Georgia senate seats runoff(s) megathread

[Frenchrepublican]

With morons like them why do we even need democrats anymore ?
https://twitter.com/HotlineJosh/status/1334234120134799360?s=20

[Frenchrepublican]

Steve Daines? Tilt R -> Safe R (unless Tester campaigns for Ds in GA, in which case the state implodes)

Yeah Tester would probably redo the march to the sea but this time with a tractor

[Frenchrepublican]

https://twitter.com/umichvoter99/status/1338647663164723202
Jon Ossoff is leaving Fortress Atlanta to venture out to more isolated Blue outposts in red territory.

It makes sense considering that these places have a substantial share of black voters

[Frenchrepublican]

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1338851082945130499?s=20

[Frenchrepublican]

I haven't looked through 46 pages of commentary, so I don't know if this question has been addressed, but: why would a GA voter split her or his vote on Jan. 5?

Of course, if every voter split their ballots, the GOP would control the Senate unless both races ended in an exact tie. Continuing the journey through math fantasyland, any one of the four outcomes would have a 25% probability of happening if the races were independent, which of course they are not.

As of now, I'd say 3 of the 4 possible outcomes have about a 30% chance of happening, with Ossoff - Loeffler at about 10%.

Things to consider:
1. Some older, rural, white GOP voters have died since Nov. 3; and a number of those who turn 18 between Nov. 3 and Jan. 5 (more urban, more minority, more Democratic) have registered.

2. The Chambliss effect: in 2008, Saxby Chambliss (R) outpolled his Democratic opponent 49.9 - 47.2 on election day. Four weeks later, when everyone knew the Democrats had the presidency and both houses of Congress, Chambliss won comfortably, 57-43. The key difference in 2020, of course, is that, unlike in 2008, Senate control hangs in the balance (not to mention 12 years of the kinds of demographic changes described in 1 above).

Will the "Chambliss effect" be a factor this year?

There are some moderate suburbanites (such as forsythvoter) who have become alienated from Loeffler, but would still feel comfortable voting for Perdue. I don't fully understand their motivations either, given that both Loeffler and Perdue have hitched themselves on the Trump Train and have identical voting records. Moreover, both have made ignorant and controversial statements, and both have made explicit appeals to Trumpist voters.

Just to be clear, I'm not all that comfortable voting for Perdue for a variety of reasons. If I were, I would have just sent in my absentee ballot already.

Does anyone know if Atlas store copies of messages that we already sent privately? I actually just wrote a long email to another poster privately this morning laying out in a lot of detail my thinking process. I do want folks who are strongly D or R (and this forum has plenty) to at least understand the perspective of voters in the middle, even if they do not agree with it. I would like to publish it, but it's not showing up in my outbox.

Thanks to the poster that replied with my email so I could publish it . Presenting random musings of forsythvoter...

Before I get to the Senate runoffs, one of the reasons I post on Atlas (in addition to being curious about other viewpoints) is because I think there are a number of people who read the forums to get a better understanding of all the different political viewpoints that are out there. While I certainly don't represent all GA voters, I hope that my posts provide good insights on what's top of mind from the standpoint of a formerly R-leaning (arguably this is no longer the case, as you may be aware from my posts) voter whose views are pretty common in a heavily Republican suburb of Atlanta that is trending quite rapidly Democratic.

In terms of how I think about the Senate runoffs, I actually don't view it as a vote for Perdue/Loeffler vs. Ossof / Warnock. Rather, I see it more as a vote for Collins / Murkowski / Romney vs. a vote for Manchin / Sinema. Therefore, the difference to me is not as extreme as I think many Democrats see it. I still see value in a system where Democrats should be able to get at least one R to sign onto their legislation. In my mind as a moderate, that makes for more moderate legislation. And if the situations were reversed (Trump were re-elected with a narrow House majority, my thinking would absolutely be flipped). The fact that I'm contemplating voting straight Democratic for the runoffs is frankly what's quite incredible imo, and a reflection of how much the GOP has turned off voters like me.

In terms of legislation - you can look through some of my past points, but I really do worry about our ballooning deficit and national debt. I realize and agree Republicans have done nothing to control this, but I worry that giving Dems a trifecta will lead to excess spending in areas that I actually don't think are good for the broader economy. For example, I actually don't think those with student loans on average are struggling as much as those without (I say that as a college-educated voter who has student loans and would benefit from having them canceled).

There are two good points you and others have raised and I am digesting it. It is these two things which are preventing me from just following my typical instinct to not give Dems a trifecta. One is how much power does McConnell really have to prevent legislation from getting passed, assuming Murkowski, Romney or Collins agree. I frankly still don't fully understand this point and if you have any insights, I will be eager to hear. I agree with the Ds that he will try to obstruct Biden's agenda - the question I have, is to what extent can he do so with 51 or 52 votes.

The other point is I do not think highly of Loeffler or Perdue at all. The reason I've ruled out voting for Loeffler goes beyond just the fraud accusations. I think she's essentially running a dog whistle campaign (how she wasn't aware that was taking a picture with a prominent KKK member is frankly not even the tip of the iceberg for me) in the hopes that white voters like me secretly agree with her not so subtle references to Warnock's race. I find it honestly quite offensive, and frankly if I weren't comfortable living with black Americans, I wouldn't be living in metro Atlanta in the first place. This type of campaign to me is absolutely disqualifying and is why Warnock has my vote.

Perdue isn't running against Warnock, so you may argue that's why we haven't seen that sort of a campaign to this extent from his side, but I try to judge based on what I see, not on what I think I would see. This is where I think Dems and Reps tend to jump the gun, including on issues like packing the courts. I would prefer not to pack the courts; maybe my opinion would change if they started overturning Roe vs. Wade, Obergefell, etc. but I am not convinced hat they will do so. If Dems pack the courts, they will also have to contend with the very real likelihood that Repubs will do the same once they have the trifecta btw - an outcome I tend to think is just as likely in the future as Dems getting and maintaining one.

So for Perdue, my vote is really coming down to how much do I think Biden's agenda will be stonewalled vs. just moderated by Rs having a 51 seat majority in the Senate.

I understand your dilemma and even if my political opinions are to the right of yours on probably many issues, to some extent I can relate with you. You know, being a conservative in France is not very easy and each election I have the same problem that you seem to have now as I must choose between politicans I don't like and with whom I disagree on most issues (sure I could abstain myself of voting but it's bit cowardly), in the end I always vote against someone or against a party and not for someone, I guess that being a moderate (I mean a true moderate not a straight ticket democratic voters who pretend to be a moderate because he has a problem with the world ''liberal'') in the USA is probably as much hard than being a conservative in France as candidates in both political parties are more or less forced to appeal to their most extreme elements, because of the primaries system, and thus mostly ignore the 1/5 of the electorate that is less ideological.

As for the GA races you're certainly smart enough to make your choices without the advice of myself and other Atlas members, but if you expect Sinema and Manchin to cast the deciding vote against left-wing legislations, you are probably going to be disappointed, when their vote is needed ''moderate'' democrats will always stick with their colleagues.

[Frenchrepublican]

https://twitter.com/lawindsor/status/1340392013162835970?s=20

Forsythvoter, you still considering Perdue? 👀

Wow, what a cuck.

This woman is a troll. Perdue had no way to know who she was.

[Frenchrepublican]

I might just be a political oddball but I do actually care about the deficit and responsible spending and I'm not convinced a blanket $2,000 stimulus check is good policy. I'd much prefer the Dems take some time to lay out all the different options for stimulating the economy (e.g., infrastructure spending, tax credits for parents that need child care for the pandemic), rather than just jump on the more checks for everyone train.

Yeah, exactly, from a European perspective the debate which is taking place in the US is pretty weird, I mean, it's logical to compensate the loss of income for the people who are forced to shut down their business, who have lost their job or who are facing reduced working hours because of lockdown and anti Covid measures but giving a $2000 check to everybody, including the federal and state workers who are unaffacted by these measures is wasteful.

[Frenchrepublican]

If one side wins both runoffs, they will have gotten extremely lucky with winning narrow senate races to form this congress, especially if they both break narrowly for Republicans.

Also, if both seats flip, it kind of destroys the "structural likely R senate" meme.  Biden won 25 states.  If Senate Dems can defeat GOP incumbents in Biden's narrowest state, they are in much better shape than anyone thought after 2018.

There is a error on your list

[Frenchrepublican]

Is early vote data actually worth reading into? People on here thought blue Texas was inevitable based on massive early voting turnout, only to be sorely disappointed.

texas ev data simply indicated that turnout would be massive. it didn't tell you which side was turning out.

georgia ev data indicates a d electorate.

No, these data simply show that democrats are more prone to vote early, you can't extrapolate anything more from these numbers

[Frenchrepublican]

If one side wins both runoffs, they will have gotten extremely lucky with winning narrow senate races to form this congress, especially if they both break narrowly for Republicans.

Also, if both seats flip, it kind of destroys the "structural likely R senate" meme.  Biden won 25 states.  If Senate Dems can defeat GOP incumbents in Biden's narrowest state, they are in much better shape than anyone thought after 2018.

There is a error on your list

Lol I can’t find it and I’m going insane at this point. Any care to tel me what it is?

ND-SEN 2018 ; you have mixed Hoeven and Cramer.

[Frenchrepublican]

Also, if both seats flip, it kind of destroys the "structural likely R senate" meme.  Biden won 25 states.  If Senate Dems can defeat GOP incumbents in Biden's narrowest state, they are in much better shape than anyone thought after 2018.

Said Biden state not only has an incredibly small segment of actually persuadable voters but also happens to be the most rapidly D-trending state of any remotely competitive state (i.e. not CO/VA) in the entire country. If Democrats win these races, it will tell us more about GA's political future and further underscore the fact that GA is rapidly turning/has already turned into a reliably Democratic state than it will about Democrats' prospects in the Senate after 2021 (I could certainly see Democrats losing all of NH/NV/AZ/WV/OH/MT in 2022/2024, all of which might be more competitive than GA at this point, which would still make the Senate somewhat uphill for them in the long run, for instance).

The only reason the GA runoffs even matter is because Republicans were too incompetent to win a Senate race in a Trump +42 state (in addition to losing other winnable races such as MT 2018, MI 2020, etc.). Democrats still have to overcome some serious structural challenges in the Senate.

TBH, with hindsight this race was not winnable considering how Trump underperformed in Michigan compared to his 2016 performance, in order to win James needed Trump to keep his losing margin under 1%, Peters was never going to underperform Biden by much more than 1 point.

[Frenchrepublican]

I might just be a political oddball but I do actually care about the deficit and responsible spending and I'm not convinced a blanket $2,000 stimulus check is good policy. I'd much prefer the Dems take some time to lay out all the different options for stimulating the economy (e.g., infrastructure spending, tax credits for parents that need child care for the pandemic), rather than just jump on the more checks for everyone train.

Yeah, exactly, from a European perspective the debate which is taking place in the US is pretty weird, I mean, it's logical to compensate the loss of income for the people who are forced to shut down their business, who have lost their job or who are facing reduced working hours because of lockdown and anti Covid measures but giving a $2000 check to everybody, including the federal and state workers who are unaffacted by these measures is wasteful.

The problem is that this could potentially run into a 5th/14th amendment issue - fully employed people could make the argument that being denied stimulus checks is a violation of their due process rights.
There's also the idea that more money directly put in people's pockets pays economic dividends in the longrun, which is the same reasoning past administrations have given for cutting payroll taxes.

The political power behind both, though, is that people having more money is popular.

I don't see why it would be contrary to the US Constitution. Treating different situations differently is logical and it's a common practice, see food stamps, you get them only if you meet some criterias.

[Frenchrepublican]

Literally everything seems to cancel out in these races; for every point about why a canidate may be favored, there is an equally strong counterpoint. Some examples:

Early vote data looks good for Democrats but the GOP will likely make a huge turnout on election day

Biden won Georgia but Republican's still got a plurality or majority of votes statewide in both Senate races and in the House PV

Warnock and Ossoff seem like better canidates and have the enthusiasm edge but ticket splitting likely works in favor of Perdue and Loefller

History favors the GOP as being more reliable voters in Georgia but Democratic drop-off in runoffs has been getting smaller and smaller and you even have some who threaten to boycott the runoffs now

Republicans largely outperformed polling this cycle, but Georgia was one of the few places where polling held up pretty well, even underestimating Ds in some cases

Yeah, it's the definition of a tossup race.

(Now we could argue about Warnock being a better candidate than Loeffler).

[Frenchrepublican]

If Perdue backs the $2k checks, I'm voting for Ossoff. I don't see the point of voting R on the basis of fiscal conservatism if they're not going to even try to be fiscally prudent.

There it is:

https://twitter.com/Perduesenate/status/1343943989804867585

Sad it had to come to this, but I guess Ossoff it is. I've frankly lost all respect for Perdue at this point. It's pretty clear he'll do whatever Trump wants regardless of ideology, which is just not what I'm looking for in a Senator.

If Dems win, I also hope they don't interpret the votes of voters like me as a full-sale approval of their fiscal policy. I don't think Dems should jumping so quickly on this more free money for everyone train either. I hope the party remembers this if they want my vote in 2022.

I think you're doing a big error here, this election is not about theoricial principles and conservatism ideology. Obviously giving a big check to everyone, even to the people whose incomes have not been affected by the lockdown measures is stupid, a such measure is poorly targeted and wasteful, but it's also very popular, including in GA, and Perdue has no other choice than backing it (especially with Trump throwing his support behind it). Now you have to think about the post Trump era, about the longer term, and here the difference between a Schumer led Senate and a GOP led one will be huge, if Biden has a dem majority in the Senate you can expect many more wasteful spendings and the public debt would probably jump quickly to +$30 billions (Krugman is already calling for some New Great society programs), if republicans hold the Senate, and even if they are imperfect, they would at least be able to refrain some of these insane spendings from happening

[Frenchrepublican]

I’ll play along with the fantasy that Dems win...,

What about PR statehood ?

(DC too... but that’ll be struck down as unconstitutional)

Why?

Presumably some fear-mongering about how the 5 conservatives will never allow the Democrats to pass anything ever again.

Quoting from an article on the matter:

The Founding Fathers wrote it into the Constitution. Article I, Section 8 provides explicitly for a national capital that would not be part of a state nor treated as a state, but rather a unique enclave under the exclusive authority of Congress — a neutral “district” in which representatives of all the states could meet on an equal footing to conduct the nation’s business.

Also DC was once part of Maryland and technically Marylanders could still reclaim it (like Virginia did in the 1840s), it could be a significant argument against statehood.

[Frenchrepublican]

Can't wait til our new Senate Majority this week and Biden confirmation as Prez, we are on the verge of a Trifecta that we should of won in Nov

it would be the smallest working trifecta in american history.

for your own sanity, please temper your expectations about what you will accomplish.

barack obama had 60 (60!) dem senators in 2009 and 2010 and there was still drama and roadbumps.

you will not be passing divisive ideological big ticket items with a 5 person house majority and a 51-50 senate. you just won't.

you will get judges, infrastructure, and maybe certain tax increases.

in fact, the 5 vote majority in the house may be even more of an issue than joe manchin. Not hard at all to find 5 house dems who represent wealthy business districts who will oppose tax increases.  

a double digit number of republicans opposed the TCJA because it repealed SALT deductions.

why wouldn't at least a few house dems from wealthy districts be spooked about pissing off some constituents?

I don't think that Manchin is going to torpedo any major democratic legislation, especially considering that he is unlikely to run again, but yeah, the Biden's tax plan is probably DOA in the House, hiking back the highest income tax rate to pre 2017 levels would likely pass, but increasing the corporate tax by one third, creating a tax on financial transactions, a massive estate tax increase (the estate tax is the most unpopular tax of all), and a 100% increase of the capital gains tax rates are probably too hard to stomach for people like Schrader, Malinowski, Gottheimer, Scherill, Casten, Underwood, Fletcher and likely a few other ones

[Frenchrepublican]

My prediction for how tomorrow will go:

-There are a lot of reports about the in person vote throughout the day that a bunch of people post in this thread and latch on to too much

-Polls close, and no one has the clear advantage for the first hour

-Northern GA which has lagged in turnout ends up having medicore turnout for the GOP, but they’ve sustained their margins

-Atlanta takes a long time to count, but while the margins in some counties are underwhelming turnout is strong

-The “black belt” is notably strong for Democrats

-Democrats perform “eh” in a lot of the midsized cities.

-South rural white GA is just fine for the GOP; nothing notable

At first everyone says Perdue and Loefeller are favored, only to then say Warnock and Osoff are favored, and just willy nilly switch back and forth until someone is clearly favored. A bunch of notorious Atlas partisans will continue to make case for their canidates until it’s clear as day they have no chance of winning

We know by Wednesday morning who will win, even if the networks haven’t officially called the races

I currently think it’ll be Perdue + 4 and Loefeller + 2, which would probably make this a very boring and disappointing senate cycle, at least from the perspective of a Democrat, though that’s my gut, my brain and Excel say otherwise

While the races are tossup, I think whoever wins wins by slightly more than most of Atlas suspects

Could you explain your reasoning ? Because if I understand your model republicans should have some reasons to be worried

[Frenchrepublican]

At my polling location in Cobb County.  I’m about the 30th person in line.  Line is about the same length as it was on Election Day in November.

Proudly casting my vote for Perdue and Loeffler!  Time for Georgia to redeem itself and save AMERICA!

Just come out and say that you’re a supporter of fascism in America and that you want an end to American democracy.

It's not like if her opponent was a Castro loving extremist, who hates his own country (You can't serve God and being a military), who (at best) is prejudicied against whites, and who happen to be by the way a wife beater.

Democrats would have been better off had they recruited a scandal free candidate (someone like McBath for example).