GA-SEN 2020 Class III Megathread: She Who Loeffs Last

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I highly doubt this will be a lockout. Loeffler is gonna get like 10% of the vote.

Agreed. Even before this Loeffler didn't really have much of a base. There wasn't much of a reason for GOP voters to pick her over Collins aside from incumbency and being a woman (which we all now GOP voters don't care about). Right now she's going to get single digits, assuming she doesn't drop out before.

Prior to the scandal, her Bloombucks (a net worth of $500m+) would have counted for something given how much funding is required to bombard the airwaves in a state the size of Georgia.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

https://mobile.twitter.com/NilesGApol/status/1260521135441133568?ref_src=twsrc%5...
Yeah, Lieberman will be the nominee

There will be a cruel irony to him losing the runoff in the seat that decides the Senate majority, thereby causing Biden's subsequent failure to pass a public option.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Hopefully Taver doesn't have a big ego and drops out.

And Lieberman. If he remains in past August, he is ego-driven and self-serving.

If he's polling ahead of Warnock while remaining in, I think there's a fairly strong case for arguing he has a stronger campaign.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I don't doubt that Lieberman's lead over Warnock could easily collapse - all I'm saying is that if it doesn't as the weeks draw on, his case for staying in the race remains strong.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I'll buy into the very high probability that Warnock does much better than any other Democrat in this race on election day, but as long as polls continue to show him and Lieberman trading places, the latter is going to want to stay in the race. The state party is better off prioritising Ed Tarver's departure, as he has been trailing both consistently (outside of that one Republican poll that didn't seem to include Warnock).

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I'd been hesitant to jump on the "Warnock is a bad candidate" train, but this might explain why Lieberman isn't yet dead in the water.

https://twitter.com/NilesGApol/status/1295437598111027206

#candidatequality moves less in an extremely polarised state like GA when it comes to a D vs R race, but Warnock's best shot at winning was clearing the field prior to the November election (or getting into a runoff in which Trump had already won the presidency, I suppose).

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Is that true though? Warnock's team said they were spending nearly $3M on an ad campaign for August.

I've seen that in AJC too. Could he have bought ads that haven't aired yet, but will by the end of the month? If so, it's a late start.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

All this bullsh*t may help Loeffler win the primary, but she is going to keep pushing away any chance of getting moderates in the runoff.

Split-ticket voting is almost nil in Georgia. Loeffler is far better off doing in Doug Collins' campaign and hoping the fundamentals give her a January win than treating a jungle primary like a general election.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

If the prospect of the first black senator from Georgia won't motivate black voters in the runoff then nothing will.

Descriptive representation is overrated as an electorate force.

As for educated suburbanites, they always vote. And considering the fact that Trump won't just go gently into that good night after his defeat, I bet they won't resist the temptation to give him and his enablers a last kick in the nuts.

I'm not sure it's a given Trump would support Republicans in a runoff if he'd already lost assuming the incumbent Senators hadn't pulled out all the stops to ensure he remained president anyway.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

It was missed here, but one Republican candidate withdrew from the race. Wayne Johnson's name will remain on the ballot but he has dropped out and endorsed Doug Collins. That leaves 19 active candidates on the ballot plus one eligible write-in.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I still am confused why people think Loeffler is stronger than Collins, after the insider trading scandal.

The war chest and public polling tending to show her with an edge over him (I think she'd be marginally weaker in a runoff and that the spending is just helping her consolidate Republican support that would otherwise go to Collins).

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Collins and Loeffler both jockeyed for Marjorie Taylor Greene's support.

https://twitter.com/HotlineJosh/status/1316755381155135490
Which is awfully cynical (and just awful in general), but also seems like very poor politics? Taylor Greene represents all the worst elements of the modern GOP that suburban voters seem to be fleeing.

This is a jungle primary and there are far more swing voters within the intra-party fight than outside of it (especially in a state as polarised as Georgia). If Greene holds some sway with the base, it's smart for Republican candidates to court her support.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Does anyone have a clear understanding for why Loeffler beat Collins in this race?
I don't have any sense for what distinguished Loeffler's constituency from Collins' constituency.
The exist polls really don't provide a lot of insight; Loeffler beat Collins among every demographic group, and none hugely more than others.  Even the county map seems pretty scattered.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2020/exit-polls/georgia-exit-polls/#senate

Bloombucks boosting her name ID, perhaps? The primary got mixed up with the general election and my best guess is that turned into more of a name ID contest than an ordinary GOP primary.

Maybe the 'more conservative than Attila the Hun' pandering worked.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Romney/Biden voters will love that :

https://twitter.com/StephenLawson_/status/1326171480170827777?s=20

Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock worked at a church that hosted and celebrated late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in 1995, past news stories and Warnock's biography indicate.

Warnock's campaign, though, says he was a junior member of the staff at the time Castro spoke at the church and was not a decision-maker.

The 1995 event came as the U.S. allowed Castro to stay within a 25-mile radius of the United Nations in New York City, where he denounced the U.S.'s embargo on Cuba and received applause from some at the General Assembly.

Castro received a similarly warm reception at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where Warnock worked at the time. The Miami Herald reported at the time that Castro “blast[ed] the United States with the vigor that was missing from his speech to the United Nations earlier in the day and winding up the evening with a rousing rendition of the socialist hymn Internationale.”

FWIW the campaign is said to have "declined  to provide further comment on whether Warnock attended that particular event," beyond the following:

"Twenty-five years ago, Reverend Warnock was a youth pastor and was not involved in any decisions at that time."

However, it's not clear whether Fox actually pressed them on that.