GA-SEN 2022 Megathread: Werewolves and Vampires

[Sol]

I hope Warnock wins Fayette in the runoff. Just for weird aesthetic reasons haha

He was leading there for a long time on Election Night. And its presently 50-47, or a 3 point gap. Which is a drop from the 8-6 point gap in 2020/21. The expansion of the south Atlanta African American suburbs continues inexorably.

Fayette is interesting because it is significantly richer than a lot of other southern Atlanta metro area counties. Peachtree City is an interesting place to look for rich suburban white swings too.

[Sol]

Interesting.  While I understand it as an accommodation for voters who received their ballots late and didn't want to risk entering a public building during a pandemic, it doesn't really make sense to me why anyone would drop off an absentee ballot day-of vs. just handing in/destroying the blank ballot and voting in-person in a normal election?  First of all, this doesn't help people who requested mail ballots because they are out of town or unable to physically go to the polling place.  If you are in town on election day anyway, why would you risk having your absentee ballot disqualified on a technicality when you could put one in the machine normally and watch it get counted?

I assume a lot of people find it a little bit easier in terms of preparing for the election--as they research candidates they can fill the ballot out as they go rather than having to prep in advance.

I do actually have some concerns about no-fault absentee voting -- it offers an opening for CentristRepublican style "voting for your family member" -- but easier prep is actually a good thing about it.

[Sol]

"Atlanta is the cultural leader of the United States." - Rachel Maddow

Um... I mean it's a great city and all but New York still exists among other things.

No sun belt city has ever been a cultural leader along any dimension. The only exception is LA, which is a cultural leader in a bad way.

I see you do not listen to music.

[Sol]

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

I’d personally argue that the only truly safe districts for the Republicans for the coming decade are the 8th, 9th, and 14th. Given that the 3rd and 10th both contain the bulk of the growth of the southern suburbs of Atlanta.

Guess it depends on which of the pro-Dem trends are strongest. 6th and 11th rely on white suburban voters more (I suspect those are probably the districts in which Abrams will have ran most behind Warnock); I’d say the 6th would likely be a good place for Carolyn Bourdeaux to run in a future election if she wants to make a comeback to Congress. The 10th is probably the most likely aside from those two, but has a very strange coalition of black voters in the expanding south Atlanta suburbs, the Athens area which is largely liberal white voters, and rural black voters.

I can't think of a case why the 8th would be competitive, but the 9th theoretically could be if Hall zooms leftward and Dems get Stalinesque margins out of Gwinnett. The 14th if the Cobb portion becomes deep blue and Paulding sees an influx of suburban Democrats.

Hall is far enough outside the city that it hasn't yet moved left at all: in the first round in 2008, Chambliss won it by 42 points, while in the first round this year Walker won it by 44. I suppose what that means is that there's a lot of room for Democratic growth, but presumably the white flight has to go somewhere, and so far it's been collecting in Gainesville. Anecdotally, when a friend of mine mentioned that she worked with a guy who lived in Gainesville, the reaction among everyone was to make cracks about how he definitely hadn't moved there for the schools.

It's interesting to me that white flight specifically would wind up in Hall County since Gainesville is in fact minority-majority, but I suppose it's more affordable than Forsyth or Cherokee?