Book Review: Flipped recounts Georgia progressives’ big 2020 breakthrough

If any­place in Amer­i­ca could be con­sid­ered the epi­cen­ter of the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, it would prob­a­bly be Geor­gia, the Peach State.

Prov­ing the wis­dom of the old adage that things often seem impos­si­ble until they’re done, Democ­rats in 2020 man­aged not only to cap­ture the state’s elec­toral votes for the first time in a gen­er­a­tion, but also changed the bal­ance of pow­er in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate by win­ning two runoff elections.

The thrilling vic­to­ries of the Rev­erend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, which were fol­lowed with­in hours by the Jan­u­ary 6th attack on the U.S. Capi­tol, are rich­ly chron­i­cled in Flipped, a recent­ly pub­lished book by the chief polit­i­cal reporter of the Atlanta Jour­nal-Con­sti­tu­tion, Greg Bluestein.

Flipped exam­ines the resur­gence of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty in Geor­gia and the par­ty’s big 2020 break­through, mak­ing the case that the Peach State is well posi­tioned to alter the tra­jec­to­ry of nation­al pol­i­tics and cre­ate a space for Democ­rats in the Deep South. The pro­gres­sive move­ment in Geor­gia, encour­aged by for­mer (and cur­rent!) guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date Stacey Abrams, has demon­strat­ed what can be achieved through savvy, per­sis­tent orga­niz­ing, and is already serv­ing as a mod­el for Democ­rats in oth­er red states.

In its ear­ly pas­sages, Flipped reviews the polit­i­cal land­scape in Geor­gia fol­low­ing the 2016 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion as well as intro­duc­ing key fig­ures such as Abrams and Ossoff, who are now very well known. Trump’s 2016 vic­to­ry over Hilary Clin­ton is char­ac­ter­ized as an impor­tant flash­point for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and a moti­vat­ing event for the state’s pro­gres­sive movement.

Bluestein helps read­ers get to know Abrams and Ossoff along with Repub­li­can foils like Bri­an Kemp, who Abrams is chal­leng­ing again this year.

(Kemp won renom­i­na­tion this past week in the Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry, defeat­ing David Per­due, while Abrams ran unop­posed in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic primary.)

Flipped describes how, in her 2018 guber­na­to­r­i­al cam­paign, Abrams broke with con­ven­tion by focus­ing on vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, espe­cial­ly among Georgia’s Black com­mu­ni­ty, in order to make the state’s pol­i­tics more inclusive.

Abrams struck a bal­ance in her cam­paign between cham­pi­oning pro­gres­sive posi­tions on tough issues such as repro­duc­tive rights (which pre­vi­ous Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates had avoid­ed doing), and empha­siz­ing pol­i­cy direc­tions sup­port­ed by a major­i­ty of Geor­gia vot­ers, includ­ing ideas to improve eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty and access to health­care. Though Abrams did not defeat Kemp to become gov­er­nor, her cam­paign changed the per­cep­tion of Geor­gia both inter­nal­ly and exter­nal­ly, set­ting the stage for its polit­i­cal meta­mor­pho­sis in 2020.

Repub­li­cans’ attacks on vot­ers and infringe­ments upon vot­ing rights also had a gal­va­niz­ing effect, inspir­ing Abrams to found Fair Fight and inspir­ing Democ­rats to com­mit to longer-term ini­tia­tives to orga­nize and reg­is­ter voters.

The sto­ry of Jon Ossof­f’s ascent is also retold.

In 2017, Ossoff became nation­al­ly known dur­ing a spe­cial elec­tion bat­tle for the Unit­ed States House, when he faced off against Repub­li­can Karen Handel.

Seek­ing to fend off attacks that he was too young and too inex­pe­ri­enced in addi­tion to being a res­i­dent of a dif­fer­ent dis­trict, Ossoff cam­paigned on fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty and eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty themes to appeal to swing voters.

Though he did­n’t win, his cam­paign turned heads. Not in recent mem­o­ry had a Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date come so close in a his­tor­i­cal­ly Repub­li­can district.

Bluestein then explains how Geor­gia Democ­rats decid­ed that for the 2020 cycle, they would cease attempt­ing to chase swing vot­ers through the pol­i­tics of tri­an­gu­la­tion and instead mobi­lize the par­ty’s base while adding new Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers to the rolls through vot­er reg­is­tra­tion cam­paigns, giv­ing their can­di­dates a foun­da­tion with which to build upon and find a path to victory.

Adapt­ing to life dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, the par­ty’s Sen­ate hope­fuls Warnock and Ossoff exper­i­ment­ed with new ways to cam­paign and lever­age sup­port from across the coun­try to build com­pet­i­tive cam­paigns capa­ble of tak­ing on their entrenched and cor­rupt Repub­li­can foes. On Elec­tion Day, both Warnock and Ossoff suc­ceed­ed in keep­ing their Repub­li­can oppo­nents under fifty per­cent, ensur­ing that there would be runoffs with huge stakes sev­er­al weeks later.

Geor­gia took cen­ter stage in the the­ater of Amer­i­can pol­i­tics fol­low­ing Joe Biden and Kamala Har­ris’ pro­ject­ed Elec­toral Col­lege win.

The full atten­tion of both par­ties turned to the Peach State, as the Sen­ate runoffs would decide which par­ty would con­trol the Sen­ate in the 117th Congress.

Bluestein uses his con­clud­ing chap­ters to sum­ma­rize the events that cul­mi­nat­ed in the his­toric dual vic­to­ries of Warnock and Ossoff, which shocked Repub­li­cans and end­ed Mitch McConnel­l’s reign as Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader.

Flipped pro­vides a sat­is­fy­ing account of the work put into orga­niz­ing Geor­gia, pro­vid­ing hope for all pro­gres­sives who feel iso­lat­ed in Repub­li­can con­trolled states or dis­tricts. It rec­ol­lects how Jon Ossoff rec­og­nized that the his­tor­i­cal­ly Repub­li­can dis­trict adja­cent to where he lived con­sis­tent­ly went with­out a seri­ous Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger and resolved to be the change.

Although Ossoff lost to Karen Han­del, the close­ness of the out­come helped open the door for anoth­er can­di­date, Lucy McBath, who defeat­ed Han­del in the next elec­tion cycle, and whose jour­ney to Con­gress is also covered.

Bluestein’s accounts of these elec­tions are fun to read, as are his descrip­tions of the can­di­dates’ growth as peo­ple and polit­i­cal leaders.

Flipped is an engag­ing read that offers some­thing for every­one, from those new to activism to expe­ri­enced polit­i­cal hands. It’s also a time­ly book, con­sid­er­ing that Stacey Abrams is once against again going up against Bri­an Kemp in what will like­ly be the nation’s most close­ly watched guber­na­to­r­i­al race.

It’s too soon to say if the break­through Democ­rats secured in 2020 in Geor­gia was the begin­ning of a durable realign­ment or a series of vic­to­ries that will be tough to repli­cate. Regard­less, the Biden/Harris, Warnock, and Ossoff wins in 2020–2021 did have a pro­found effect. They ensured the Demo­c­ra­t­ic tick­et would wind up with the same num­ber of elec­toral votes as the 2016 Repub­li­can tick­et and that the Sen­ate would be run by Democ­rats instead of by Republicans.

Had Repub­li­cans won the 2020 Geor­gia Sen­ate runoffs, there would almost cer­tain­ly not have been an Amer­i­can Res­cue Plan, an Infra­struc­ture Invest­ment and Jobs Act, or a new Supreme Court jus­tice named Ketan­ji Brown Jack­son. Or a record num­ber of diverse judi­cial nom­i­nees con­firmed to low­er fed­er­al courts. All of that only became pos­si­ble after Geor­gia pro­gres­sives flipped the Senate.