Georgia's Very Own Megathread! (v2)

[skbl17]

[snip because I don't have enough posts to include links]

Writing's on the wall for the GOP in Gwinnett, and he knows it. Just how far will the Gwinnett GOP fall? Consider the following:

1) In November 2018, Dems had no county commission seats, no countywide positions, one Board of Education seat, and 10 of 25 seats on the county General Assembly delegation. With the exception of BOE district 2 - Republican Steve Knudson held on by ~100 votes - every partisan county race was won by a Democrat. Both county commission seats, one BOE seat, and the Solicitor General office were all flips, and none of them were close. 8 General Assembly seats (2 Senate, 6 House) flipped to the Dems, giving them control of the county delegation.

2) The remaining Republican-held county commission seats are all up in 2020. The county commission district map is practically a dummymander (someone else has probably run the numbers, but I think Abrams won or came within a couple points of winning all of them).

In district 3, Tommy Hunter is heading for defeat - he managed to piss off almost half his constituents in 2017 by calling Democrats "Demonrats" and calling John Lewis a "racist pig", his attempts at making up for the comments weren't well-received; only reason he wasn't recalled is because offensive public commentary is not grounds for recalling an official in Georgia. He already had a close-race in 2016 (he won 51-49) and Abrams carried his district by a comfortable margin.

District 1's Jace Brooks was unopposed in 2016, but his district doesn't include the reddest parts of Gwinnett - Buford and the Hamilton Mill HS cluster - but rather Suwanee and many heavy-Dem precincts along I-85 north of Jimmy Carter Blvd. He's not quite as doomed as Tommy Hunter is, but he's in danger of losing.

Finally, Charlotte Nash is the chairwoman and thus will be on the ballot countywide. Nash has been relatively inoffensive, but I don't recall Solicitor General Szabo being offensive either - she still lost 54-42 last fall. Very likely the Dems win her seat, and it probably won't be that close.

In short, it's probable the county commission will go from all-GOP to all-Dem within the span of two years. Damn.

3) The Board of Education map is on the cusp of being a dummymander. As previously mentioned, Knudson held on in district 2, but his district takes in the ultra-red Hamilton Mill cluster, parts of ultra-red Sugar Hill, and the swingy and Dem-leaning precincts along GA Highway 20 from Lawrenceville to the Mall of Georgia. He only won by ~100 votes.

BOE District 3 and the chair position are up next year.  District 3's incumbent Republican Mary Kay Murphy was unopposed in 2016, but Abrams won a majority of precincts in Murphy's district. This race is very ripe for a Dem flip. As is the chairman position, but that goes without saying as a countywide position.

Knudson's win means that the GOP will, at the very least, keep one position on the Gwinnett BOE.

4) Sheriff Butch Conway, the tax commissioner, and several countywide partisan court positions are also up. I suspect 2020 will not be kind to their reelection prospects considering what happened to Szabo in 2018.

5) P.K. Martin is in serious danger of losing his state Senate seat (SD-9). Harrell is completely done for in HD-106 (he was unopposed because of a Dem fail in qualifying, but Abrams carried his seat by 15 points,) and HD-104 (Efstration's seat) will be close.

In short, Gwinnett is a complete dumpster fire for the GOP and they're losing their grip on all levels of power in the county. Danny Porter running for reelection as a Dem is the only way he can hold the office short of a Dem qualifying failure.

[skbl17]

Rockdale, Henry, Gwinnett, Douglas, Clayton and Douglas counties actually Swung D from 2008-2012 interesting enough.

Yeah, 2016 and 2018 just accelerated trends that were already present.

Also, you posted Douglas twice. I assume you meant Cobb for one of them?

[skbl17]

How will the Supreme Court election look as Barrow is running?

Judicial races are officially nonpartisan, so it depends on whether the candidates and parties decide they want to make it seem partisan on the campaign trail. Recent judicial elections here show that (thankfully, imo) that isn't the case. In that case, Barrow may make it on name recognition, but I don't know.

Frankly, I think this race will probably get lost in the noise of the 2020 presidential primaries and the Senate race.

[skbl17]

Georgia will be a swing state in the 2020s and 2030s but it will be more like Florida, Leanish R.

Also, both Abrams and Kemp were unappealing candidates.

Kemp is a bland white male, Abrams is a loose cannon.

Cagle would have beaten Abrams by 5 points.

If Democrats were so concerned about "voting rights", Barrow would have won the December runoff, but they stayed home.

A few points I would make:

1) The last statewide runoff of importance, 2008's Senate race between Chambliss and Martin, Dems also stayed home - that turned a 1-point race into a 15-point blowout for Chambliss. Here, voters also stayed home - that turned a 1-point race into...a 2-point race. Even with insanely low turnout Raffensperger and Eaton barely won their runoffs. In the runoffs, Miller and Barrow actually did better than Abrams in parts of Metro Atlanta. That's not exactly comforting for the GOP; runoffs are no longer slam dunks.

2) Obviously Abrams/Kemp gets the most coverage and views, but most other Republicans didn't do that much better last fall: the Attorney General race had a Generic R vs. Generic D, but that was also a narrow win for Carr. PSC D3 was also largely Generic R vs. Generic D, that went to a runoff. Lt. Gov., while not quite Generic R vs. Generic D, didn't see much improvement from the gubernatorial results for Geoff Duncan. Pridemore barely avoided a runoff in PSC D5, again not a high-profile race.

The lone standouts were popular Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black and State School Superintendent Richard Woods, who only romped to 6-point victories, hardly landslides. Even in a bad or close-run year for a party, some of their statewide officials will still win sizable victories: the same year Mike Taylor was getting smashed by Sonny Purdue in his 2006 reelection bid for governor, Thurbert Baker, Michael Thurmond, and Tommy Irvin all won their statewide races with 10- to 20-point landslides.

3) There wouldn't be anything to sustain a long 20-year period of Florida-style Lean R politics in Georgia. Florida has two things Georgia doesn't have: a sustained inflow of conservative retirees and a more Republican-leaning Latino voting block. Those two trends combined with the typical rural Dem collapse we see elsewhere in the South mean that the pro-Dem trends among young people and suburbanites are cancelled out, leaving Florida in an R-tilting state. The incompetence of the FDP doesn't help matters.

Georgia has none of those things: while there are conservative retirees, they have only a fraction of the clout and influence Florida's have. Peachtree City is not The Villages. Latinos in this state vote more in line with those in the Southwest, not Florida. Finally, while the Georgia Dems have definitely had their low points, they aren't even in the same universe as the FDP in terms of incompetence.

[skbl17]

In another installment of "Gwinnett Republicans who see the writing on the wall", Charlotte Nash has announced that she won't run for reelection as Gwinnett County Commission chair next year.

[skbl17]

This is still fresh and news is still coming in but the insurance commissioner, Jim Beck, just got indicted on 38 counts. I’m so shocked that a r figure in the state is corrupt, so shocked.

What did he do this time ?

Ironically enough...insurance fraud.  Along with theft and money laundering.

https://www.11alive.com/article/news/crime/fraud-theft-and-money-laundering-ga-insurance-commissioner-charged-in-2m-scheme/85-beb0852b-ad22-41e9-a0b0-d07c354b5972

Will we have a special, or will Kemp appoint his replacement?

The Georgia Constitution (Art. V, Sec. II, Paragraph VIII) stipulates that the Governor will fill the vacancy (said appointment must then be confirmed by the Senate,) but only until the next general election:

In case of the death or withdrawal of a person who received the majority of votes cast in an election for the office of Secretary of State, Attorney General, State School Superintendent, Commissioner of Insurance, Commissioner of Agriculture, or Commissioner of Labor, the Governor elected at the same election, upon becoming Governor, shall have the power to fill such office by appointing, subject to confirmation of the Senate, an individual to serve until the next general election and until a successor for the balance of the unexpired term shall have been elected and qualified.

So Kemp would appoint a new commissioner of insurance, but there would be an election to fill the position in 2020 - the same time as the election for president, U.S. Senate, and two of the PSC seats.