The 35-year-old, who worked before moving to Oakland, California, said he was a registered Republican until his early 20s. But even when he was politically intent, he says he usually did not vote.
That changed when he came to the East Coast.
“Since I’m no longer in California, I can ‘t hide behind’ Oh, it’s a blue state, ‘” said Lu, who grew up in Los Angeles. “Now I have to put my words into action.”
“New residents have absolutely played a role, not only in our changing demographics, but also in what is possible with our politics, and soon also with policy,” says Nse Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project, a non partisan registration group for voters.
“This influx of people entering our state not only all over the country but also all over the world has underlined Georgia just a little bit like this (cosmopolitan) crucible in the deep south.”
Newcomers were just one part of the comparison – and experts say it’s hard to say how much influence they had in turning Georgia around.
What experts do know is that many new residents are more likely to vote blue.
“We know that the strongest Republican voters are people who have been in Georgia for more than 20 years,” Charles Bullock, a professor of political science, told the University of Georgia in Athens. “Individuals who have spent less time in Georgia are more likely to be Democratic.”
Who the newcomers are
While it’s hard to pinpoint who the newcomers are, Bullock says Georgia’s voter registration sites offer clues.
“We know that a million new voters have been registered since 2016,” Bullock said, adding that the number does not necessarily mean that all the new voters were newcomers, but probably also new residents.
About two-thirds of voters were minorities, he said. Half of them were under 35, Bullock added.
“We know that voters from minority groups are more democratic than Republicans and that younger voters are more democratic than Republicans,” he said. “We can say that we can say anything: ‘Well, the people who move here bring not only their furniture, but also their bias. And many of them bring democratic backs.’
The majority of newcomers are Black, Ufot, from the New Georgia Project.
Many are black Americans, retreating in a turn of the Great Migration – a period around the 1920s and 1970s, where many Blacks left the South, fled racial violence and sought better jobs.
“That’s why black people in Chicago are redirecting their roots to Mississippi, black people in New York and New Jersey are taking their roots to the Carolinas and Georgia,” Ufot said. “Now those people are moving … South back or they are children, their offspring.”
Others are immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean, who have recently become U.S. citizens, she said.
“But to be clear, it’s not just black voters,” Ufot said. “We are also talking about a significant influx of AAPI (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) and Latinx Georgians.”
With the changes taking place, Bullock says the Republican leadership in the state is “beginning to wake up to the challenges they face.”
‘That among younger voters, these more diverse ethnic voters, the warning signs are there that if Republicans do not come up with a broader and more comprehensive policy, yes, they may still be able to control the legislature now … but their long-term positions are affected dangerous. ‘
“The GOP leadership is going to seriously rethink how they want to present themselves.”
Why they come
In his course in Southern politics, Bullock said that he no longer divides the region between the Deep South and the Rim South (the fringe states) for his students, as before.
“What I’m telling my students is that it’s not really getting to grips with things anymore in terms of bias,” he said. “What we’re talking about in my class right now is the growing south versus the stagnant south.”
Georgia falls into the former category – one of several states across the east coast, plus Texas – that is growing and attracting more investment.
‘The stagnant parts of the South, where people are leaving or growing very slowly (in) those areas – like Alabama, Arkansas, for example – the Republican Party is still growing, unlike the Democratic Party which has started to make a comeback, said Bullock.
Transplants come for all sorts of reasons. Many, like Lu, move because of jobs. But it’s not just work: the state also offers an attractive housing market and a more affordable lifestyle, unlike other populated areas in the country where the cost of living has skyrocketed.
Diana Gu, a 29-year-old native of Florida, settled in the Old Fourth Ward area of Atlanta in Fulton County – a heavy blue part of the state – after jumping around different parts of the country for months to holds botanical and wildlife research.
“I wanted to get a full-time job somewhere that was affordable,” she said. ‘Somewhere that was more diverse and somewhere that it felt new, but also homely, I think. And Atlanta fits in with all that. ‘
The thriving populations make a difference.
“If you want to see where Democrats are starting to make a comeback, Virginia is already a blue state,” Bullock said. “Florida has voted Democrat for president … three of the last seven elections. North Carolina has a Democratic governor.”
What they care about the most
Ufot said newcomers’ priorities are often no different from what many residents have long wanted: safe communities, clean air and water, affordable health care, access to quality education and reliable transportation.
“I think A, they want the things that everyone else wants for themselves and their families, and B, they are no longer … interested in any kind of differences or excuses about the way things are here.”
“And so it has contributed to a push for accountability from our elected officials.”
“It was a kind of wake-up call,” Gu said.
She estimates she waited about three or four hours in line to vote at the time. She voted again during the presidential election, and has already made her ballot for the end of the Senate in January.
The disturbing experiences of the past year – everything from the racial unrest of the summer to the devastating Covd-19 pandemic – are still fresh in her mind and issues on which she pays close attention.
“The first thing on my mind is the cruelty of the police,” she said. “I do not think I will ever forget what the past year has felt and looked like in terms of protests and just what I saw out there.”
Young voters like Gu are excited about similar issues, says Helen Butler, executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a nonprofit organization that works to register and mobilize voters across the state.
Butler, who has been involved in voter registration for more than two decades, looks at voters based on age demographics, ethnic demographics and gender. She said the 18- to 35-year-old group “played a huge role this time around the turnout.”
These populations now understand how public policy immediately affects their lives, in everything from criminal justice, health care to schooling. And they are fueled by the raging pandemic and the protests against police killings, she added.
“I think it led them to be engaged and really help change the landscape,” she said. “Were there new people involved? Yes, because I know they are new citizens, especially because we do voter registration and naturalization ceremonies, and you see that they are so excited to be able to exercise their right to vote for the first time.”
For Lu, the interests are high.
And even a former public school student, he is also concerned about having a strong school system, something he said during the Trump administration that he was not confident about.
“It’s like death with a thousand cuts,” he said. “It feels like it does not matter, there is an important issue and the interests are always high.”
It is the feeling of urgency, he said, that drives him to the ballot box.