Georgia's Very Own Megathread!

[SnowLabrador]

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1470912072192073728

He does have a platform. He just isn't going to say it out loud for fear of it backfiring.

[Blair]

Shamelessly quoting myself but this seems similar to what happened in 2010 in Texas when the Bush family & other GOP establishment types tried to primary Rick Perry with then Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.

She was a terrible campaigner & lost.

FWIW Perdue would not be the first senator or D.C creature to be pushed into primarying a disliked state official- the issue is that they've got a record of doing quite badly!

[Adam Griffin]

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1470912072192073728

PLEASE weakly CLAP

[Adam Griffin]

In all seriousness, Perdue is kicking off his campaign in 1 of the most integral areas for GAGOP victory and one of the areas most based on media exposure where Kemp would be weakest: the Chattanooga media market (i.e. one of the places where Perdue did worse than Loeffler & where most GOP media operations take voters for granted, even if it doesn't mathematically seem that way). Remember this is where Trump tried to stand his ground in the January 2021 runoffs. Good start for the fight!

Honestly, this map can explain variances in a lot of primary and general election swings based on where candidates do/do not run field operations and ads:



If he can pull the wool over the eyes of rural South Georgians and a handful of "thoughtful" ATL suburbrons, he's in it for real.

[Adam Griffin]

I do really think South Georgia will be the final key to this primary. In terms of the above map, Kemp has a stranglehold over most of NE non-urban yellow & seafoam-colored Georgia, Perdue will likely dominate in the geographic center of the state/lime-green areas, the urbanized ATL metro will probably be some kind of wash, and most of the rest outside will come down to who runs how many ads in the far-flung places (Chattanooga, Columbus, Augusta & FL media markets).

In some ways, I think this will be a potential redo for Perdue compared to his 2014 runoff - can he pull into the fold the Kingston voters in the SE who he failed to win? Keep in mind that these same voters were key to Kemp's top-2 placement in the gubernatorial runoff, (to a far less extent, given his margin) his runoff victory and (very much so, given turnout and shifts) his overall GE win in 2018. Can Perdue make up enough ground with them? Only time will tell.

[Adam Griffin]

Obviously not meant to be exact and I am of course keeping regional delineations simple, but this - obviously contingent upon whatever various margins in each county look like - is what I imagine a narrow Perdue win looking like (carrying almost all blue counties by large-to-small (but respectable)
margins & minimizing Kemp wins in any purple ones - regardless of size - to nominal victories):

If it was literally 50/50 in the purple counties overall with Perdue carrying all blue counties and Kemp carrying the red by equal overall margins, then Perdue would likely win by around 10 points in a head-to-head race. However, I do think the power of incumbency would help Kemp a bit, therefore the tight (lower single-digits) Perdue win in my projection. This is largely because the "solid Kemp" cluster has around 30% more GOP voters than the "solid Perdue" cluster; while keeping such to a draw in the bulk of the GOP electorate in purple, winning those far-flung light blue counties would make up the difference.

[Inmate Trump]

Georgia allows voters to select whichever primary they want to vote in.

I'm going to vote in the GOP primary for Kemp.

Obviously, I'll go with Abrams for the general no matter what.  But at least Kemp tried to (somewhat) stand up for democracy and not blindly go along with Trump.  Perdue would sell us out, and he's already admitted to that.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Per Axios, 25 of the 34 Republican state senators sent Perdue a letter last month urging him not to run for governor.

[wbrocks67]

Perdue's legacy is going to be even more embarrassing if he loses this primary.

[Inmate Trump]

Perdue's legacy is going to be even more embarrassing if he loses this primary.

I really don't know that Kemp will win it.  And with Jones, it's going to a runoff, which is worse for Kemp's potential IMO.

I'm betting Perdue wins it.  But I also think he'll perform worse against Stacey Abrams than would Kemp (though he may do better than Jones).

[Suburbia]

Abrams should not be cocky either.

Tossup until the last vote is counted, and white Atlanta suburban voters could flip back to Republicans especially if Biden/Harris's approval ratings sink....even if Biden picks a Black woman to the Supreme Court if Breyer retires next year, the white female vote could offset the Black vote gains....

A lot of Republican voters will want to prove their not "racist" by electing Herschel....Herschel could help Perdue and GAGOPers...

[Not Me, Us]

I can't imagine Perdue running a campaign on the rhetoric that won Dems the Georgia Senate Runoffs will do him any favors in the general. Kemp would be stronger in the ATL suburbs and would be more competitive against Abrams.

[SnowLabrador]

I can't imagine Perdue running a campaign on the rhetoric that won Dems the Georgia Senate Runoffs will do him any favors in the general. Kemp would be stronger in the ATL suburbs and would be more competitive against Abrams.

January 2021 was a much better environment for Democrats than November of 2022 will be. Plus, Perdue didn't lose by very much. He's going to win the primary and general election.

[Roll Roons]

I can't imagine Perdue running a campaign on the rhetoric that won Dems the Georgia Senate Runoffs will do him any favors in the general. Kemp would be stronger in the ATL suburbs and would be more competitive against Abrams.

January 2021 was a much better environment for Democrats than November of 2022 will be. Plus, Perdue didn't lose by very much. He's going to win the primary and general election.

2014 was a much better environment for the GOP than 2012, but Perdue won by a smaller margin than Romney. 2020 was a worse environment for Democrats than 2018, but Biden won the state even though Abrams didn't.

[wbrocks67]

Abrams should not be cocky either.

Tossup until the last vote is counted, and white Atlanta suburban voters could flip back to Republicans especially if Biden/Harris's approval ratings sink....even if Biden picks a Black woman to the Supreme Court if Breyer retires next year, the white female vote could offset the Black vote gains....

A lot of Republican voters will want to prove their not "racist" by electing Herschel....Herschel could help Perdue and GAGOPers...

Who is getting cocky?

[Rookie Yinzer]

I can't imagine Perdue running a campaign on the rhetoric that won Dems the Georgia Senate Runoffs will do him any favors in the general. Kemp would be stronger in the ATL suburbs and would be more competitive against Abrams.

January 2021 was a much better environment for Democrats than November of 2022 will be. Plus, Perdue didn't lose by very much. He's going to win the primary and general election.

2014 was a much better environment for the GOP than 2012, but Perdue won by a smaller margin than Romney. 2020 was a worse environment for Democrats than 2018, but Biden won the state even though Abrams didn't.

Georgia is immune to national trends. Stacey Abrams is well known by people who don’t even care about politics and people are/will be ready to show up for her. I don’t care what doom posters prognosticate about GA. This race is hers to lose.

Abrams should not be cocky either.

Tossup until the last vote is counted, and white Atlanta suburban voters could flip back to Republicans especially if Biden/Harris's approval ratings sink....even if Biden picks a Black woman to the Supreme Court if Breyer retires next year, the white female vote could offset the Black vote gains....

A lot of Republican voters will want to prove their not "racist" by electing Herschel....Herschel could help Perdue and GAGOPers...

Who is getting cocky?

They’re just saying sh*t. LOL. Abrams and her camp will not take any voter for granted and I believe will mobilize a GOTV program unlike anything we have ever seen both in Georgia and nationally. I’m so excited to witness it.

[ElectionsGuy]

Is there a reason why Kemp hasn't signed the redistricting maps into law yet? Checking their strength against lawsuits?

[Woody]

https://twitter.com/DavidPerdueGA/status/1473440043717046280

[Sir Mohamed]

I can't imagine Perdue running a campaign on the rhetoric that won Dems the Georgia Senate Runoffs will do him any favors in the general. Kemp would be stronger in the ATL suburbs and would be more competitive against Abrams.

January 2021 was a much better environment for Democrats than November of 2022 will be. Plus, Perdue didn't lose by very much. He's going to win the primary and general election.

2014 was a much better environment for the GOP than 2012, but Perdue won by a smaller margin than Romney. 2020 was a worse environment for Democrats than 2018, but Biden won the state even though Abrams didn't.

Yup, exactly.

I might add that in 2020 Dems had an even better ground game and a stronger effort to turn voters out. This combined with with GA trends allowed Biden to archieve what Abrams couldn't just 2 years before. If the gubernatorial election was held in 2020, Abrams may very well have pulled it out.

2022 will be a big test whether Dem efforts on the ground and state's trend bear fruits.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1488523513979969543

[skbl17]

There seems to be an intense focus on Gwinnett County this session.

- First, Board of Education districts. The BoE, which only recently flipped to a Dem majority, is poised to become nonpartisan if SB 369 becomes law. This legislation was originally tipped to be considered in the redistricting special session, but was pushed back owing to controversy that neither the (strongly majority-Dem) county delegation nor the (all-Dem) county commission were consulted.

In theory, this also goes against the wish of a strong majority of 2020 GOP primary voters, who voted in a 2020 advisory question to mandate partisan identification for BoE races (specifically Question 3 - "SHOULD CANDIDATES FOR BOARD OF EDUCATION BE REQUIRED TO DECLARE THEIR POLITICAL PARTY?" - which passed in Gwinnett 71.5-28.5). However, I doubt this will have any notable effect on the reelection prospects of the few remaining GOP legislators from Gwinnett.

- Next, county commission districts. Previously a GOP monopoly, the Dems flipped all the seats over the course of the 2018 and 2020 election cycles, transforming the commission into a Dem monopoly. The commission recently proposed new lines, but interestingly, the General Assembly (or at least the House) plans to impose their own lines via HB 873.



Under the GOP-proposed lines, the commission would likely be 4-1 Dem (down from 5-0 Dem currently), so overall Dem control of the commission is not threatened, as the chairmanship (elected countywide) and districts 1-3 are all safe Dem. However, district 4* would likely be an R gain: on the proposed lines, the district was Loeffler+6-7 or so. Now, as the tentacles of blue Gwinnett spread north, it's quite possible district 4* would only be GOP for a short time, as I could see the Dems winning back the seat in either 2026 or, if the pro-Dem trends in Gwinnett slow down, 2030.

* The map above denotes this as "001", but the legislation refers to this as "district 4". I'm going off the legislation.

[JMT]

Jones OUT of Governor’s race, will instead run for Congress:

https://twitter.com/repvernonjones/status/1490769361203871748?s=21

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

Jones OUT of Governor’s race, will instead run for Congress:

https://twitter.com/repvernonjones/status/1490769361203871748?s=21

No doubt Trump twisted his arm on this.

[President Johnson]

Jones OUT of Governor’s race, will instead run for Congress:

https://twitter.com/repvernonjones/status/1490769361203871748?s=21

No doubt Trump twisted his arm on this.

Yeah, though I'm surprised Trump even backs proven loser David Perdue. I mean, he already lost a statewide race and I thought Trump doesn't like losers.

[Skill and Chance]

Jones OUT of Governor’s race, will instead run for Congress:

https://twitter.com/repvernonjones/status/1490769361203871748?s=21

No doubt Trump twisted his arm on this.

IDK why this matters?  GA has a runoff!