POLL: Georgia Gubernatorial Rematch

[Frenchrepublican]

Considering that GA democrats have slowly improved their standing in every gubernatorial races since their low point of 2006 and when taking into account the fact that GA is largely immune to national waves it’s fair to say that Abrams would have probably a very solid chance of winning the race.

I would probably rate it as Tossup

[Frenchrepublican]

Considering that GA democrats have slowly improved their standing in every gubernatorial races since their low point of 2006 and when taking into account the fact that GA is largely immune to national waves it’s fair to say that Abrams would have probably a very solid chance of winning the race.

I would probably rate it as Tossup

I agree, I would start GA-GOV as a tossup.

People who say "Kemp will be fine because it'll be a bIdEn MiDTerM" don't understand that Georgia doesn't really swing that way in state-level races; applying Iowa/Pennsylvania/Wisconsin style political dynamics to this state doesn't work all that well.

Sonny Perdue was a two-term governor, and his opponent in 2006 was the sitting lieutenant governor, not exactly a horrible candidate. Deal did worse in 2014 than he did in 2010. As frenchrepublican says, things were already improving for Democrats in this state before Trump came along. I have always maintained that Dems would be winning statewide races by 2022; the exact offices, I don't know, but they would be winning.

2020 was a bit early in my view for this to happen, but the idea that GA could become a state that regularly votes Dem (even in decent years for the GOP) while Florida and NC vote Republican more often that not is not far-fetched. Even pre-Trump, most trends in GA favored Democrats, and the counterbalances you see in FL and NC, such as a more Republican-leaning Hispanic voting block (FL,) stagnant or R-trending suburbs (NC,) or a rapidly growing retiree population (both,) don't exist in GA. The only counterbalance is the Dem collapse in rural Georgia, but that's been the case for a while now and they seem to be at rock bottom (look at the number of Georgia counties where Kemp and Trump got more than 80-85% of the vote).

There's a reason why the state GA is most compared to is VA, not NC.

Next, there's the General Assembly. The coming maps will ensure that GOP majorities (not veto-proof supermajorities; that ship sailed in 2015) stay in place through the decade, so there isn't the risk of a Dem governor "ruining the state" because they'll still have to strike balance with a Republican-majority state legislature. Something like that may sound more appealing to independents than the idea of a completely Dem or GOP state government. Both sides will have leverage, but neither will be able to completely overrule the other. FWIW, Stacey Abrams actually worked well with Republicans as minority leader in the state House.

Finally, there's Kemp's own approval ratings. They seem to be bouncing all over the place, but it's clear that he's doing far worse on approval than Nathan Deal was; on a good day, he'll have an approval rating in the low-50s. It's the fact that with Deal and (Sonny) Perdue, Republicans universally approved, independents strongly approved, and Dems were ambivalent, but with Kemp, Republicans mostly approve, independents tepidly approve (although that depends on the poll,) and Dems strongly disapprove. Kemp doesn't have the same bedrock support Deal and Perdue had.

Good sum-up.