If Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed is right, it won’t be long before red state Georgia turns blue and turns for good.
In a meeting with the Atlanta Press Club Thursday, Reed, a Democrat, predicted that US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will win the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and that she will carry the state of Georgia.
“Georgia is on an irreversible path to a Democratic majority,” Reed said.
That would make Hillary the first Democrat to carry Georgia, which went overwhelmingly for Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election, since her husband, Bill Clinton, did so when he was elected president in 1992.
“The Clintons have a special affection for Georgia,” Reed told the Atlanta Press Club.
The Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Dave Williams first reported Reed’s comments to the group. Reed will meet with the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists on Saturday in a special meeting with WSB’s program director, Condace Pressley.
Currently the Georgia House of Representatives has 116 Republicans and only 63 Democrats, with one Independent. The state senate is similarly in firm Republican control, with 34 Republicans and 20 Democrats.
Reed said his prediction for a Clinton victory in Georgia was based on changing demographics in the state that favor Democrats regaining power here after more than a decade of Republican control.
Georgia’s Hispanic population is growing much faster than that of any other group, and Hispanic voters in recent years have tended to support Democratic candidates.
As for his own political future, Reed repeated his intention to seek a second term as mayor this fall, despite some “friendly calls” from the Obama administration.
“I got my dream job,” he said. “Y’all are stuck with me for another five years.”
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