in the country.
