Georgia senate seats runoff(s) megathread

[Pericles]

https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1335376629653254146
This is beyond cultish. How are people going to react on 1/20?

Not surprised. These people love to vote. In a close race though, it may come down to just a few thousand people skipping the runoffs because they don’t trust the system. My guess is this is a tactic by the GOP to draw attention to the race and turn their voters out.

I think the risk is that doing this will actually turn off less Trumpy voters who still voted for Trump. There are still a number of those voters even in areas that already heavily swung to Biden. I was talking with my dad about the election today (he still voted for Trump but not because of any love for the candidate) and he's thinking about abstaining from the runoffs because he's just disgusted with the national GOP throwing local Rs under the bus just because they didn't like the election results.

Hmm. very interesting point. It does seem, like the GOP is starting to split in this race between the full Trumpists and the lighter supporters. I think if they want to win, they're ultimate message has to be a check on Biden, which can be interpreted as preventing Biden from overreaching or stopping this country from become socialists or whatever. Focusing too much on the 2020 results isn't worth it because it creates an unnecessary fracture in their base.

Completely agreed. A winning R strategy imo would be to message that they will check the far left impulses but also work constructively with Biden to get legislation passed. Making the runoffs a referendum on Trump risks turning off the same voters that flipped the state for Biden as well as reluctant Trump supporters.

They didn't demonstrate that ability with President Obama, so why trust empty promises now? Their obstructionism hampered the economic recovery from the GFC so it took longer to recover. Now, a big stimulus is needed. If the holdup is because of Democrats, then they were trying to damage the other party's President and of course Republicans will do the same. If the holdup is due to Republicans genuinely opposing stimulus, then they will be even stronger in that position with Biden as President instead of Trump. Either way, a Democratic trifecta is needed to get constructive legislation like a big enough stimulus passed.

[Pericles]

IMO it doesn't matter who controls the Senate.

The Democrats Dream that they can do "New Green Deal" "Court Packing" "D. C. & PR Statehood" "Ending Filibuster" pass "Heroes Act" are non existent with a 50-50 Senate and a best-case scenario 224-211 House.

Just not going to happen! Biden needed a bigger Congressional Margin to do that (Obama 2009).

I've been starting to think this as well. Biden strikes me as pretty sensible and with a narrow majority I would think the Ds would tailor their policies accordingly.

I agree. I mean, he's made it very clear what policies he stands for and that he is eager to unite America and tangibly move things in a positive direction. He's literally said that he would veto M4A--not that that's relevant considering most senate democrats don't even support it. Mitch McConnell spent the entire Obama presidency trying to stop anything from happening. We can't go through that again. Obviously all the details are never going to be 100% public, but has there ever been any indication from Biden, Warnock, or Ossoff that they would support some of the stranger ideas coming out of the left?

And just looking at the candidates on the content of their character, do you really think that Loeffler and Perdue are good people who will put aside politics for the good of America? I seriously doubt it.

To be fair though, you don't think Murkowski, Romney or Collins would be willing to break ranks to pass legislation on specific areas?

Murkowski and Romney maybe, but Collins will never cast the deciding vote against her party unless McConnell tells her to.

Are we 100% sure it was an accident that she cast the deciding vote against Obamacare repeal, not knowing McCain would also oppose it? Or maybe she would have opposed it regardless?

[Pericles]

I'm kind of shocked she even made it into the runoff tbh.

[Pericles]

I don't think senate debates matter all that much. People made such a big deal about Ernst not knowing the price of corn/soy, and how Susan Collins did horrible in the first debate.

Given Ernst did underperform Trump, maybe it did hurt her slightly.

[Pericles]

Why did Ossoff not bring this energy before November then? He was just 0.3% away from being denied the chance to go to a runoff at all, and that would have cost Democrats the Senate. Warnock at least had the excuse that a runoff in the special was inevitable.

[Pericles]

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

If it used to be 56% and is trending down, then that is a very promising trend. Also (if that is the case) it is very promising that the African American share is almost the same as in the General Election.

The problem is at least Ossoff and probably Warnock too start behind based on the general election results.

[Pericles]

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?)

Technically Florida was as close as the polls predicted, they just got the winner wrong.

[Pericles]

Perdue did also do dogwhistling, when he deliberately mispronounced Kamala Harris' name. Have people just forgotten about that (I guess it is tame compared to the other insanity the Republican Party spews, but still)?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/sen-david-perdue-mispronounces-sen-kamala-harriss-first-name/2020/10/16/6a74f294-88cd-49c7-b51a-b80bc70ac51f_video.html

[Pericles]

much better

“Ossoff obstructed, Purdue delivered”

... Jon Ossoff isn’t even in Congress and most people know that. What’s the logic behind this ad?

Maybe David Perdue is living in an alternate universe where Ossoff won the 2017 GA-06 special election.

[Pericles]

I know this is a British newssource, but I wonder if this is true. Is the issue of the Supreme Court getting a lot less focus in the runoffs? While the effect of the issue has been overstated imo, it would be weird if Loeffler and Perdue weren't warning about liberal activist judges being packed onto the Court.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/georgia-senate-trump-perdue-loeffler-b1775944.html

[Pericles]

Just want the suspense to be over.

F**king 2020 waits so long to give us an election result that we needed months earlier, then it's a letdown but not even that actually brings closure. Just a few more days.

[Pericles]

This has to be fake news, right? This is his one chance to be Majority Leader, he can't be that stupid to just let it slip. On the other hand, money doesn't matter anymore it seems, if this is true.
"Now, after the party performed poorly in down-ballot races, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is no longer meeting with donors, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News.

Schumer is "pessimistic" about Warnock and Ossoff's chances in Georgia next week and doesn't want to ruin donor relationships, the source adds."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/ossoff-warnock-warn-about-running-low-funds-seek-last-minute-n1252413

[Pericles]

I'm becoming more optimistic about these runoffs. The evidence says that Republicans should win at least one of these. However, it seems the campaign period post November has gone great for Democrats and badly for Republicans, the narrative seems really favorable for Ossoff and Warnock. Early voting is a good sign, we keep getting told not to read too much into it but it doesn't seem consistent with a result where Republicans do as well as or better than November (unless swing voters break Republican). However, I still have trouble seeing David Perdue losing. Despite the memes, which have gotten way out of hand and are pretty dumb now, I do think some Republican-leaning suburbanites dislike Trump more than down-ballot Republicans. Loeffler may have alienated that demographic now, and maybe Trump even dragged Perdue down by attempting to overturn the result, However, most likely there are enough of them who find Perdue sufficiently inoffensive for him to win. Loeffler seems really weak, so maybe she'll lose. It's also possible though that she is a slightly better fit for Georgia than Trump and so barely wins.

[Pericles]

To be fair, Obama had a 1 vote majority because of the filibuster. Democrats will use reconciliation more, and might weaken or even eliminate the filibuster, so they could effectively have the same majority as Obama in 2009. Plus, Supreme Court vacancies are already decided based on a simple majority, so far that has hurt Democrats but it might now benefit them.

[Pericles]

AJC is a center-left, or at least anti-trump, paper.

I find it extremely hard to believe they would sit on a poll because they think it would be an outlier.

respected papers don't do that. The story is either outright false, or the newspaper discovered some error in methodology.

Why would they risk publishing a poll that has an out-there result? Look at how much flack WaPo got for their WI Biden +17% poll. There's much less reward for if they are the outlier that calls it right, and most outliers are wrong too.

[Pericles]

AJC is a center-left, or at least anti-trump, paper.

I find it extremely hard to believe they would sit on a poll because they think it would be an outlier.

respected papers don't do that. The story is either outright false, or the newspaper discovered some error in methodology.

Why would they risk publishing a poll that has an out-there result? Look at how much flack WaPo got for their WI Biden +17% poll. There's much less reward for if they are the outlier that calls it right, and most outliers are wrong too.

I actually respect pollsters that publish outlier results, It's called putting it out there.

fox news put out a doug jones +10 poll right before special election 2017.

Unfortunately most people don't think the same way, and then complain about the polling errors that herding helps produce.

[Pericles]

It would be pretty sweet to win the Senate and the presidency so narrowly, such good luck for Dems. I don’t want to jinx it though.

[Pericles]

Trump’s ego may have doomed Republicans, it would have been much better for then if he’d just sucked up the loss and shut up. Hopefully Republicans start to turn on him if the result of his presidency is a Dem trifecta.

[Pericles]

Will Georgia Republicans start thinking the runoff system no longer benefits them? It would be great if their selfishness gets them to pass IRV-which probably would have been the best system for Perdue at least.

[Pericles]

Maybe I overestimated how much candidate quality would matter. Probably because the people I thought would be Warnock-Perdue voters ended up voting Warnock-Ossoff instead. We don’t have full results though.

[Pericles]

It’s kind of crazy how almost every post 2016 election has been great for Dems except for 2020-which was merely good.

[Pericles]

It’s plausible that the Senate is 50-50 for the next four years. Maybe Dems add a state or two at some point though.

[Pericles]

So why did some people think Ossoff was a stronger candidate than Warnock?

It’s possible he was slightly stronger but Loeffler was much weaker than Perdue, but really it’s tiny differences.

[Pericles]

This is beautiful.

[Pericles]

In retrospect, it was dumb for Perdue and Loeffler to think that rural voters would reward them for saying the election was rigged more than suburban voters would punish them for saying their votes were illegitimate. That seems designed to anger Biden voters with little benefit. They could have just acted like other Senators (eg Cornyn) and been mildly sceptical of Trump’s claims. Going all in on Trump made a bad situation worse for them.