Georgia's Very Own Megathread!

[Adam Griffin]

Both Carter and Nunn's poll numbers seem to be imploding...this amidst the fundraising surge?

I'm not sure what you mean. Nunn's haven't collapsed at all:



And in regards to Carter...it looks more like general variance across the board/higher number of undecideds in the last poll or two (this doesn't include the most recent one where they're essentially tied):



Let's wait and see what a post-Holly LaBerge poll looks like for the Governor's race.

[Adam Griffin]

Sabato talking about possible runoffs: http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/notes-on-the-state-of-politics-2014-07-16/

If Carter and Nunn forced the election into a runoff, there will have to be two runoffs: Dec. 2 for gubernatorial runoff and Jan. 6 for senate runoff.

Since runoff favors Republican, this would not be an ideal scenario.

Anyway, can Carter and Nunn each win a runoff?

It's not likely. Each need to beat the Republican by 3 or more to avoid a run-off (counting likely Libertarian share of the vote). The Republicans knew what they were doing when they redid the election calendar this year: moving the primary from July to May (to screw Broun) and separating the state/federal general runoffs (to screw Carter/Nunn). We can't even get our voters out for one runoff; look at the difference between the 2008 Senate general and general runoffs for proof. There's more ground game in Georgia right now than in 2008, but I still don't believe it'd be anywhere near enough to win in a runoff scenario. We have to bury the Republicans in November or bust.

[Adam Griffin]

So they don't need to crack 50, just to beat their opponents by say a 48-45-7 margin?

They each need to get 50% + 1 vote to avoid runoff. Senator Griffin just assumes that the "others" would get ~3% of the vote.

Indeed. I imagine in a race like this, a victory for Carter or Nunn would look something like 50-47-3 / 50-46-4.

[Adam Griffin]

This is an interesting piece about the good ol' boy system disenfranchising legitimately-elected black BoE members in South Georgia (and Nathan Deal has a hand in it). If somebody plays this the right way, it could be more fuel on the fire.

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[Adam Griffin]

Does this sound like a scared man or what?

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[Adam Griffin]

Landmark Communications talks about why its result is different from those of SurveyUSA

http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2014/07/21/rain-may-not-be-the-only-thing-dampening-gop-fervor/

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And just think: this data is already close to a year old. That white number based on past trends is probably right at one point lower than it was in November 2013 (since it's been around 8 months, maybe closer to 1/2 point).

[Adam Griffin]

OMG GUYS WHERE ARE YOU

IT'S PRIMARY RUNOFF DAY

LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE

[Adam Griffin]

Who else voted today? I voted the anti-Hice line, myself.

I took care of mine in the first week of early voting -nothing exciting (I refuse to vote in R primary).

[Adam Griffin]

IT'S CRAZY how tight the Senate race is at the moment. SSS race on the R side, too.

Perdue just took the lead for the first time.

http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/52176/136598/en/summary.html

[Adam Griffin]

COME TO THE CONGRESSIONAL FORUM IF YOU WANT TO LIVE

[Adam Griffin]

BK we were so wrong

FOR FUTURE REFERENCE: most of tonight's discussion took place over here

Yeah, that took about 10 seconds to make...

[Adam Griffin]

And of course...this is actually a couple of months old.

[Adam Griffin]

NR got their hands on Nunn's campaign plan... which covers everything. 140-odd pages. Lots of interesting things in it.

Yes, I've begun reading it.

[Adam Griffin]

NR got their hands on Nunn's campaign plan... which covers everything. 140-odd pages. Lots of interesting things in it.

Yes, I've begun reading it.

IIRC, they estimated that Minnesota is the DSCC's fifth highest priority.  Is there something we don't know about?  I doubt it, but...

MN being fifth makes sense to me, if they're using the same assessment that I'm imagining (that being vulnerability for incumbents and competitiveness for open/potential flips). Minnesota isn't all that vulnerable compared to several others (though could be a sleeper). They're putting their incumbents first, then everyone else.

Still, you can tell that this is really old, as IA is practically considered safe in this assessment, while GA and KY are lowly-prioritized. This same plan projected that under just these circumstances, that the DSCC might pour $10 million into Georgia. It wouldn't surprise me that before all's said and done, that they put more into GA than just about every other Senate race.

[Adam Griffin]

Miller also endorsed Deal for re-election.

[Adam Griffin]

Michelle Nunn takes the Ice Bucket Challenge

[Adam Griffin]

Georgia now 50th in unemployment

[Adam Griffin]

YEEEEES

I'm visiting my maternal grandmother in Macon so it's now time for a

BK FAMILY TRACKER MINI-UPDATE

• She really doesn't like Chris Christie; she thinks he is "on drugs, dancing around like that" (?) and thinks he's a corrupt jerk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reK2Nd0WYKA

[Adam Griffin]

Fantastic news! Let's hope Fulton and Clayton follow suit. Dekalb alone was home to 15% of all Democratic votes cast statewide in 2008.

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[Adam Griffin]

SMEAR CAMPAIGNS

http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2014/09/09/gop-state-senator-says-first-sunday-vote-in-dekalb-will-be-the-last/

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http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/state-launches-fraud-investigation-voter-registrat/nhJxg/

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[Adam Griffin]

NRSC: We’ve Spent Enough on #GASen

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http://www.peachpundit.com/2014/09/11/nrsc-weve-spent-enough-on-gasen/

[Adam Griffin]

A fun little map I've been wanting to make for a while. This pits Barack Obama (2012) against Roy Barnes (2010), and shows which candidate received a greater percentage of the vote in that county. Counties in red are counties where Barnes did better than Obama; blue are counties where Obama did better than Barnes. The key indicates how many more percentage points one candidate received over the other. I think there are a lot of potentially interesting observations to make about this (like which counties/regions have turnout problems among minorities in mid-terms, and which counties/regions have larger amounts of racial intolerance).



And without gradient:

[Adam Griffin]

Why did Barnes perform worse than Obama in the Northwestern portion of the state?

Well, this is my home, so maybe I have an answer. I think simply that the area is swinging and/or trending to the Democrats, albeit very slowly on the whole. The area surrounding my home county (Whitfield) is undergoing a pretty rapid demographic shift with Latinos becoming a significant chunk of the population, while Chattanooga's metro continues to sprawl into Georgia along the Dade/Walker/Catoosa part of the state line. I've also been working hard in Whitfield for going on 4 years now.

I'll also add that this area has never been as great for Democrats as many other parts of the state due to a historic lack of minorities/less resentment toward the Union; Sherman didn't burn down NW Georgia like he did most of the rest of the state (though many battles were fought here for the railways). Still...whites tend to be more Democratic as a whole here in the modern era than in many other parts of rural/suburban Georgia, so it wouldn't surprise me if Obama didn't really suffer all that much from a racial element. This makes me think that it probably just came down to turnout and the default factor of non-whites not showing up proportionately for the mid-terms (as opposed to many other areas, which would also experience that variable + racial backlash).

Take a look at the 2010/2014 primary comparison map (trend) I made a few months ago, which measured the percentage-point change in the share of people who pulled a D/R ballot.



You'll see the same bloc of counties sticking out. Whitfield and Catoosa actually swung Democratic (3 points and 1.5 points, respectively), while all five of the same counties trended Democratic in this regard (Whitfield trended 6; Catoosa 4.5). Here's the swing map of the same data.

[Adam Griffin]

More fantastic news! I just got my hands on some raw voter registration data for the entire year; time to do some comparisons!

Total number of new registrations in 2010 (1/1 - 9/1)
109,300 (54% under the age of 30)

Total number of new registrations in 2014 (1/1 - 9/1)
103,600 (59% under the age of 30)

Registration numbers appear to be down from 2010, which is not a good sign for turnout. The silver lining is that roughly the same number of youngs have registered as in 2010, with the net reduction in new RVs coming exclusively from olds.

New registrations by race in first nine months of 2010:
White 53.5%
Black 33.0%
Latino 8.2%
Asian 3.0%
Other 2.3%

New registrations by race in first nine months of 2014:
White 46.3%
Black 36.5%
Latino 12.0%
Asian 3.2%
Other 2.0%

One notable fact is that this appears to be the first election year in Georgia in which a majority of people who have registered to vote are non-white. Latino registration appears to be skyrocketing, and black registration continues to grow even stronger.



I was also able to get voter registration numbers by county, and I broke them down into four regions (color-coded above). Huge discrepancies (positive for Democrats) in the core counties of Atlanta.

Metro Atlanta
2008: 53.3% McCain
20,444 RVs
19.7% of 2014 RVs; 20.0% of state population

Metro Core
2008: 73.7% Obama
27,612 RVs
26.6% of 2014 RVs; 18.7% of state population

Satellite Urban Areas
2008: 61.3% Obama
11,794 RVs
11.4% of 2014 RVs; 10.2% of state population

Everywhere Else
2008: 66.7% McCain
43,771 RVs
42.3% of 2014 RVs; 47.8% of state population

All in all, 2014 expected newly-registered voter breakdown is 55% D, 45% R.

[Adam Griffin]

I think you misplaced Dougherty County.

That I did!