Is Kemp now likely to lose re-election?

[skbl17]

Likely to lose re-election? Not at the moment. But I don't think he's favored to win re-election.

There are seven things that work against Kemp:

1) Democrats have now proven they can win Georgia, which is a huge boost to morale for supporters of that party, especially when you consider that both FL and NC remained with Trump. This will increase if they do well in the runoffs in a month's time, because it means that they can win even in a relatively low-turnout setting.

2) Even if his exact approval margins are a bit unclear, it's 100% clear Kemp is doing far worse than his predecessor Nathan Deal on that metric.

3) Elastic midterm "wave" dynamics don't apply in Georgia gubernatorial elections the same way they do in, say, Pennsylvania or Michigan. This has been discussed before.

4) The GOP is guaranteed to keep majorities in the General Assembly, so there would be no impetus among squishy independents to vote for a Republican governor to prevent full Democratic control in state government.

5) Trumpist Republicans may be souring on the governor (maybe,) but Democrats never liked him. Many of them view the 2018 election as stolen, in turn viewing Kemp as an illegitimate governor. Maybe that will boost support for the Dem nominee (particularly if it's Abrams again,) as they'll see this as an opportunity to "correct" the "mistake" of 2018.

6) I've mentioned this on this site before, but unlike FL and NC, GA doesn't have any of the "blatantly obvious" pro-Republican demographic shifts needed to stave off a continued Democratic upsurge. No rapidly growing retiree population, no Republican-friendly Hispanic voting bloc, no Republican-trending suburbs. As I previously said, I would expect these shifts to slow down with Trump out of office, but not stop or reverse.

7) Finally, as parts of the GAGOP descend into Trumpist election conspiracy theories, it's quite possible that Kemp gets a Trumpist primary challenger, which would suck up oxygen and take up critical time and energy. Worst-case scenario, Kemp loses in the primary.

There are factors that may work in Kemp's favor, however:

1) I don't think the current absentee ballot regime survives to 2022. At a minimum, I expect a photo ID requirement to be introduced, which both the embattled Secretary of State and the Governor have called for. It's possible the GOP may go even further and establish a one-dropbox-per-county rule, or go for the nuclear option and eliminate no-excuse absentee voting for all but the disabled, elderly, and UOCAVA voters.

2) Maybe Abrams doesn't run. I'd be a bit surprised if she didn't, but the possibility is there. That in and of itself would not "save" Kemp, but it would prevent Democrats from being able to rally around her as a martyr who was "cheated" out of "her rightful victory".

3) While they weren't nearly as dramatic is the shifts in Texas and South Florida, there were minority-heavy precincts where Trump did a bit better in 2020 than 2016. Maybe it's incumbency, maybe it was a perceived failure on the part of the Biden camp to engage in solid enough outreach, I don't know. The question is, was this evidence of a REPUBLICAN shift among those groups or a TRUMP-SPECIFIC shift among those groups? It's way too soon to tell, but the GOP better hope it's the former.

All in all, this points to a tossup race to start. Kemp is not favored to win, but he's not an underdog, at least not yet.

[skbl17]

I don't think the current absentee ballot regime survives to 2022. At a minimum, I expect a photo ID requirement to be introduced, which both the embattled Secretary of State and the Governor have called for. It's possible the GOP may go even further and establish a one-dropbox-per-county rule, or go for the nuclear option and eliminate no-excuse absentee voting for all but the disabled, elderly, and UOCAVA voters.

We'll see if this amounts to anything - kneejerk legislative pushes (such as religious liberty legislation in the aftermath of Obergefell) have flopped before - but it looks like we may have our answer: the GOP (in the state Senate, at least) is going for the nuclear option for 2022.

https://twitter.com/RElliotWSB/status/1336392637687984133

Here's the statement itself. It's quite a read, but the bit in question comes near the end:

As soon as we may constitutionally convene, we will reform our election laws to secure our electoral process by eliminating at-will absentee voting. We will require photo identification for absentee voting for cause, and we will crack down on ballot harvesting by outlawing drop boxes.