Muscogee election analysis: Clinton takes most precincts, but GOP still holds north

Make Muscogee County's Super Tuesday a game of territory gained, and of 26 voting precincts Hillary Clinton took 17, Donald Trump took eight, and Marco Rubio one.

The Republican precincts all were concentrated in northwest Columbus. As identified either by region or polling place, voting Trump were Britt David, St. Peter, Cornerstone, Columbus Tech (formerly Northside and Fox), St. Mark, St. Paul, Moon-Morningside and Epworth.

Rubio scored Wynnbrook, which nearing 56 percent had the city's highest voter turnout. Rubio barely won it, 330 votes to Trump's 311.

Clinton swept across the city's south and east, taking Wynnton, Carver-Mack, St. John-Belvedere, Cusseta Road, the National Infantry Museum (formerly Muscogee Elementary), Eddy, Mount Pilgrim, Faith Tabernacle, Fort, Rothschild, Gentian, St. Andrews, Salvation Army (formerly Blackmon Road), First African, Gallops, Edgewood and Psalmond Road.

Use the typical "red state-blue state" color coding for Republicans and Democrats and put those colors on a precinct map, and it appears a blue sea breaks upon a red peninsula, with Democrats dominating the south and east, and a Republican enclave wedged in the northwest, coming to a point at Cross Country Plaza, the St. Paul precinct.

Looks can be deceiving.

Though Clinton trounced Bernie Sanders here and easily won in the heavily Democratic south side of town, the numbers elsewhere don't show a Democratic sweep, because the Republican vote was divided, with Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio drawing substantial support in precincts Clinton won overall.

In every northside precinct where Clinton got the most votes, more people voted for Republican candidates.

The division within the Republican ranks also inflates Trump's victory here. In every precinct he won, more Republicans together voted for his rivals, particularly Cruz, Rubio, John Kasich and Ben Carson.

Now what?

Where this goes from here is anyone's guess, and even some longtime party activists would rather not.

"A lot of people, including me, have been wrong about this race so far," said Colin Martin, who has been involved in party politics since he joined the Young Republicans as a University of Georgia freshman in 1984.

On Saturday, he was on his way home from a monthly Republican Leadership for Georgia conference in Milledgeville.

He chairs the organization's board.

The turnout shows the hotly contested race for the Republican presidential nomination has been good for the party, with more folks voting Republican than in 2008 or 2012, he said.

"That's true across the state and across the country."

Critics may blast Trump, but he, Cruz and Rubio are "bringing people into the process" who otherwise might be apathetic or cynical, and that enthusiasm was reflected in Tuesday's results, Martin said.

"People were excited about these candidates. I think we can attribute the turnout to Cruz, Rubio and Trump."

The state party reported that almost 1.3 million residents voted Republican on Tuesday, the precise number 1,292,693 out of a total of 2,053,828.

In 2012, 901,470 Georgians voted Republican in the presidential primary. In 2008, it was 963,541.

Still those voters have yet to coalesce around a single candidate, giving Democrats hope that they can gain some advantage from the schism.

Clinton took advantage of it in northeast Columbus.

Take the St. Andrews precinct, for example, a big slice of northern suburbs, from Miller Road up to Pierce Chapel Road, and from Veterans Parkway east to Grey Rock Road. It includes Blackmon Road, Schomburg Road and Midland Trace.

Combining results from both party primaries, Clinton took it with 550 votes; Trump came in second with 488. Cruz got 378; Rubio 343; Kasich 140; and Carson 92.

Add that up, and the Republicans there got 1,441.

St. Andrews also happens to be where Clinton's rival Sanders got the most votes in Columbus: 199.

But even if those votes had gone to Clinton, she still would be far behind the Republican field.

South of St. Andrews is the Gentian precinct, from Macon Road north to Miller Road, and from the airport west to Woodruff Farm Road.

Clinton won it overall with 372, though Trump was a close second at 344.

Again big chunks of the Republican vote went to Trump's rivals. Cruz got 286, Rubio 206, Carson 89 and Kasich 53, totaling 634, which with Trump's score makes 978.

Again, add Sanders' 188 and the Democrats at 560 trail the Republican pack.

The pattern's repeated at the Salvation Army precinct, formerly Blackmon Road.

Voters who once went to Blackmon Road Middle School now cast ballots at the Salvation Army Church, 5201 Warm Springs Road.

That precinct spreads from Miller Road northeast to Psalmond Road, and from Cooper Creek west to U.S. 27. It includes Flat Rock Park, Greystone Farms and the Midland Chase Loop.

Clinton took it overall with 207 votes to Trump's 179. Sanders got 84.

Cruz got 159, Rubio 105, Carson 47 and Kasich 33, so the major Republicans there beat Democrats 476 to 291.

Keep tracking north and east and next comes the Psalmond Road precinct, the Muscogee County panhandle from Chattsworth Road north to the Harris County line, and from Talbot County west to Grey Rock Road. It includes Midland Road, Lynch Road, Garrett Road and the Bull Creek Golf Course.

It, too, went to Clinton, who got 587 votes to Trump's 489. But Trump barely withstood Cruz at 435, and Rubio got 310, Kasich 112, and Carson 98. Add Clinton's tally to Sanders' 193 for 780, and the Republicans with 1,444 whip them soundly by 664.

So far none of the numbers cited here are official. The Muscogee County Board of Elections and Registrations is scheduled to meet at 11:30 a.m. Monday in the elections office at the City Services Center to certify the results.

John Van Doorn, a political science professor and former chairman of the Muscogee Democratic Party, said he was "pleasantly surprised" to hear the party scored as well as it did in the northern precincts.

Like Martin, Van Doorn also was tending to party business Saturday, returning from a meeting of 2nd Congressional District Democrats in Dawson.

He was surprised Trump didn't do better in Muscogee County and thought that indicated the Republican "horse race" lacks a leader.

That the Republicans did not sooner unite behind a single candidate could be "damaging their brand," he said.

"We're actually well on the way," he said of the Democrats deciding on their nominee. "We're falling together while they're falling apart."

Because so many Republicans still dislike Trump, Van Doorn questioned whether they would support him in the General Election, were he their nominee. In that scenario, "it looks pretty good in the fall" for the Democrats, he said.

Trump's win here among Republicans was regarded as impressive.

He got 5,325 votes (34.4 percent) to Cruz's 4,177 (29 percent) and Rubio's 3,424 (22 percent).

But in each of the eight precincts he won, more Republicans together voted for rivals Rubio, Cruz, Kasich and Carson.

Where Trump got 201 votes in Britt David, they got 300. He got 286 at St. Peter; they got 564. He got 404 at Cornerstone; they got 689.

The pattern continues. At Columbus Tech, where this year polls from Northside Baptist and Fox Elementary consolidated, Trump got 202; his rivals 259.

That's as close as he came to them.

At St. Mark, Trump got 578; his challengers 1,234. At Moon-Morningside, Trump got 391, his contenders 714.

At St. Paul the score was Trump 413; rivals 884. At Epworth: Trump 268; the others 434.

If Trump becomes the party nominee, it will be interesting to see if Republican votes that went elsewhere shift to him.

They will if Clinton's the Democratic nominee, said Martin.

Republicans would not want to miss a chance to vote against Clinton, whether they liked their nominee or not. "I think Republicans can come together around beating Hillary," Martin said.

Tom Dolan, a Columbus State University political science professor, said disenchanted voters might opt for a third-party candidate, who with sizeable support can influence the direction of the two major parties.

With Republicans divided among "three major candidates and a tagalong," the field opens for other options, he said.

He points to billionaire Ross Perot's run in 1992, when 19 percent of the national vote went to the third-party candidate, costing incumbent George H.W. Bush the election and giving Clinton's husband, Bill, the win.

Perot's influence was reflected in the 1994 midterm elections, Dolan said. Georgia Congressman Newt Gingrich incorporated some of Perot's ideas into the Republicans' "Contract With America," and those organizing principles helped the party take control of Congress.

Clinton's southern sweep

Unlike Trump and his rivals in the north, Clinton swept southside precincts -- though not unexpectedly.

Take St. John-Belvedere, for instance, where her 1,225 votes crushed the combined 217 all the other candidates got, Democrats and Republicans, including dropouts and little-knowns.

At Wynnton she won it all 728 to 543. At Carver-Mack, she scored 802 to the field's 132.

At Cusseta Road it was Clinton 743, everyone else 149.

At the National Infantry Museum: Clinton 476, everyone else 135.

The pattern continued through these south Columbus precincts:

Eddy: Clinton 354; the rest 249.

Mount Pilgrim: Clinton 1,153; the rest 229.

Fort: Clinton 989; the rest 229.

Rothschild: Clinton 1,035; the rest 395.

Only in downtown and midtown did the vote fracture.

Clinton took First African with 130 votes. Sanders got 76. Trump and Rubio each got 33; Kasich got 20 and Cruz 32.

Clinton won Gallops with 239 to Sanders' 85. Trump had 79.

The combination of all votes Clinton lost totaled 274, so it was close.

An often-contested precinct is Edgewood, in the city's center.

Clinton took it with 387 votes to Trump's 115. Cruz got 106, and Sanders 105. The votes Clinton lost there came to 425 -- just 38 more than her score.

Clinton's strong showing in the south was no surprise to Martin.

"That's exactly what I would expect," he said. The Clintons since the 1990s have built a strong network of support among blacks, and that's obvious from the results.

Dolan said Clinton's brand clearly appeals to black voters. "Whereas Bernie Sanders doesn't," he added.

Van Doorn said he also would have expected Clinton to sweep the south precincts, but he was surprised Sanders didn't score better in the city's center, such as around CSU's main campus.

He acknowledged that if Clinton became the nominee, she would face some challenges.

She would need a strong voter turnout, and she would need an absence of any breaking news regarding scandals, whether over her emails as secretary of state or another issue.

Van Doorn's been considering another prospect.

That the division within the Republican Party and Trump's negative impression overall could cause a "critical realignment" in which a majority of Americans leave one party for the other, akin to Franklin D. Roosevelt's support in 1932.

Frank Myers, a Muscogee County School Board representative who has run several political campaigns here, sees something else in the election results: a seething anger among voters that will distill into "political poison" for incumbents everywhere.

The fire that put Trump ahead of the Republican pack is not dying down, Myers said.

"He's being fueled by the failure of our government to adequately represent people."

For political junkies, the battles to come will be intriguing.

Said Dolan, "It's certainly going to be an interesting election year."

Said Martin, "I have never seen anything like this."

This story was originally published March 5, 2016 at 9:44 PM with the headline "Muscogee election analysis: Clinton takes most precincts, but GOP still holds north ."