Georgia's Very Own Megathread!

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Overall I liked both candidates, but the issue that made me disappointed with Stacey Abrams was about the HOPE college program. She said you shouldn't need a B average to be successful in Georgia (qualify for 80% of tuition off from HOPE). I totally disagree with lowering this requirement. A 3.0 GPA isn't that hard to get even if you're poor (although I disagree w/ SAT requirements because those disproportionately hurt poorer people). I think HOPE is pretty good as it is now, and only needs some small adjustments. I don't think we have the money to pay for more higher education funding when Georgia's K-12 schools are so poor.

So far Stacey Evans looks like the more electable candidate as well as the better governor, although I think Abrams would be almost as good. My biggest priorities for Georgia Governor:

1) Increased Infrastructure spending (particularly between Columbus and Atlanta)
2) Increased taxes to pay for funding of K-12 schools
3) Medicaid expansion
4) Redrawing congressional districts to not be complete sh**t (preferably nonpartisan districting).

Also I hate those stupid Georgia republicans that keep trying to pass religious liberty bills. Please stop. Nobody wants this garbage besides some social conservatives. I'll be pissed if Amazon doesn't make its HQ here because some social conservatives wanted their dumb bill passed.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Georgia dem underperformance better have been because of the game yesterday

They did pretty well in November, idk what happened today

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

I might just vote in the GOP primary to help out Casey Cagle. Would be nice to have non batsh**t insane insurance in case one of the Stacey's don't win in November. I don't really have much of a preference between the two Stacey's right now.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Who is more moderate and reasonable out of Cagle and Kemp?

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Ok I will vote Cagle in the primary then.

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What is Clay Tippins policy positions like?

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A lot of southern states have a similar amount of D's as R's but the independents heavily lean R.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

It isn't shocking that there are more democrats than Republicans in Georgia. There have traditionally been more, and more Americans identify as Democrats in general.

What kind of Democrats? Democrats or Democrats? There is a difference. Also, it doesn't really matter if the Indies are lopsided in favor of Republicans.

The democrats in Georgia are genuine democrats. The issue is, like in basically every other southern state, independents are heavily lean Republican.

There's a reason Jones only won independents by 8 in Alabama, lol

2016 Georgia was 34% dem - 36% gop - 30% ind, Trump won independents by 9% (surprisingly low for a southern state)

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

LOL Cagle. By all means, please push the Delta-employed white folks in Cobb, Forsyth, and Gwinnett out of your camp. 

What is the distribution of delta employees in Georgia actually? Is there a map anywhere of it?

I don't know about a distribution of their locations within the state.  A Delta news release from Oct. 2015 says that it was Georgia's largest employer with 33,000 in the state.  I would expect most of them to be either at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport or at Delta HQ, which is near the airport.  This is on the south side of the metro area, so Cobb, Gwinnett, and especially Forsyth seem less likely than Fulton and the south suburban counties.

People commute. And I specifically mentioned white people, and South Fulton and Clayton aren't exactly teeming with that demographic. None of the counties I mentioned are more than an hour's drive from the airport. Especially Cobb which is literally 25-30 minutes up I-285.

Anyway, met Stacey Abrams tonight and was mesmerized. More convinced than ever, that I was wrong in my initial judgement of her candidacy and that she has the fortitude to flip this state.

Please let me know if she is planning a visit to UGA! I would like to meet the gubernatorial candidates.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

AJC: Sparks fly at Georgia GOP debate for governor

These guys are batsh!t insane

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Kemp says he will sign the toughest abortion laws in the country as Governor and if anyone wants to sue then “bring it!”

https://politics.myajc.com/blog/politics/kemp-vows-outdo-mississippi-and-sign-nation-toughest-abortion-restrictions/82QEEBktHVKOkaG7qW7LII/?utm_source=politics_fb&utm_medium=social

Kemp v. Abrams will be epic if it comes to it.

What else can you really expect from a Republican from the Deep South, though?

Nathan Deal. He was a pretty reasonable governor, but these guys all seen like total assclowns.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

The Working Families’ Party has launched an effort to reach out to 200,000 low-propensity African-American voters in support of Abrams whom they endorsed last year.

https://politics.myajc.com/blog/politics/georgia-2018-abrams-aligned-progressive-group-launch-major-canvassing-effort/6aG47KUyTGhzfYEdArvLDO/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=politics_fb

Abrams’ candidacy, win or lose, has at least provided Georgia Democrats with a GOTV infrastructure they can use in 2020. This is so refreshing.

I hope they realize that black people live in rural areas too

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Yeah Abrams is the better candidate lol. I don't think she's a great candidate (she's relying too much on national politics I think), but she's our best shot. The republicans running for the nomination seem to be absolutely batsh!t.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

That was my point as well. Abrams’ entire campaign is based around identity politics and national support. Evans has been focused on more local issues. Neither candidate is good. Democrats really blew this race when candidates like Holcomb and Carter passed.

Abrams might fire *some* black people up with here “I’m a black woman” message. But it’ll cancelled out by the votes of still prejudiced white voters in rural GA and the sizable portion of black voters who also know that running a black candidate is a sure fire way to lose.

Abrams campaign is not based around identity politics. I've seen her on the stump multiple times and she has never brought up her race or gender. Expanding medicaid, affordable college, quality public education, rural employment, infrastructure investment, and a fair economy are not identity politics. What speech or ad has consisted of "I'm a black woman, hear me roar"?

And where was the identity politics in this speech, where she had a room full of working class white men giving her a standing ovation?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhCq8yCpjXw

And to the bolded: are you suggesting black voters will not vote because she's "sure to lose"? Sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy if I've ever saw one.

To be fair, I can understand how people come to the conclusion that Abrams is running an identity politics campaign based on how the horrible news media (besides myajc, which is excellent) covers the race. Every damn time I hear a national news outlet talk about this race it's about how Abrams is running as the first black woman and talking about some weird ass proxy race war between her and evans, when in reality, her message is so much more. The kind of sh** news coverage that just talks about Abrams's race is just a disservice to everyone. Also, unfortunately, some Abrams supporters do make the campaign about her race instead of her message. But Abrams herself has what I think is at least a fairly good message that talks about far more than "identity politics".

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Abrams probably killed any chance of breaking thru with whites when she proposed this.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/ga-politician-stone-mountains-confederate-carvings-should-be-removed

Wanting to alter one of the most popular attraction in the state seems so stupid.

Doug Jones got 30% of the white vote and won by 2%.  Georgia is much more minority-heavy than Alabama, so Abrams would probably need...23-25%?

Abrams would need at least 25% to win. I don't expect her to do as well among black people + the turnout differential as Doug Jones, cuz Jones was facing a racist pedophile. She probably needs more like 27% to actually win.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Wouldn't the electorate be more like 32% black if Abrams is the nominee? It was 32% black in 2012, and I figure Abrams would do a decent job bringing up black turnout. Black people actually have pretty good midterm turnout in Georgia. I believe it was 30% black even in 2014.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Cast my vote for Leader Abrams this morning.

For those tuned into the Republican side, who would you prefer to come out of these run-off matchups?

Cagle v. Kemp
Cagle v. Tippins
Cagle v. Hill

And which one do you think would be the most vulnerable against the Democratic nominee?

I'm not sure if my dad got my absentee ballot, but if he did, I'm voting for Clay Tippins in the primary, and would prefer him over all of the other Republicans.

Brian Kemp is the most vulnerable to the democratic nominee because he's an asshole. Casey Cagle is probably the best because Nathan Deal is very well regarded, and Cagle has many of his same connections.

As for the general, I will probably be voting Evans/Abrams, especially vs Hill & Kemp (if they somehow won). Vs Tippins, I am leaning towards Evans/Abrams but still open to voting him for now. I would like to see more infrastructure & education investment in Georgia so I'm pretty sure I'll mostly be voting democrat (also the religious liberty bill the GOP keeps bringing up is bad). Unsure about Medicaid expansion. Would like to see more people get health care, but it's expensive (for both Georgia & the rest of the USA taxpayers), and I would like to see more education investment especially first.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

My dad forgot to pick up a primary ballot for me and him, so that's 2 less GOP primary votes I guess. I was going to vote Clay Tippins and I assume he was going to vote Brian Kemp. I was also going to vote against my GOP congressman Drew Ferguson for a Republican challenger who supports DACA.

Hopefully Casey Cagle doesn't break 50% in the runoff...

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

You won’t be able to do in-person Early Voting?

I am in New Jersey right now, so unfortunately no.


As for my primary predictions, right now I'm predicting:

- Democratic primary
Stacey Abrams 60%
Stacey Evans 40%

- Republican primary
Casey Cagle 52%
Brian Kemp 25%
Hunter Hill 11%
Others 12%


I might change my predictions before primary day, but that's what I'm going with right now.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

I think Abrams will easily win. Most primary voters are black, and from the one poll we've seen so far, Abrams is getting just as many white people as evans.

60-40 Abrams

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Why is a runoff a guaranteed loss?

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Man, it's going to take forever for Georgia to be competitive on the state level. I see it being like Virginia, where it goes purple providentially way faster than locally because of the reliance on non-reliable voters (especially the younger people).

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

I know there's probably an answer somewhere else on the thread, but I'll ask anyway.

I read a lot of the 'old democratic' machine in Georgia is supporting Stacey Evans- is there any reason why they favour her? Abrams seems like a much better candidate based on what I've seen of the two.

They don't see a path without converting Trump/GOP voters and Abrams has been very open about not courting them. She is also a black woman, and many of them do not believe she will win statewide. I was one of those people, but a series of events changed my perspective.

I do think it's telling that the vast majority of the Black Legislative Caucus did not endorse her, and in addition to that chose some guy whose name I can't even remember to be the Minority Leader instead of Abrams' chosen successor Minority Whip Carolyn Hugley. Some of her opposition from her former colleagues seems to be more personal than the uphill battle she'll face as a black woman.

I'm going to be honest - Stacey Abrams really rubs me the wrong way. Something about her is off. It's really weird to see so many people who worked with her endorsing Evans, and it always makes me suspicious when I see a politician getting more support nationally than locally.

She seems more organized and intelligent than Evans so I think she could be a better governor, but I don't know man. Something just seems off to me.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

AJC: In early Dem balloting, black voters up 38% over ‘14, white voters up 68%

Are you going to vote in the Georgia primaries? If so, who are you thinking about voting?

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

AJC: In early Dem balloting, black voters up 38% over ‘14, white voters up 68%

Are you going to vote in the Georgia primaries? If so, who are you thinking about voting?

Definitely.  In past primaries I've usually requested an R ballot because it's the only way to have a meaningful effect on my local races (I live in Forsyth County), but I've recently sworn off voting for any Republicans, so this year I'll get a D ballot.  I'll probably vote Evans for governor; haven't really looked at the LG candidates yet.

Do you think Forsyth county is rapidly trending D?

I noticed it went from 80-17 Romney to 70-23 Trump. It also has a fairly big racial age gap that could change its politics as they get older.