Georgia senate seats runoff(s) megathread

[ProgressiveModerate]

Some ppl have questioned or criticized Warnock's strategy in the debate.  But I think Warnock actually did a good job of sticking to a smart strategy:

Loeffler has gone so overboard in trying to vilify Warnock to voters in Georgia- to the point that Warnock simply had to show that he is not the crazed person Loeffler (and probably Fox) had portrayed him to be.  After all, the target for both is those few persuadable voters who likely voted for Biden, but are also willing to vote Repub in the Senate election.

...And to this extent- Warnock came across as being rational and having common sense.  The only issue he really needed to refute (since it seems to bother those few undecided voters), was the defund the police narrative.  Warnock was clear and sounded reasonable in explaining his position- and explaining that he has a history of working with the police (bringing various groups together to come up with a way to work together better, etc).

Regarding the other crazy accusations, having Loeffler repeat them verbatim, as Warnock stuck mainly to answering the questions (and not responding to Loefflers craziness), Made Loeffler truly look like the crazy unstable person (and by comparison Warnock looked like the rational adult on the stage).  I think many of the few objective voters left, probably assumed Loeffler was at least intelligent and rational (and whether she is or not... those voters prob overwhelmingly came away thinking she was neither).

.....

The only thing I wish Warnock had said, was: "I too want to ensure the American Dream for people like Kelly Loeffler, but I also want to ensure the American Dream is available to people who don't start out with six figure inheritances they can use to pay for school and keep them out of debt" (obviously worded better- but find a non-attacking way of shedding some light on the poor working farm girl narrative Loeffler was portraying).... granted, he correctly stayed away from the fact that she became essentially a Billionaire due to marring the CEO, after 2 years or whatever.

I also think Ossoff does a pretty good job of explaining why it's important to not have gridlock during a pandemic, an economy that is shaky, during an innunization roll out, need for an overdue infastructure bill, etc. (so Warnock could have thrown that in a little more).

But overall- Warnock came out of the debate on a stronger footing and he stuck to a strategy that was smart (regarding the small group of voters he was targeting).

I agree. This reminds me of McSally v Kelly debates or Harrison v Graham debates; both Kelly and Harrison would go on to outperform Biden at the top of the ticket, though not by much. The issue for Perdue and Loeffler though is that they need some of the Trump base to turnout for them, running as more sensible canidates might actually cause them to do worse. Some may argue what about Susan Collins or Joe Manchin? Well, I think in the case of Susan Collins, you saw a lot of Trump supporters who didn't necessarily love her put her first anyways because of how critical the race was, and in both the cases of Manchin and Collins, their overperformances weren't because they were moderates, but because they had a chance to build up their names in their respective states.

The issue for Democrats is that their base has tended to be unreliable when the Presidency isn't on the line or there's not someone to vote against. Trump is still on the ballot, but only sort of since he's leaving next month anyways.

At this point, I think whoever loses these Senate races deserve to lose them, especially since it's clear both sides could win with optimal strategy.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Mail ballot requests continue to skew non-white as more come in

Special election mail ballot requests: 1,167,996 (53.6% white/31.2% black/5.3% asian or hispanic/9.1% other)

GE mail ballot requests: 1,782,580 (51.2% white/31.4% black/6.6% asian or hispanic/10.8% other)

By "skew non-white" do you mean that the white % is going down as compared to what it was a few days ago? Overall it is still higher than the GE mail ballot requests, are you suggesting that once all the requests are in the White % will be lower or that it is getting lower?

I think it used to be around 56%; not really enough data to suggests a trend but let’s see if the white % continues to go down

[ProgressiveModerate]

I really don't get why Atlas obsesses over people like Daines going to GA to support the Republican canidates. Ultimately, very very few GA voters know who Steve Daines is, and the ones who do know him are probably politically engaged enough to the point where they are certain to vote, and have already made up their mind. The only surrogates with real power are those with big names like Trump or Obama, everything else is just a bunch of drama, just drama.

Again, this election will come down to turnout; both sides have the votes to win these runoffs, it's just a question of how well the voters are activated. There are very few swing voters, let alone those who care about Steve Daine's bipartisan bills, and for the few undecided voters, Steve Daines will have very little influence over their voting choice.

How about instead of having pages of political drama, we actually try to analyze the numbers we do have to do our best to try to pin down where these races stand? Sure, early voting isn't the end all be all, but certainly did in hindsight give us some clues into states like FL, TX, and yes, GA.

If I see one more post about Steve Daines in this thread, I’m going to flip out, and trust me, you do not want to see the angry Progressive Moderate

[ProgressiveModerate]

I really don't get why Atlas obsesses over people like Daines going to GA to support the Republican canidates. Ultimately, very very few GA voters know who Steve Daines is, and the ones who do know him are probably politically engaged enough to the point where they are certain to vote, and have already made up their mind. The only surrogates with real power are those with big names like Trump or Obama, everything else is just a bunch of drama, just drama.

Again, this election will come down to turnout; both sides have the votes to win these runoffs, it's just a question of how well the voters are activated. There are very few swing voters, let alone those who care about Steve Daine's bipartisan bills, and for the few undecided voters, Steve Daines will have very little influence over their voting choice.

How about instead of having pages of political drama, we actually try to analyze the numbers we do have to do our best to try to pin down where these races stand? Sure, early voting isn't the end all be all, but certainly did in hindsight give us some clues into states like FL, TX, and yes, GA.

If I see one more post about Steve Daines in this thread, I’m going to flip out, and trust me, you do not want to see the angry Progressive Moderate

Sir, this is a meme blog.

I respectfully disagree strongly; this is Atlas. Sometimes we’re a bit silly, but this forum is supposed to be serious. If all y’all are really so obsessed with Steve Daines, why not start a Steve Daines fandom?

Also; because of the continuation of posts about Steve Daines, I’m afraid this thread is going to get some cursed Senate runoff maps tomorrow from an angry progressive moderate. For reference, this is what happened last time there was an angry ProgressiveModerate: https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=406876.0

[ProgressiveModerate]

How about instead of having pages of political drama, we actually try to analyze the numbers we do have to do our best to try to pin down where these races stand? Sure, early voting isn't the end all be all, but certainly did in hindsight give us some clues into states like FL, TX, and yes, GA.

I didn't follow early vote discussions closely during the general- did those numbers indicate FL & TX would not be as close as some polls showed & that GA would in fact be a nail-biter?  And if so- what does the same analysis model say about the runoff... or is it too early to tell?  (factoring in... that it appears from the post just above^, the numbers being reported are not complete?)

The GOP was getting good numbers out of Miami-Dade, and TX kept setting record in voter turnout from early votes alone. In GA, early voting also made exit very clear this would be a high turnout election

[ProgressiveModerate]

Interestingly Fulton has reported almost 0 percent of mail in ballots, Clarke has reported NOTHING, and Muscogee, Bibb, and Richmond have barely reported anything either. The accepted ballots are way more Dem and Black than it looks right now.

Are any white rurals underreporting?

Pickens and Banks. The white rurals in both North and South GA are way above the state average.

https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/GA_RO.html

This is why I'm looking at ballots requested rather than ballots accepted. If someone goes out of their way to request a ballot, chances are they will end up voting one way or another. For some reason, NE GA always seems to have strong numbers when it comes to absentee ballots; not exactly sure why that is.

[ProgressiveModerate]

This will be a very, very bad look:
https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-ga-georgia-muslim-virtual-vote-a-thon-to-feature-reps-ilhan-omar-rashida-tlaib-and-national-leaders/

Honestly, this kind of stuff doesn't matter right now. MTG and Sarah Palin isn't a good look either for Perdue and Loeffler, but if anything they just rile up a critical segment of the R base to GOTV.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I get that in general this forum doesn't like Crenshaw, but regardless of whether you like him or not, the add is good in the sense it is engaging to those voters who need to be engaged and turn out for the GOP.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/umichvoter99/status/1338647663164723202
Jon Ossoff is leaving Fortress Atlanta to venture out to more isolated Blue outposts in red territory.

It makes sense considering that these places have a substantial share of black voters

Also the smaller cities like Columbus, Athens, and Kavanaugh are a major part of what helped to deliver GA to Biden. Yes Atlanta played a huge role, but Atlanta by itself isn't enough by itself the way Chicago or NYC is.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/umichvoter99/status/1338647663164723202
Jon Ossoff is leaving Fortress Atlanta to venture out to more isolated Blue outposts in red territory.

It makes sense considering that these places have a substantial share of black voters

Also the smaller cities like Columbus, Athens, and Kavanaugh are a major part of what helped to deliver GA to Biden. Yes Atlanta played a huge role, but Atlanta by itself isn't enough by itself the way Chicago or NYC is.

City of Kavanaugh?

Lol I think I meant Savannah.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Just 2 weeks ago, it looked pretty grim for the 2 Dems.

Now, with more requests in and early voting going on, much better.

Let’s see if a surprise or two is possible ...

Funny how on election night, people thought Joe would lose and the Senate was a lost cause. We may still lose the Senate, but we do have a good chance

[ProgressiveModerate]

Higher in-person turnout relative to November is only indicative of the reality that fewer likely voters will be voting by mail in this election (again, do not read heavily into the overall requested mail ballot figures for enthusiasm/return likelihood given half of them are automatic). As I speculated on Monday, it also appears that higher in-person/lower mail black voting is (mostly) offsetting what might otherwise be an immediate drop-off in black representation among the AIP crowd - though Silver showed how there's usually a surge in black voting early in the in-person cycle that quickly fades (historically, it has varied from cycle to cycle: sometimes black voters show up in the early days disproportionately, and sometimes at the very end - the former has tended to be the case in over the past 4 years).

Here's what 2020 GE non-voters are looking like rn. Obviously can't extrapolate too much from this.

https://twitter.com/lxeagle17/status/1339025414572806145

A good sign in terms of "meeting [normal] expectations": when you take explicitly-identified racial groups and reassign the "others" based on long-standing other-unknown registration discrepancies in GA, it's basically a stand-in for "young people who have recently registered/just started voting", with an approximate breakdown of 50% white, 40% black, 10% other; white number is on-point. Normally, the black figure would decline while the other figure would increase over time, but given non-black, non-white low-propensity behaviors, the former may hold at the expense of the latter.

EDIT: ugh, that's requests rather than votes. But still potentially great given that a disproportionately-young group had to manually request those ballots.

I think 95% plus of the time, if someone goes out of their way to request a ballot, they will end up voting in one form or another

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1339197213323501569?s=20
Some Good News For Perdue/Loleffer ?

In theory yes, but in this instance, it probably won’t have a huge impact. It can’t hurt them however, and in a race that has potential to be very close every vote matters.

[ProgressiveModerate]

The grifting never stops.
https://twitter.com/NoahShachtman/status/1339210253506895872

I mean tbf, pretty much anyone who owns a home, particularly one that's expensive, will try to make it seem as bad as possible during appraisal for tax purposes. These attacks on Loeffler's and Perdue's finances make them look like terrible people, but I almost think Democrats are overusing this attack method, ultimately few except the engaged who are definately voting and have likely already made up their mind care about all their financial problems. People get that Loefeller and Perdue are bad, but Ossoff need to also be able to explain why they are good.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Things must be looking good (for now) for Biden to cut an ad for this race:

https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1339555952127700992?s=20

Well, Biden did win more votes than Trump in the state so Democrats know that they have the votes needed to win. It's just about trying to activate those voters that have historically been iffy. If this was the Georgia from 8 years ago, I would've said this would be a dumb move but GA is fundementally different

[ProgressiveModerate]

My point was more about Biden deciding to go all in on this race knowing it will set the tone for his presidency.

True, it’s risky, but Biden generally seems like an optimistic dude so I’m not surprised.

[ProgressiveModerate]

12/17 Update

Total of 427,127 (+48K) mail ballots accepted so far (1.32M in the General)
Total of 1.284M (?) mail ballots requested so far (1.782M in the General) - There must have been an error last time because this number is 400K lower than the day before
Total of 486,970 (+151K) EIP votes so far (2.694M in the General)

Breakdown of those votes by county following same percentages that they broke in the General would result in:

Dems - 489,894 (+101K)
GOP - 326,583 (+97K)

Dems +65,690 (+4K)

Thanks so much for tabulating these daily

Overall, it seems like the rate at which Dems have an advantage has been shrinking and will probably flip soon, but we'll see.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/GA_RO.html

Anyone else find it a bit concerning that Clarke, Muscogee, and Chatham counties have pretty poor numbers thus far? I know some counties are slower at reporting than others, but these counties are home to 3 mid-sized cities which all played a great role in Biden's victory.

[ProgressiveModerate]

If a couple of the recent polls are correct (which show a slight uptick for Republicans... leading by 2-3pts), based on cross tabs- Dems really need strong turnout among the under-35 voters (a group in which Dems have a bigger lead than they did in the General).

The specific poll I'm referring to is the Emerson Poll, I think.  Although I'm not sure the breakdowns for support levels with each age group are correct- they just seem a bit off. Basically, Dems have a Huge lead with under 35 (something like 75%), & Repubs lead each remaining age group by varying margins.

I think Youth vote will definitely turn out at higher levels than past runoffs- but I worry about students at Schools like UGA (38,000 students), which had on campus voting during the General...but most students will not return after Thanksgiving- so all of those students will need to find their polling place for the runoff, etc (which means there will likely be a dropoff of UGA students voting.

I don't really think much has changed in polling itself, it's just that we have so few polls, many of which are from not-so-great pollsters and they're all predicting different turnout with different samples. What seems to be consistent is a Biden +2 or so electorate seems to be the inflection point.

As for the students, yeah, that definately is one cause of concern for Democrat's. It probably won't net them much of a loss, but in a close race, 2000 votes here and there can matter. I hope that generational turnover may be enough to offset this, as Georgia has a very prominent old-young divide in how people vote, but we'll see.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Made a model that calculates an estimate of how many votes it thinks canidates have won based on how things broke in the GE.

Thus far, it thinks Osoff and Warnock have each recieved 463k votes, and Loefller and Perdue 451k for a narrow 1.3% margin.

It doesn't take into account that the votes cast thus far are likely to skew heavily D. This shows that thus far, turnout in counties that heavily backed Biden isn't much higher than counties that heavily backed Trump. I'll continue to update it and try to add on features.

Here's the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CHaYVrkw7GVGga4Jna_d4Kau8ESLYHCEKO9-INR_P9o/edit?usp=sharing

Write turnout values by county to play around with it.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CHaYVrkw7GVGga4Jna_d4Kau8ESLYHCEKO9-INR_P9o/edit?usp=sharing

Made a more detailed calculator which outputs 609k for Ds and 508k for Rs at the moment. Here, you can specify how many votes were cast absentee, in person early, and on election day.

The full model (on a seperate spreadsheet) currently expects a Trump +9.43 electorate which would essentially guarentee a Perdue and Loeffler win, but it's not quite not done yet and needs to be refined because it assumes a disproportionate amount of the remaining vote will be in person

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CHaYVrkw7GVGga4Jna_d4Kau8ESLYHCEKO9-INR_P9o/edit?usp=sharing

Made a more detailed calculator which outputs 609k for Ds and 508k for Rs at the moment. Here, you can specify how many votes were cast absentee, in person early, and on election day.

The full model (on a seperate spreadsheet) currently expects a Trump +9.43 electorate which would essentially guarentee a Perdue and Loeffler win, but it's not quite not done yet and needs to be refined because it assumes a disproportionate amount of the remaining vote will be in person

It's down to Trump +8.67 today using the same methodology. This number is likely to decrease as we get closer to election day; we'll see if it flips.

[ProgressiveModerate]

There's an article on Slate https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/12/georgia-senate-runoff-republicans-loeffler-perdue-trump.html that might be insightful to those looking to better understand the N Atlanta suburban voting patterns. It's an interview with the mayor of Sandy Springs, one of the affluent close-in northern suburbs of Atlanta that's swung pretty dramatically Democratic over the past 8 years.

Some more memorable quotes from this article:
 
"I’m hoping after Jan. 5, we can start picking up the pieces and we can put back at least part of that coalition. But it’s going to be a challenge because once you vote Democratic in three elections—2016, 2018, 2020—it quickly becomes a habit." <-- I hadn't really thoughts about it this way but it's true the ATL suburbs have now voted Dem in 3 elections in a row and it's starting to become a habit for many voters in this area

"There would appear to be about 100,000 Republicans who voted for Biden but came back and voted Republican in the Senate race and the rest of the ballot box." <-- I doubt this many self-identifying Republicans voted for Biden, but there are lot of R-leaning indies that did this election. This is the group I've been saying will decide the Senate runoffs, but I would add that many in this group also have been quite turned off by the post-Trump fraud theatrics and Loeffler and Perdue's embrace of them.

Who would you say is favored in the two runoffs right now? Warnock/Ossoff, or Loeffler/Perdue? The most recent polls I've seen (and yes, I'm aware of what happened with polling this year) seem to indicate that Loeffler/Perdue have the advantage, and I personally expect them to eke out victories. But what are you seeing where you live? I know you've talked at length about how many independents and moderates in Georgia have been alienated by what has happened over the past month since the presidential election.

I think Perdue is somewhat favored and Loeffler / Warnock is pretty close to a toss-up, if you were basing it off just my circle of Biden / R down-ballot voters. Warnock has a better chance fairly or unfairly because that senate seat is up for re-election in 2 years and many Biden / R downballot voters seem inclined to give a D a shot as long as it doesn't create a D trifecta if for no other reason than as a protest against Trump's continuous sway within the R party.

I will also add that I actually think Dems' odds have improved since the general election. If the runoff were held the week after the general election, I actually think Perdue and Loeffler would have been in somewhat better standing. It definitely feels like there's been some erosion in their support among R-leaning Biden voters over the last few weeks as Perdue / Loeffler have become increasingly vocal about their support for overturning the GA election results.

One final note - GA 6 and GA 7 traditionally have above average turnout rates in the state. They are at the bottom at the turnout so far and I'm actually pretty sure it's because there are a lot of Biden / R downballot voters who are still trying to decide who to vote for or more reluctant Trump voters that don't want to vote D but don't want to support Trump's party. These voters are not guaranteed to be D / R voters and I think they are the ones that are going to swing the state one way or another.

Definately very interesting point you bring up about GA-6 and 7. Most on Atlas seem to characterize them as well-to-do moderate suburbs of Atlanta, which is likely true to some degree, though maybe not quite to the extent some on Atlas like to say. It's just interesting that these 2 districts which generally seem to lean D at this point and has an outsized share of the so called "high propensity" voters don't have good turnout yet, so that you bring up the first viable reason why that might be the case. If that's true, I'm really glad to see voters thinking long and hard about who they will vote for. These runoffs will playa  great role in deciding the future of our country, and even if the outcome isn't what I personally want, I'll feel better knowing people really considered their vote.

[ProgressiveModerate]

100,000 seems like it's pushing it. NYT has Perdue 763 votes ahead of Trump. Granted, for some reason they have more votes counted for President than Senate (not sure if this is undervote or just a reporting quirk: NYT says Pres is at 100% in but Senate is at 99% in), but going off percentages I would guess that there are about 20,000 of these voters tops. That's certainly enough to swing a close election, but I don't think there's this huge mythical group of split ticket voters.

What if there are tens of thousands of low-information Trump voters who didn’t bother to vote for Senate? That would allow for a large number of Biden-Purdue voters.

I guess that could be it, but from a cursory glance at the data I see more evidence of Biden voters not voting for senate than Trump voters, and in the absence of such evidence I would hesitate to say that there were enough of them to make up that 80k gap.

Isn't it possible that lots of Trump voters didn't vote for Senate, some Biden voters didn't vote for Senate, and a large number of Biden voters voted for Purdue?

It does seem to me that the largest drop-offs were in large part in D-leaning counties though, though overall that isn't much, since overall about 99.1% of people who voted in the GE also voted in the Osoff-Perdue Senate race. Unless those remaining 0.9% were almost entirely Biden, there definately was some Biden-Perdue or Biden-Hazel ticket splitting going on.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Do people think following Nate Cohn's analysis today Democrats are now slight favorites?

I think it's really hard to say who the favorite.

At face value, it would be Republicans just based on histroy and the fact that Perdue won more votes than Ossoff in the GE. Polling has been very tight, but across the board polling underestimated the GOP this cycle.

However, my model thinks that at the current rate, the electorate will probably be something like Biden + 2 or so. The question is will things dramatically change in an unforeseeable way and if every Biden voter will vote for Ossoff and Warnock and vise-versa