Sumter County in Georgia is a rural county with a population of roughly 32,000 people. Politically, the county leans conservatively and the Republican party dominates in local elections. Sumter County has a five-member Board of Commissioners, each elected to four year terms. The current Chairman is Mark O’Neill and he is joined by fellow Republicans Bruce Conklin, Bill Slaughter, Jimmy Booker, and Ernest Hair Jr. The Sumter County Sheriff's Office is also run by Republicans with Sheriff Pete Smith being the current head of law enforcement in the county. In addition to these offices, there are numerous other local offices up for election every four years.
The political climate in Sumter County, GA is leaning liberal.
In Sumter County, GA 52.0% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 47.2% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 0.8% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Sumter county remained Democratic, 52.0% to 47.2%.
Sumter county voted Democratic in the four most recent Presidential elections, after 2000 and 2004 went Republican.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Sumter County, GA is leaning liberal.
Americus Metro Area is leaning conservative.
Georgia is leaning liberal.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Sumter, Georgia: r r d d d d
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D for the Democrat and I for the Independent. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Sumter County, GA
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 192 contributions totaling $15,908 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $83 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 223 contributions totaling $69,895 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $313 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)