Ten prisoners, including four charged with murder, escaped from the New Orleans jail on Friday after the city elected as sheriff a progressive activist who had never worn a badge.

Orleans Parish became a trial run in a plan by left-wing billionaires to extend George Soros’ campaign of installing anti-police prosecutors even further, into electing anti-law-and-order sheriffs. Susan Hutson was elected in December 2021, with New Orleans Public Radio saying at the time that “a Susan Hutson win could give New Orleans — and the U.S. — its 1st progressive sheriff.”

Hutson had never served as a law enforcement officer, but rather worked as an “independent police monitor” who criticized police, New Orleans Public Radio said. The outlet stated she would “reform the criminal justice system with a left-wing ideology.” The primary role of the sheriff in Orleans Parish is to run the jail.

Hutson squeaked into office after the incumbent, another black Democrat, got 48% in the primary compared to her 35%, which led to a runoff since the incumbent did not get 50%. In the runoff, the dynamic flipped with the assistance of big-money out-of-state groups, including PAC for Justice, which wants to divert the jail budget to “social programs.”

During the initial election, Hutson “struggled to pull in money, only taking in $131,000 from donors, but during the runoff, PAC for Justice received a $200,000 donation from a national group named FWD.us, which has also donated funds to end non-unanimous jury trials,” New Orleans Public Radio said. FWD.us was co-founded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. PAC for Justice’s other donors, almost all out-of-state, also included groups that were, in turn, funded by Soros.

“Hutson said if elected, she would also support promoting women to deputies to diversify the workplace, helping to buck the national trend of the white male sheriff,” the outlet added.

Sean Kennedy of Virginians for Safe Communities, which opposes lenient prosecutors, told The Daily Wire that Hutson “was an anti-police activist lawyer who never wore a badge but won anyway with $160,000 from Soros PACs and another $200,000 from Mark Zuckerberg — neither of which (last time I checked) are from New Orleans.”

“George Soros and his allies have expanded their attempted takeover of the criminal justice system. On top of the $50 million Soros spent on prosecutors, he is now spending millions more to buy local sheriff races and install radical incompetents like he did in New Orleans, Phoenix, and on Cape Cod,” he added.

Hutson lashed out on Friday about how having four accused murderers on the loose would affect her own election.

“Why did it happen just right now, right in the middle, as we’re getting ready to start this sheriff’s race?” she said at a press conference on the escape, according to ABC News. “This is very suspicious. We know that they had help. We’re showing you they had help. This was coordinated. There’s much more than meets the eye.”

The remark suggested that she believes that rather than the escape happening due to her incompetence, it was orchestrated by jail guards who wanted to see her replaced as sheriff.

The Soros takeover of the legal system is one of the most remarkable political phenomena of the last decade. The billionaire financier, an expert in arbitrage, discovered that rather than influencing state legislators to change laws, it is cheaper and easier to elect prosecutors who will simply nullify laws they don’t like by refusing to prosecute them.

Mainstream Democrat and Republican prosecutors believe it is a violation of the separation of the branches of government to ignore laws. But Soros also discovered that by targeting cities where residents “vote blue no matter who,” it is possible to replace Democrat incumbents with leftists who don’t share those ethical concerns by injecting unheard-of amounts of cash into primary elections, which were historically cheap, low-turnout affairs.

Instead of donating to a candidate’s campaign, the Soros machine essentially runs it for the candidate, through “independent expenditures” such as ads and mailers that it designs, pays for, and runs on its own.

Putting national cash into local races for sheriff represents a significant advancement of the project, one that would place anti-police activists in charge of a region’s public safety.

Ten inmates left the jail through a hole behind a toilet at 1:01 a.m., while only one employee—a civilian rather than law enforcement—was assigned to watch their pod, and while that person left to get food, officials said. At 8:30 a.m., they were discovered missing.

“These folks that were able to get out did so because of defective locks on the cells,” Hutson said, while also saying, “We have the indication that these detainees received assistance in their escape from inside our department.”

Editor’s note: This is the fifth installment of a six-part series by pollster Brent Buchanan on the politics of the American South. Last week, Buchanan took a close look at North Carolina. Today, he dives into another swing state — Georgia — to tell the story of the South’s political crossroads.

We hope you enjoy.

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Georgia isn’t just a battleground. It’s the South’s political crossroads, where more regional identities collide than anywhere else.

While some of the regions are too small to have an outsized influence on statewide races, their presence as a mixing agent within the more prominent regions cements Georgia’s unofficial status as the capital of the South – and the ultimate test for both parties.

Our analysis of Southern politics found that Georgia contains more of the South’s distinct regions than any other state. From a wall of “Trumpian Highlands” banding the northern border of the state, to pockets of hardened “Sweet Tea Suburbs” and a sprawling “Dixieland” with vestiges of the “Soulful South,” and a surprising emergence of “Republican Resettlers” encroaching up from Florida, pundits and politicos alike have their eyes on Georgia and especially its upcoming 2026 gubernatorial and Senate races.

“Georgia as a high-profile state is nothing new to politics,” said Nicholas Valdiviez, Cygnal’s Sampling Lead for this comprehensive analysis. “But when you look at the state through the lens of our unique regional analysis, Georgia has more complex regions at play than any other state, and in the context of the 2026 midterm elections, those complexities help explain the intrigue of unseating Senator Jon Ossoff (D) and holding onto the Governor’s mansion.”

It’s true that Georgia’s status as a swing state is almost exclusively driven by the fact that a still-deeply-red state is represented by two far-Left senators. It just so happens that it’s time for Ossoff to defend his seat (and abysmal record out of step with most of even purple Georgia) against an unknown Republican challenger, now that outgoing Republican Governor Brian Kemp (a longtime Cygnal client) has ruled out a run to unseat Ossoff.

A Complex Political Patchwork: The Peach State Defies Simple Labels.

Speaking about a possible Kemp Senate run, nationally syndicated radio host Erick Erickson noted that many governors-turned-senators find themselves unhappy in the world’s greatest deliberative body.

And Kemp understands — perhaps better than any other elected official in Georgia — that while the state’s political map might look like a simple red versus blue situation articulating an urban-rural divide, it’s actually a mosaic of regions with overlapping and rapidly changing political identities.

Take the so-called “Black Belt,” a region with high concentrations of Black voters, which delivers reliably Democratic margins in states like Alabama and Mississippi. In Georgia, the Black Belt runs from Columbus to Macon to Augusta — where it displays fewer characteristics of the monolithic voting bloc it used to be.

Today, this region is dominated by what we’ve dubbed “Dixieland” voters. Unlike other areas in the state — especially surrounding Atlanta, which have seen high-impact demographic swings — voters in Georgia’s Black Belt region now demonstrate voting patterns more akin to Dixieland, which is just over 15% African American, than ever before.

The demographics are the same, but the sentiment has changed. Dixieland voters have the highest propensity for weekly religious services of any group at 37%, and the lowest “not religious” population at 14%, combined with one of the highest rates of any of the regions who say the country is on the right track +21, and +35 support for Trump.

DATA NOTE: When we conducted this analysis, we fully expected the well-known Black Belt to emerge as a prominent visual feature on our Georgia map — but it didn’t — and, like many of the other elements covered in this series, it further demonstrates just how dynamic and consequential the South has become to political power in the United States. 

Two additional trends are emerging in Georgia, both influenced by neighboring states, again proving the regionality of our analysis is shaping the South’s political map.

First, in the northern part of the state, where the Trumpian Highlands extend all the way down from Tennessee until they meet those hardened “Sweet Tea Suburbs” that surround Atlanta, with another small pocket around the state line near Chattanooga. This is where speculated senate candidate and firebrand Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene hails from, and all three of the congressional districts in that area are held by Republicans. These are some of the most Republican areas in the country, with Georgia’s 14th and 9th congressional districts voting for Trump by an imposing 68-31 and 67-33 margins, respectively.

As our data below indicate, before 2016, Republicans won in the Dixieland portions of Georgia by an average of 29%. But in the Trump Era, that margin rose to 39%. Notably, even with a minor dip in 2020, Dixieland recovered quickly for the 2024 cycle, shifting 4% back to the right from 2020, and up 3% compared to 2016.

Unlike Part IV of this series, where North Carolina’s divisions created a sort of mixing zone between east and west, the Trumpian Highlands of Georgia create a hard line between Atlanta’s suburbs. This makes some of the regional fluidity we see in other areas of the South less evident in Northern Georgia. Factor in those collar counties of Henry, Rockdale, Gwinnett, Cobb, and DeKalb surrounding Atlanta, and the political picture of north Georgia makes this part of the state less likely to produce surprises or statewide leaders.

Georgia has another political encroachment from its neighbor to the south, Florida. In our analysis, we identified “Republican Resettlers,” areas that have absorbed a significant influx of newcomers, many times from more liberal states, who are self-selecting for conservative communities. Unlike legacy Southern strongholds, Republican Resettlers’ political identity is shaped more by recent population movement and community choice than by deep historical roots. This growth in southeast Georgia, where we’ve seen Republican Resettlers’ encroachment, is mirrored in population increases in the mentioned areas from 2020 to 2022.

As Georgia remains an attractive place for many of these voters, our maps show this region, while not yet decisive, is quietly growing as conservatives migrate north along the coast toward places like Brunswick, Savannah, and even Valdosta. That’s a trend worth watching as the state’s population continues to surge.

“Nobody argues that Georgia is evolving politically, or that it’s a key state, especially with all the media attention surrounding Ossoff’s very vulnerable position,” said Valdiviez. “But what our analysis and maps show is a state that has both hardened lines of political division and zones of increasing transition. It proves that two things can be true in a marquee southern state: Georgia is prone to rigidity and it’s not immune to prevailing regional shifts.”

So What? Why The Patchwork Matters.

Georgia’s regional complexity isn’t just a curiosity for pollsters like us or casual and professional political junkies — it is a real-world challenge for campaigns and an absolute bellwether for the national parties — even if Ossoff is on the ropes for 2026. With so many overlapping and shifting identities, the Peach State forces both Democrats and Republicans to move beyond one-size-fits-all messaging.

The state’s “swing” status isn’t an accident. It’s a direct result of these dynamic, sometimes contradictory, regional trends. As flight from liberal states continues, even from other Republican states, and as the Republican Resettlers gain ground along Georgia’s coastal plains, the map will only get more complicated and more consequential.

With Kemp out of the 2026 Senate race, the race is on to determine who can unite enough of these regions to build a winning coalition. The GOP’s search for a candidate with true statewide appeal is wide open, while Democrats must defend ground in the face of a weak candidate, demographic churn, and voter fatigue. The lesson from Georgia is clear: turnout, connective messaging, and a Kemp-style understanding of local nuance are everything. Ignore the state’s patchwork at your peril.

The Battleground That Won’t Quit.

Georgia’s story is largely the South’s story.

It’s a state where no single region, candidate, or trend can guarantee victory. It’s a mix of hardened Republican strongholds, fast-growing Democratic suburbs, and emerging zones of transition, which means every election is up for grabs.

The Peach State’s political future will be decided not by national narratives or simple red-blue maps, but by the ability of campaigns to read the local landscape and adapt. In a nation increasingly defined by polarization and migration, Georgia stands as the ultimate test — and frankly, the ultimate prize for anyone hoping to shape the next era of American politics.

COMING UP NEXT: In Part VI, the final installment of our series, we’ll tie together the lessons from our analysis and offer a glimpse at what’s in store for the South and the nation as we head for the 2026 midterms. 

READING THE MAP: When reading our map, keep in mind that we intentionally moved beyond traditional state lines to capture the true complexity of Southern politics. Each of the ten regions was named to reflect its unique cultural, demographic, and historical identity, whether it’s the steadfast conservatism of Dixieland, the dynamic growth of the Republican Resettlers, or the inelasticity of the Sweet Tea Suburbs.

These names aren’t just for color; they’re a practical tool for understanding how voter behavior clusters in ways that state boundaries simply can’t explain. We used a rigorous, data-driven approach combining ZIP-code-level analysis, weighted demographic variables, and historical voting trends to identify and define each region. The result is a map that highlights not just where voters are, but how and why they vote the way they do, offering a more actionable and nuanced guide for anyone looking to understand or influence the South’s evolving political landscape.