GA-SEN 2022 Megathread: Werewolves and Vampires

[wbrocks67]

We're flying a little blind here since we don't have the Guam results to analyze this time.

Or turnout allegedly cratering in Virginia to tell us that all 50 states were going to be disasters for Democrats!

[wbrocks67]

We're flying a little blind here since we don't have the Guam results to analyze this time.

Or turnout allegedly cratering in Virginia to tell us that all 50 states were going to be disasters for Democrats!

I'll never forgive Wasserman for that.

Yep. Though I've learned to not trust VA turnout reports specifically. Ben Tribbett was doing the same nonsense this year too, being incredibly overdramatic. He did it in 2017 too, saying that it looked terrible for Dems midday and then suddenly amazing in the afternoon.

[wbrocks67]

We're flying a little blind here since we don't have the Guam results to analyze this time.

Or turnout allegedly cratering in Virginia to tell us that all 50 states were going to be disasters for Democrats!

I'll never forgive Wasserman for that.

Yep. Though I've learned to not trust VA turnout reports specifically. Ben Tribbett was doing the same nonsense this year too, being incredibly overdramatic. He did it in 2017 too, saying that it looked terrible for Dems midday and then suddenly amazing in the afternoon.

Turnout reports are basically always complete bunk. You should basically always just wait for actual results.

The only one that I found to be somewhat helpful this year was the Joshua Smiley guy on Twitter (and the Philly wards website) showing how turnout in Philly was doing throughout the day. And stuff like that is really only helpful to know whether Dem turnout is cratering or not.

[wbrocks67]

They'd better have a needle. It's already inexcusable how bad their election interactives (if you can even call them that) have been this cycle. You can't even hover over counties to get detailed results?? I pay $52 a year for this sh*t.

I expect there to be a needle like the runoff in 2021. The needle was also excellent that year so hopefully it's good tonight too. It was a little off this year, it kept on thinking Walker was up until very late in the game.

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/stphnfwlr/status/1600189053076373504

Welp, that would be lights out for Walker then lol

[wbrocks67]

Anyone have an update on exit polls? I would think we would just like 2021, but who knows.

[wbrocks67]

Watching CNN, no one speaking about an exit poll so I wonder if they're not doing it.

[wbrocks67]

This is going to be the dumbest part of the night, with the dumbest and most predictable freakouts from people who don't understand how vote counting works STILL somehow.

CNN and MSNBC were an absolute travesty last night. This entire trajectory from last night is exactly what happened in November and yet the pundits (even good ones like Rachel, Nicole, Joy, etc. on MSNBC) were acting as if Walker was making a comeback and Warnock had lost. There was an entire segment where they seemed resigned to Walker winning in the end when he was up like 51-49, despite tons of blue vote still out.

It really is a mess how regular election folks on Twitter knew exactly what was going on and the people getting paid to do this on TV literally have no idea what they're talking about. Conversely, thank god for Twitter because if I was watching this on TV with no social media, you would think that Walker had it sewed up for a while. Total hot mess.

[wbrocks67]

DeKalb County posts and just like I predicted a short while ago

Warnock 51.2
Walker 48.8

Maybe 10 or 15K are left Statewide.

Still puzzled where crappy Nate Cohn and his nonsense NEEDLE get the 2.9 Warnock Margin.

do you ever get tired of being wrong every time

[wbrocks67]

Any theory for why Walker improved so much in Northern Georgia specifically? It's really the only region that had a clear swing toward him from November (the rest of rural GA was a wash and obviously metro Atlanta and other major cities swung toward Warnock). Why could that be? I heard it was raining pretty bad there on Election Day, but if that depressed turnout it should have hit Republicans harder since proportionally more Democrats voted early.

Some people on Twitter theorized that Marcus Flowers may have helped juice turnout a bit in the GE which ... is not crazy. His millions helped improve the margins there for Dems like 5-6% didn't it? So it's possible that helped Warnock lose a little bit less in the GE?

[wbrocks67]

Overall, polling was great again! Warnock +3 in the end, and that was close to the average. Warnock expanding on his previous high of +2.0 over Loeffler is really impressive, especially in a Biden midterm.

Really irked me too how the CNN panel reacted last night. Instead of giving Warnock credit, it was nothing but "Walker was bad!" Yes, Walker WAS bad, but Warnock likewise was a fantastic candidate and deserves just as much credit. Dana Bash was of course cringe as usual, not only realizing that Warnock's lead would grow (it was like +0.8 at this moment) when she was like "WHY IS THIS SO CLOSE?!!!!" to Amy Klobuchar, despite them all also dooming that night acting as if Walker was going to win, and acting like GA is some blue bastion when Warnock will end up with the best Dem margin in decades.

The rest of the panel was a mess too. Duncan in GA is ridiculous, he refused to give Warnock credit either, and acted like a normal Republican would've won easily. The rest of the panel also was a mess, especially Van Jones, who couldn't just give Warnock/Dems credit and they all kept both sides-ing everything saying that "both sides need to take an evaluation after tonight" as if Democrats and Warnock did not just do smething incredible in the last month. Like, they are allowed to take a victory lap for a day! Jesus christ.

The best was that annoying Republican (not Josh Holmes but something similar) who is always on their panels saying something like "after this midterm, voters clearly want new leaders and new blood" trying to equate Biden and Trump and how both should step aside in 2024, as if Biden did not just deliver an incredible midterm performance! Absolute insanity.

[wbrocks67]

The margin improvements for Warnock in the biggest counties were incredible:

Fulton: 4% better than Nov
Cobb: 3% better
DeKalb: 3% better
Gwinnet: 4% better
Chatham: 3% better

And the bottom hasn't yet fully fallen out for Republicans in these areas either.

[wbrocks67]

Pathetic it was even this close considering the gulf in candidate quality, it shows the partisan and nonsensical reality of our elections. At the very least Warnock gets 6 years to let the burgeoning Democratic state of Georgia develop.

I mean true, but a Democrat winning by 3% in Georgia is basically a blowout by their current standards.

[wbrocks67]

Pathetic it was even this close considering the gulf in candidate quality, it shows the partisan and nonsensical reality of our elections. At the very least Warnock gets 6 years to let the burgeoning Democratic state of Georgia develop.

It's great Georgia will have 2 Democratic Senators for at least the next 4 years, barring an unexpected vacancy, but beating one of the worst candidates of my lifetime by only 3 points is not a good short term sign for Democrats. Georgia remains the reddest purple state IMO.

Pretty sure any R candidate is still assured like 47-48% in Georgia at this point in time no matter what. It just is what it is; says more about polarization than anything else.

[wbrocks67]

Truly stunning evolution since Biden in 2020 for many of these

Fulton:
Nov 2020: D+43
Jan 2021: D+45
Nov 2022: D+49
Dec 2022: D+53

Gwinnett:
Nov 2020: D+17
Jan 2021: D+21
Nov 2022: D+20
Dec 2022: D+24

Cobb:
Nov 2020: D+11.6
Jan 2021: D+14
Nov 2022: D+16
Dec 2022: D+19

DeKalb:
Nov 2020: D+65.5
Jan 2021: D+68
Nov 2022: D+70
Dec 2022: D+73

Cherokee:
Nov 2020: R+40.6
Jan 2021: R+40
Nov 2022: R+38
Dec 2022: R+38

Chatham
Nov 2020: D+17.5
Jan 2021: D+20
Nov 2022: D+21
Dec 2022: D+24

[wbrocks67]

Not sure if it was mentioned either, but Warnock literally scooped up the entire rest of the vote from Nov. Walker was at 48.5% in Nov, 48.6% last night (may drop to 48.5 depending on outstanding ballots)

[wbrocks67]

Overall, polling was great again! Warnock +3 in the end, and that was close to the average. Warnock expanding on his previous high of +2.0 over Loeffler is really impressive, especially in a Biden midterm.

Really irked me too how the CNN panel reacted last night. Instead of giving Warnock credit, it was nothing but "Walker was bad!" Yes, Walker WAS bad, but Warnock likewise was a fantastic candidate and deserves just as much credit. Dana Bash was of course cringe as usual, not only realizing that Warnock's lead would grow (it was like +0.8 at this moment) when she was like "WHY IS THIS SO CLOSE?!!!!" to Amy Klobuchar, despite them all also dooming that night acting as if Walker was going to win, and acting like GA is some blue bastion when Warnock will end up with the best Dem margin in decades.

The rest of the panel was a mess too. Duncan in GA is ridiculous, he refused to give Warnock credit either, and acted like a normal Republican would've won easily. The rest of the panel also was a mess, especially Van Jones, who couldn't just give Warnock/Dems credit and they all kept both sides-ing everything saying that "both sides need to take an evaluation after tonight" as if Democrats and Warnock did not just do smething incredible in the last month. Like, they are allowed to take a victory lap for a day! Jesus christ.

The best was that annoying Republican (not Josh Holmes but something similar) who is always on their panels saying something like "after this midterm, voters clearly want new leaders and new blood" trying to equate Biden and Trump and how both should step aside in 2024, as if Biden did not just deliver an incredible midterm performance! Absolute insanity.

These people act as if all those awful candidates were imposed by Trump and not chosen by the Republican voters.
Or as if Republicans had never fielded wackos and weirdos before 2016.

Yep, it's amazing that the pundits still refuse to put any onus on GOP voters for literally being the ones to vote for these people.

[wbrocks67]

The best was that annoying Republican (not Josh Holmes but something similar) who is always on their panels saying something like "after this midterm, voters clearly want new leaders and new blood" trying to equate Biden and Trump and how both should step aside in 2024, as if Biden did not just deliver an incredible midterm performance! Absolute insanity.

You can be positive about Biden and support him etc if you like him, but let's get real here - Biden did not in fact deliver an incredible midterm performance. By that, I don't mean that Dems didn't do well in the midterms (and I agree that at least under the circumstances and relative to expectations it would be fair to call it "incredible"), but it just means that Biden was not personally responsible for it, and it is silly and unfounded to attribute it to him personally.

Biden had subpar approval ratings in the 40s of the sort which in the past co-occured with large scale losses. If Biden actually had positive approvals, you could maybe make some sort of argument, but that was not the case in exit polls (exit polls are not perfectly reliable, but they are reliable enough for this broad statement). Exit polls also had a supermajority of voters that said they didn't think that Biden should run again. Voters may or may not have been right about that and obviously it is up to Biden, not them, whether he runs, but undeniably that is what midterm voters thought.

The reasons why Dems did relatively well in the midterms were not Biden, but primarily Trump and Dobbs.

If you really want to give Biden credit for something, I suppose you could correctly say that he did not sign any major, important, and controversial legislation like Obamacare or something which could have alienated and fired up some voters in opposition to him and in opposition to Democrats. However, it would be a pretty bizarre thing to give Biden "credit" for, because it is not what he wanted to do, but instead was forced on him by the fact that Dems had only a 51-50 advantage in the Senate which was subject to Manchin and Sinema, which made it impossible to get anything significant passed which truly changed the trajectory the country was on or addressed and decisively dealt with a major issue.

Biden's approval rating or asking if people want him to run again are not really relevant here. Biden was the one who refused to back down in making election integrity and fighting for democracy, along with abortion rights, a central theme to the midterm elections. He literally did a massive speech on it the week before the election. Turns out, it was incredibly prescient. You can't just remove him from this and say, hey, you oversaw this election and determined a lot of the ultimate messaging, but your approval was only 44% so we're not giving you any credit.

Just like the "somewhat disapprovers", there is no reason to take the "do you want to see Biden run again?" question seriously, given that there's a huge chunk of people who say "no" right now but would ultimately vote for him given the option or a one-on-one against a Republican.

To try and act like he is on the same level as Trump is ludicrous. Biden has objectively been an incredibly strong first time president, but he just should not run again, when nearly every other first termer has because.... reasons? That line of thinking is ridiculous.

[wbrocks67]

Seems like my prediction wasn't that far off. Congrats to the Rev, who ran an incredible campaign.

Are there any crosstabs already? What percentage of the black vote did Warnock win? I think it's fair to say that once again black women in particular delivered this amazing result!

Unfortunately we did not get an exit poll this time, but people are musing that Warnock got a bigger share of the black vote than in November:

https://twitter.com/lxeagle17/status/1600581685904478208

[wbrocks67]

Among GA-01, GA-06, GA-11, and GA-12, which are the best long term prospects for Dems?

[wbrocks67]

Biden's approval rating or asking if people want him to run again are not really relevant here.

It is certainly 120% relevant to whether he is responsible for Dems doing relatively well in the midterms lmao. Bill Clinton in 1998 for instance had good approvals when Dems did relatively well in the 1998 midterms, so you can much more plausibly say that he helped.

Biden was the one who refused to back down in making election integrity and fighting for democracy, along with abortion rights, a central theme to the midterm elections. He literally did a massive speech on it the week before the election. Turns out, it was incredibly prescient. You can't just remove him from this and say, hey, you oversaw this election and determined a lot of the ultimate messaging, but your approval was only 44% so we're not giving you any credit.

The way you are talking about it, it sounds like you are trying to imply Trump's coup attempt and Dobbs were not issues until Biden mentioned them, and that people cared about them only because Biden mentioned them.

I don't know your age etc, but in case you are too young to remember much from previous Presidents, I can assure you that Obama for instance made plenty of "massive speeches" before the 2010 and 2014 elections, which barely moved the needle. This was not because Obama was a bad speaker in comparison to Biden, a bad President, or that he was not talking about important issues that people cared about. Rather it is because Presidents are not omnipotent demigods and are not, in general, responsible for everything that happens in the country.

Your argument is just as silly - and for precisely the same reasons - as Republicans who like to pretend that Biden is singlehandedly responsible for global inflation.

To try and act like he is on the same level as Trump is ludicrous.

Honestly, what are you talking about??? I never said anything of the sort.

Biden has objectively been an incredibly strong first time president, but he just should not run again, when nearly every other first termer has because.... reasons? That line of thinking is ridiculous.

Whether Biden should or should not run again and what reasons he may or may not have to do so is utterly irrelevant to the question of whether midterm voters thought he should run again. When asked the question, a clear supermajority said no. You can spin that however you want, but it is a simple fact. If midterm voters were voting D because they liked Biden so much, it stands to reason that fewer of them would have said that.

And incidentally, there are also other similar/related questions from the exit polls which also do not support your argument at all, like this:

https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/national-results/house/0



You might also find it interesting to compare to e.g. 2014:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/2014/us/house/exitpoll/



hmmm those look awfully similar, don't they? Maybe it will make you think a bit.

You're literally missing the entire point. Never said Biden was solely responsible for how well Dems did (no president ever is) but the point here is that Biden IS the president, and he DID oversee a spectacular midterm performance by Democrats. By default, he gets some of the credit for that. Not going to bother going into nonsense where he has no bearing on any of that. Biden continues to be underestimated consistently, and you seem keen on doing that.

[wbrocks67]

How much vote is left to be counted?

[wbrocks67]

Ah Tim Scott, the only non-Murkowski Republican running for Senate this year whom Atlas endorsed.

I think in part due to said scandal with the Dem. I for one gave no endorsement and wrote in Joe Cunningham.

I am honestly shocked Krystle Matthews even got close to 40%. She had $0 and after that scandal I figured she'd completely implode. She lost bigly but honestly for SC, I expected her to lose even further.

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/stphnfwlr/status/1605933136013152258