Georgia's Very Own Megathread!

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Sarah Riggs Amico (Lt. Gov. candidate in 2018) is giving serious consideration to running for the Senate seat next year, citing the situation in Georgia and other states regarding recent abortion legislation.

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"Spurred by the anti-abortion 'heartbeat' law, state Democrats launched a new group Tuesday that seeks to flip control of the Georgia House by winning 16 Republican-held legislative seats."

Technically, there is a path to Dem control of the state house in 2020, but it is extremely difficult:

1) Hold all their current seats, including Bob Trammell's HD-132 (Obama/Trump/Kemp district) and the really narrow flips from 2018 in the north metro (HD-37, HD-48, HD-50 and HD-108).

2) Not mentioned in the AJC article, but flip HD-106 (Snellville). Brett Harrell was unopposed due to Dem qualifying hijinks but Abrams carried the seat by 15 points. This is certainly a Dem flip as long as they remember to run a candidate; no amount of crossover voting will save Harrell with those kinds of top-of-ballot margins.

2) As the AJC article points out, there are 15 districts where the Republican candidate won with 55% of the vote or less, mostly but not completely metro Atlanta seats. The Dems would need to run the table on these seats. In other words, to win control Dems would have to win seats in places like:

- east and north Cobb (Dems have reasonable chances at HD-35, HD-43, and maybe HD-44,)
- north Fulton (chances in HD-49 and HD-52,)
- northern and eastern Gwinnett (they'll win HD-106 and have decent chances at HD-97 and HD-104,)
- HD-109 (Henry/Newton/Rockdale,)
- Athens area (HD-117 and HD-119; the Dems flipped these in 2017's special elections but the super-red lean of Oconee and Jackson counties flipped them back last fall - they'll need extremely high Clarke County turnout to have a shot at getting them back,)
- HD-147 (Warner Robins,)
- HD-164 (Richmond Hill/Fort Stewart/Bloomingdale,)
- maybe HD-179 (Brunswick/St. Simons,)
- The heavily-black but GOP-held seats in SW GA (HD-138 and HD-151; I'm doubtful about these because of the general Dem decline in these areas)

Some of these seats are on the edge of competitive, but that's the nature of the state house map. Note that not all of these seats are in Metro Atlanta; there are parts of Georgia outside Atlanta where Dems are gradually improving, such as Dalton, Gainesville, Athens, and parts of the Georgia coast.

Current characterization of the state house: Very Likely R.

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In other words: GA Dems will NEVER flip both chambers of the GA General Assembly anytime soon in our lifetime ?

Never? No.

I think Griff's analysis from a few months back is on point (emphasis added):

GA, by default, has been on the IL pathway for a long time. This is where one big urban cluster and its metro area grows so big that it carries the rest of the state across the finish line kicking and screaming. That, given the attitudes in our party, will likely be how GA goes Democratic. It will, however, have many drawbacks - the most obvious one being that we'll probably be a minority in the General Assembly for anywhere from 10-20 years after we take the Governor's mansion. We'll end up controlling every statewide office but be incapable of passing even the most basic legislation. GA Democrats won't have a legitimate chance to truly govern until some time in the 2030s - especially now that Kemp has won (and maybe as late as 2040, depending). If the suburbs truly do crack, though, then some of this will be mitigated.

I fully expect Dems to win statewide offices here by 2022 at the latest (the offices up in 2020 - two of the PSC seats and the Insurance Commissioner - are possible gains,) but there will be lag in the General Assembly, so there will be divided government for a while.

At the very least, there will be no GOP supermajorities in the General Assembly - that ship has sailed - so a future Dem governor won't have to deal with the same flood of veto overrides Roy Cooper had to deal with in North Carolina. On the other hand, a Dem governor will have trouble getting their agenda through the legislature in the first place.

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The AJC is reporting that Kemp will appoint Doraville Police Chief John King as the state's insurance commissioner to replace the suspended Jim Beck. King will be the first Hispanic row officer in Georgia history. As for his qualifications, he has extensive experience in law enforcement and military operations but no insurance background.

Now, the AJC article notes that Beck is suspended; he has not formally resigned as insurance commissioner. King is expected to be a candidate for the full four-year term in 2022, but should Beck be convicted or otherwise compelled to formally resign, a quasi-special election for the position would likely be held in 2020 as required by Article V, Section II, Paragraph VIII of the state constitution:

In case of the death or withdrawal of a person who received a 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 the 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.

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We have two new developments in the 2020 General Assembly races, one excellent and one concerning for Dems.

1) First, the good: Dems have a candidate for HD-106. Emily Leslie, a Dem who ran a write-in campaign in 2018, will challenge incumbent Rep. Brett Harrell. The Gwinnett County district was strongly Dem downballot in 2018, and with the Gwinnett GOP dumpster fire combined with the general Metro Atlanta trends, HD-106 is very, very likely to flip. Very Likely D, will probably become Safe once Leslie officially qualifies and assuming there are no redistricting hijinks in the 2020 legislative session.

https://twitter.com/elium2/status/1085752984317935616

2) Not mentioned in the AJC article, but flip HD-106 (Snellville). Brett Harrell was unopposed due to Dem qualifying hijinks but Abrams carried the seat by 15 points. This is certainly a Dem flip as long as they remember to run a candidate; no amount of crossover voting will save Harrell with those kinds of top-of-ballot margins.

2) Now, the bad: the Dems still have some room to fall in rural Georgia. In the same post, I mentioned this:

1) Hold all their current seats, including Bob Trammell's HD-132 (Obama/Trump/Kemp district) and the really narrow flips from 2018 in the north metro (HD-37, HD-48, HD-50 and HD-108).

Well, pro-life groups are targeting Bob Trammell. As previously mentioned, his seat voted for Obama, then Trump, then Kemp. Trammell retained some downballot crossover appeal in the parts of Meriwether County that have otherwise started voting Republican, but his HB481 vote ("no") has now made him a target. He'll really need to run up the score in Newnan and LaGrange to hold on. Tossup.

https://twitter.com/elium2/status/1113207557496217603

The Dems cannot afford to lose any seats in the state house if they want to win control in 2020. Remember, they need a net gain of 16 seats, and any loss ups the count of seats they need to flip by one.

(Twitter maps are courtesy of @elium2)

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What do you think about Senate District 17? Brian Strickland won 54-46 in 2018. I guess how he'll do is dependent on if Abrams 2018 is the new Democratic floor in a high turnout general election. Not sure how Abrams did in this district.

I live in SD-17. I do think it can flip down the road with demographic changes, but as of now it's a bit too red for 2020. The problem for Dems is that the district takes in the entire southern half of Henry - including the blood-red bits in HD-109 and HD-110 - and the entire eastern half of Newton, a part that has precincts that vote GOP by northern-Forsyth County margins.

Since 2012, the margins for SD-17 have been:

- 2012: Jeffares (R)+25.6
- 2014: Jeffares unopposed
- 2016: Jeffares (R)+19.3
- (2018 special: Strickland (R)+27.6*)
- 2018: Strickland (R)+9.0

I'm ignoring the 2018 special because as with HD-111, HD-117, and HD-119, insanely low turnout can make things very misleading. I'd imagine that a contested 2020 race in SD-17 would look a lot like a redder version of HD-109 from last year: it will look closer than expected but still be a decent win for Strickland (probably a 4-point margin). Abrams probably lost SD-17 by high single digits.

The Dems should certainly try to play for SD-17, which they'll be doing anyway considering the Tossup nature of the (somewhat) overlapping HD-109, but I'll have to characterize the Senate district as Likely R for 2020.

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What do you think about Senate District 17? Brian Strickland won 54-46 in 2018. I guess how he'll do is dependent on if Abrams 2018 is the new Democratic floor in a high turnout general election. Not sure how Abrams did in this district.

I live in SD-17. I do think it can flip down the road with demographic changes, but as of now it's a bit too red for 2020. The problem for Dems is that the district takes in the entire southern half of Henry - including the blood-red bits in HD-109 and HD-110 - and the entire eastern half of Newton, a part that has precincts that vote GOP by northern-Forsyth County margins.

Since 2012, the margins for SD-17 have been:

- 2012: Jeffares (R)+25.6
- 2014: Jeffares unopposed
- 2016: Jeffares (R)+19.3
- (2018 special: Strickland (R)+27.6*)
- 2018: Strickland (R)+9.0

I'm ignoring the 2018 special because as with HD-111, HD-117, and HD-119, insanely low turnout can make things very misleading. I'd imagine that a contested 2020 race in SD-17 would look a lot like a redder version of HD-109 from last year: it will look closer than expected but still be a decent win for Strickland (probably a 4-point margin). Abrams probably lost SD-17 by high single digits.

The Dems should certainly try to play for SD-17, which they'll be doing anyway considering the Tossup nature of the (somewhat) overlapping HD-109, but I'll have to characterize the Senate district as Likely R for 2020.

Anyone know what the state house margin was? I know we’d have to win probably 60 % to flip it and the senate is worse so best we can do is keep chipping away

If you're referring to HD-109, it was Kemp+190 votes (+0.7%), Rutledge+828 votes (+3.08%). Definitely a tossup in 2020.

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What do you think about Senate District 17? Brian Strickland won 54-46 in 2018. I guess how he'll do is dependent on if Abrams 2018 is the new Democratic floor in a high turnout general election. Not sure how Abrams did in this district.

I live in SD-17. I do think it can flip down the road with demographic changes, but as of now it's a bit too red for 2020. The problem for Dems is that the district takes in the entire southern half of Henry - including the blood-red bits in HD-109 and HD-110 - and the entire eastern half of Newton, a part that has precincts that vote GOP by northern-Forsyth County margins.

Since 2012, the margins for SD-17 have been:

- 2012: Jeffares (R)+25.6
- 2014: Jeffares unopposed
- 2016: Jeffares (R)+19.3
- (2018 special: Strickland (R)+27.6*)
- 2018: Strickland (R)+9.0

I'm ignoring the 2018 special because as with HD-111, HD-117, and HD-119, insanely low turnout can make things very misleading. I'd imagine that a contested 2020 race in SD-17 would look a lot like a redder version of HD-109 from last year: it will look closer than expected but still be a decent win for Strickland (probably a 4-point margin). Abrams probably lost SD-17 by high single digits.

The Dems should certainly try to play for SD-17, which they'll be doing anyway considering the Tossup nature of the (somewhat) overlapping HD-109, but I'll have to characterize the Senate district as Likely R for 2020.

Anyone know what the state house margin was? I know we’d have to win probably 60 % to flip it and the senate is worse so best we can do is keep chipping away

If you're referring to HD-109, it was Kemp+190 votes (+0.7%), Rutledge+828 votes (+3.08%). Definitely a tossup in 2020.

Mean the state house in general

Apparently 54.3-45.6 (R+8.7), at least if Wikipedia is to be believed.

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Some more Gwinnett news: the incumbent Republican Clerk of Superior Court, Richard Alexander, has apparently opted not to run for reelection.

With the longtime DA (Danny Porter) considering a party switch to run for reelection as a Democrat, and county commission chair Charlotte Nash not running for reelection, the Gwinnett GOP dumpster fire continues to grow. I would not be shocked if the Dems swept every partisan elected county position - district or countywide - up next year.

https://twitter.com/elium2/status/1150620900116635648

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The state has selected a new vendor to provide the new ballot-marking devices that will replace the old and antiquated DREs.

Election Systems & Software, the current vendor, lost out to Denver-based Dominion Voting. Unlike the current DREs, the new Windows 10-based system will print a ballot with the voters' choices once the voter selects their choices on the touchscreen. The printed ballot will contain the voter's choices marked similar to that of a scantron, but the ballot will also contain a barcode that the scanner will read. The paper ballots will be locked away in a ballot box for use in audits or recounts.

The new voting machines, paper ballots, and optical scanners will be rolled out to six counties for use in a pilot program this fall, before the entire state uses them in the March 24 presidential primary.

Personally, this news alleviates most of my concerns (the operating system used in the new machines, whether the printer would print a receipt or a full ballot, the cost of the contract, and the choice of vendor;) that said, I feel that there should be a parallel hand count of the printed ballot papers on election night to ensure that the totals from there line up with what is returned from the scanner reading the barcodes, instead of needing to wait for an audit to do so. Either that or make a full audit mandatory prior to a county certifying its results.

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Are there any GOPers who may run for Isakson's seat?

The AJC reports that some potential candidates include:

* Attorney General Chris Carr
* Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller
* Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan
* Congressman Doug Collins (ugh)
* Agriculture Secretary (and former Governor) Sonny Perdue

They may be appointed by Kemp to serve as a placeholder; they could then decide to run in 2020.

Other names that have been suggested for the seat include Jack Kingston (double ugh,) Nick Ayers (he said no,) and Karen Handel.

Of course, from that AJC list only Perdue could be appointed without triggering some kind of early special election:

* Collins is a sitting congressman. Luckily for the GOP, his seat is Safe R under any circumstances.

* Butch Miller is a sitting state senator. His seat is Safe R, but quirky things can happen with low-turnout state special elections (like that time in 2015 when a Republican won a D+30-ish majority-minority state Senate seat because of low turnout).

* Carr and Duncan are incumbent row officers. Under the state constitution, Kemp would appoint their replacements and quasi-special elections would likely be held in 2020 to elect replacements to serve until 2022.

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See, this is why I can't see the justification for calling any Georgia statewide race next year as better than "Lean R". Clinton lost to Trump here by 211,141 votes, and as previously mentioned, Abrams lost to Kemp by 54,723. While it's highly unlikely that all 352,000 new voters would vote Dem, if they can keep up the pace in new voter registration it's not insane to believe that Dems could make up the remaining ground from 2016 and 2018 just from new registrations alone.

I actually took a look at the Abrams' campaign's post-mortem document, "The Abrams Playbook", and nothing about the 2020 expectations there seemed unreasonable. One of the big strategies mentioned in the document was registering new voters, particularly minorities and young people; the new registration data seems to imply that such a strategy may bear fruit. We'll just have to see if the Dems can get them to the polls - that's the big question.

Of course, I am neither saying that PresiDem will win Georgia nor that either Senate seat will flip, but I firmly believe that GA is being underrated in general, with some people on this site and in the political/election commentary sphere at large thinking that 2018 was a fluke and that Georgia will revert to something resembling 2012 next year.

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Posting this AJC column for selfish reasons (I lived in Dunwoody until 2016):

"OPINION: Should we now call it the city of Demwoody?"

On that subject, I should point out that the Dems could completely sweep the DeKalb County Commission next year, as Nancy Jester's Dunwoody seat is up for election. There's also a strong possibility of a sweep in Gwinnett County (all remaining R commission seats up in 2020; Abrams won all by double digits) and gaining control in Henry County (currently an even split; chairman June Wood is up next year).

There's an outside chance Dems could gain control of the Cobb County Commission by knocking off Mike Boyce (chair) and Bob Ott (district 2,) but that'll be an uphill battle because district 2 is R-leaning.

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Posting this AJC column for selfish reasons (I lived in Dunwoody until 2016):

"OPINION: Should we now call it the city of Demwoody?"

On that subject, I should point out that the Dems could completely sweep the DeKalb County Commission next year, as Nancy Jester's Dunwoody seat is up for election. There's also a strong possibility of a sweep in Gwinnett County (all remaining R commission seats up in 2020; Abrams won all by double digits) and gaining control in Henry County (currently an even split; chairman June Wood is up next year).

There's an outside chance Dems could gain control of the Cobb County Commission by knocking off Mike Boyce (chair) and Bob Ott (district 2,) but that'll be an uphill battle because district 2 is R-leaning.

Now that Cobb and Gwinnett are gone, I wonder how far behind the other remaining R (mostly south side) counties are. I used to work in Fayette County and my grandparents lived there growing up (my grandmother died in 2013) and it’s def going to trend D. PTC being Mecca for old people will slow it down but it’s super educated and getting more diverse with every year. I wouldn’t be surprised if by 2030, there’s no core counties in the area that are R.

Of the south metro counties the Dems don't currently control, I think the order will be Henry (next year) -> Fayette (mid-2020s) -> Coweta (2030s if at all)

I'd be a bit surprised if the Dems didn't knock off June Wood in Henry County next year, considering that's a countywide race. Since the commission is currently split (thanks to Blake Prince's laughable primary challenge to Rep. Dale Rutledge, leaving his District 4 seat open and allowing Dem Vivian Thomas to win 59-41,) a win for Dems in the county commission chair race would give them control. District 1 is also up, but that will be much harder for Dems because it's red-leaning territory; most of the Dems are holed up in Locust Grove and the southern part of McDonough. The lines will probably be redrawn in 2022, but getting a GOP majority on the commission again would be risky, as it would require drawing 3 GOP seats - a tall order considering that the rapid blue conversion of the county has left Republicans mostly holed up east of GA-155, with only a small handful of Republican-leaning precincts west of there. A gerrymandered map would easily backfire like Gwinnett.

Fayette will be next, but it won't be in play for Dems until 2024 or so. The margin will shrink (Kemp "only" won it by 13, the worst performance for a Republican there in quite a while, and it's possible it could be within 9 or 10 points next year,) but it will stay Republican until the middle of the decade - that's the point where I think the Dems will have consolidated its voting bloc in Fayetteville, along the Clayton/Fulton border, and in central Fayette (the GA-54 corridor between Fayetteville and PTC) enough to make the county a battleground. On the county commission, Dems currently control District 4; eyeballing the map they could make serious plays for Districts 1 and 3 by the middle of the decade, along with the at-large District 5. Of course, I fully expect the lines to be redrawn if it looks like the Fayette County GOP is in danger.

Coweta is much further off; I can easily see it staying Republican until well into the 2030s. The only Dem "base" is in the city of Newnan, and even then they're contained to only a few precincts.

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In its report on the moving of Glynn County precincts out of schools, The Brunswick News also gave an insight on the new voting equipment. While the state won't use the new equipment until March, several counties did pilot the new system during this year's elections.

The report discusses Lowndes County (Valdosta)'s pilot of the new machines and poll officials' impressions of the equipment:

The system is pretty straight-forward, Channell said, but several logistical issues stuck out after he and some members of the board observed the Lowndes County Board of Elections’ trial run of the machines in its recent municipal elections.

Contrary to the board first impressions, Lowndes County’s elections personnel didn’t have much issue with the machines themselves.

“I think that the punchline was that they liked the new machines,” said Glynn County board member Patricia Featherstone.

Lowndes County had few complaints with the support that it received from the Georgia Secretary of State’s office or Dominion Voting, but setting up the machines and ensuring the privacy of those casting their ballots did pose problems, Featherstone said.

Because the new machines include both a touchscreen and printer, they take up around four feet of table space and two power outlets.

Assistant Elections and Registration Supervisory Christina Redden said she’s already working out how many tables the board will need to accommodate the new machines.

The font on the printed ballots was also very small. Board Chairwoman Patricia Gibson said this was because all ballots have to fit on an 8-inch by 11-inch sheet of paper, no matter how many races are on the ballot.

Channel said each polling place would likely need a “magnification station” for those with poor eyesight to read their ballots.

He also raised what could be a potential ballot security issue. In the counties that used them in recent municipal elections, poll managers removed the ballots from the locked boxes at the end of the day and counted them before putting them in another locked box for transport to their elections office.

Removing the ballots from their secure container before they’re transported back to the elections office is a problem, said board member Sandy Dean, but Channell added that the state has yet to release its official rules for handling ballots. As such, the issue could resolve itself.

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Wow, Kemp's overall approvals are underwater, never mind his COVID-specific approvals.

Also, I feel really comfortable with my prediction that Loeffler will not be a senator come January.

I do wonder if the Governors race in 2022 will be Lean D.

Far, far too early to tell. Frankly, I think it would be a tossup based on current trends, but we'll see.

I do wonder if the Governors race in 2022 will be Lean D.

Kemp will win reelection very handily by double digits.

With Metro Atlanta voting the way it is nowadays, even if Kemp wins reelection (a major question mark, even if Biden is president,) it won't be by anywhere near "double digits". The best any Republican governor has done in this state was Perdue's 15-point win in 2006, and the margins have shrunk in every midterm since, red waves included.

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General Assembly session resumes June 11; committee meetings can resume June 2.

https://twitter.com/rahulbali/status/1260322874080067593

Meanwhile, Kemp's COVID approvals are...well, let's just say that he's lucky the calendar says May 2020 and not May 2022. Apparently, his COVID-related approval number is 39% according to a new WaPo-Ipsos poll, with 61% disapproving.

Ratings for Kemp suffer from a difficult combination: overwhelming disapproval among Georgia Democrats, and lukewarm approval among Republicans.

A few caveats: this is a poll of 219 Georgia adults, undecideds/"don't knows" are excluded in coming to that 39/61 number, and this is COVID-specific, not Kemp's overall approval rating.

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I don’t feel like doing the math so I hope someone has already done this but if you remove Metro Atlanta how many points did Abrams lose by?

This graphic made me think about that. I find it interesting that Tomlinson didn’t disclose how she performed outside of the Metro. Every Democrat will lose this way but I guess she’s saying she’ll lose by less.

Depends on what is meant by "metro Atlanta". @InsaneKaine on Twitter crunched the numbers for the Census Bureau-defined version of metro Atlanta:

https://twitter.com/InsaneKaine/status/1161435437354950657

So if we subtract those numbers from the statewide total, I get these numbers for the "non-Metro" result:

- Kemp (R): 942,256 (61.36% of the two-party vote)
- Abrams (D): 593,251 (38.64%)

So the answer, as it turns out, is "pretty badly": Kemp won the non-Metro vote by nearly 23 points.

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This is why proofreading is important!

https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1265716039477755906

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General Assembly session to resume June 15.

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212488   69.28% Democratic
91623      29.87% Republican
1625        0.53% Non-Partisan
968          0.32% Unknown

RIP Democrats having any advantage in the primary:

As of 4/21, 653,211 ballots have been cast or requested for the June presidential primary. This appears to exclude the ~350,000 ballots cast prior to the cancellation/merger of the March presidential & May state primaries, which means some/many of these individuals will be duplicates (i.e. individuals who voted in the pres primary before the merger will get to vote again separately for the state contests). As one example, I am on the new state list for my June ballot, but not for my March ballot. Partisan breakdown of ballot requests is:

364464   55.80% Republican
268538    41.11% Democratic
19272      2.95% Non-Partisan
937          0.14% Unknown

According to Georgia Votes, it seems like the two-party race with regards to VBM application ballot requests and returned ballots has significantly tightened, with Dems leading in applications and the GOP maintaining a small lead in returned ballots:

Applied for absentee ballot:
- Dem: 928,719 (49.4%)
- GOP: 884,108 (47%)
- Non-partisan: 67,082 (3.6%)

Returned and accepted absentee ballots:
- GOP: 601,620 (49.4%)
- Dem: 592,680 (48.7%)
- Non-partisan: 21,676 (1.8%)

Will be interesting to see if Dems can take the lead in accepted ballots as some of the biggest counties (*cough* Fulton *cough*) get through their backlog of unprocessed ballots.

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Most county margins are utterly useless, unfortunately. Safe D counties siphoning off R voters to decide local primary/de-facto GE outcomes; Safe R counties siphoning off D voters for the same reason. Only the somewhat close/flipping counties where the flip is occurring so rapidly that voters of one party haven't yet begun clustering into the dominant party's primary have realistic numbers (like Cobb, and Gwinnett - but Gwinnett's would be lopsided for Ds too if younger Latino/Asian voters cast ballots at meaningful levels; bit of a coincidence here).

Agreed. I don't think you'll see any insane outliers this time (like solidly-R Clinch County voting 75% Dem in the 2018 primary due to local factors,) so the county map based on which counties vote for which party will look fairly typical for a two-party race in Georgia.

You're right that the margins are going to be inflated in quite a few counties, though. For example, Burke County, even if Biden wins it this year, is not going 68-30 Dem. Likewise, Baker County is not going 90-10 Dem.

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Actually, it might be later than that. DeKalb County will keep one polling place open until 10:10 tonight:

https://twitter.com/ItsInDeKalb/status/1270481778373992450

(huh, I actually used to attend two of the schools on this list, wow.)

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Cobb County Commission chair Mike Boyce (R) calls for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "take responsibility" for the state's primary election issues or resign:

“During a recent interview with the media, I said Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger should resign over his handling of Tuesday's primary election,” Boyce wrote. “I have since sent the Secretary of State an email stating if he would own up to his office's responsibility for the problems, and work toward a solution to prevent them from happening again, I would reassess my position.”
“The general election in November will draw even more voters and we can expect similar circumstances,” he said. “As much as I believe the current system is broken, I don’t see it being replaced or repaired in a significant way before November. What I can assure you is that the elections team is taking the necessary measures to ensure that your vote is protected and counted.”

Boyce, a Republican, is seeking reelection and ran in the primary himself. As of Friday, he maintained a healthy lead ahead of two challengers for the party’s nomination, with thousands of ballots still pending.

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Wasn't sure if I should post this here (because Georgia) or in Political Geography & Demographics (because mapping), but since this is related to a currently-unfolding race in Georgia I decided to post it here.

So I finally took the time to learn QGIS, and felt like making a map. It's not to push any particular agenda, but because I thought it would make a good exercise. Since a lot of attention has been on the U.S. Senate primary, I decided to make a map of the metro Atlanta two-party vote in that race as it stood as of noon today. Of course, that means that by the time you view this there will be more votes counted, but I don't expect the margin to change much.

Now, there are a few caveats, and I'd like to point them out here before getting to the map:

1) With David Perdue being unopposed (hence why the map says "Sen. David Perdue" instead of "Republican candidates",) the main action is, of course, on the Dem side. Georgia is an open primary state and there's no party registration, so anyone can vote in whichever party's primary they'd like. As a result, there are some inflated Dem margins in some of these precincts. Notable examples include:

- the Brookwood High cluster in Gwinnett County. The map makes it appear as if it's completely collapsed and its voters fleeing to Dems, but I suspect some Trump/Perdue-leaning college-educated Republicans did take the plunge and vote in the Dem primary even though they still plan on voting for Perdue and Trump in the fall. I expect the Brookwood cluster will look redder in November, but not by that much - the once solid-red cluster really softened in 2016, Abrams poked quite a few holes in it in 2018, and the cluster is filled with the kind of college-educated voters and soccer moms that are probably willing to give Biden a look this fall. Perdue will outrun Trump a bit here, but I wouldn't count on it looking like it does on this map for Trump/Biden and looking like, say, 2014's GA-SEN map for Perdue/Ossoff.

- The Bethel precinct in Rockdale County. While I do think it's possible the Dems will sweep the rest of the county in November, this precinct north of I-20 and north of downtown Conyers is more rural in character, more conservative, and (in turn) much redder. It's shown as blue here, meaning that there is some Dem strength, but judging by the insanely close margin and the precinct's avoidance of the rapid demographic changes seen in Conyers down to the Henry and Newton county lines, I suspect it will vote for Trump and Perdue by a decent margin in November.

- Atlanta City Council District 8, basically everything in Buckhead west of Peachtree Rd. and north of I-75. This area is filled with wealthy, conservative-leaning, old money types who form the "Republican base" in the City of Atlanta. It didn't even go blue for Linda Miller in the 2018 PSC district 3 runoff, which stands in stark contrast to her near-sweep of Sandy Springs next door. I work in Buckhead, and from personal (commuting) experience I did notice a lot of Teresa Tomlinson signs - right next to a bunch of signs for conservative-leaning judicial and county government candidates.

As a result, I do feel that the two-party margins here are inflated somewhat. However, there aren't many weird outliers (like a 70% GOP precinct voting 60% Dem), so I don't think the margin is that far off, and I feel that view is in line with polling that suggests this will be a tight race. Despite the obvious deeply red/blue counties (Forsyth, Fulton, Cherokee, Clayton, DeKalb, Rockdale) where the primary election basically is the election, counties like Cobb, Henry, Newton, and Gwinnett are still - for the moment at least - not so far gone, so I don't think there is a significant amount of tactical "mess up the other party" voting going on in those counties. In fact, outside of the areas I just mentioned this map looks an awful lot like GA-GOV 2018, only a bit bluer.

2) This map is just for the main counties of metro Atlanta, not the (significantly redder) counties outside of it. There's both Dem and GOP strength outside of here, especially in Georgia's other cities (Dem) and in Hall/Bartow/Paulding/Coweta (GOP) - but there's a lot more GOP strength than Dem strength. It's telling that this nearly 70-30 map of the metro would only translate to a narrow Ossoff win statewide IF this was perfectly replicated in November and IF he avoided a runoff.

There's some oddities in south Fulton, but that's because I had to swap shapefiles: for Cherokee, Forsyth, Cobb, Douglas, DeKalb, Fayette, Henry, Clayton, Rockdale, Newton, and Gwinnett, I just used the shapefiles on the General Assembly website. However, the shapefiles there date to 2018; Fulton County changed around precincts in 2019, particularly in Milton. Luckily, despite all the crap we give Fulton County for its competency at running elections, they were kind enough to put an updated shapefile on their GIS website (unlike Paulding, who added seven new precincts and don't appear to have an updated shapefile freely available). However, there were some precincts with no voters and some precincts with no votes; they're gray on the map. Also, since the Fulton shapefile is different from the shapefiles provided on the General Assembly website, it doesn't perfectly line up with its neighbors - this is most visible in its county line with DeKalb.

Anyway, without further ado, here's the map. Unfortunately, I used non-Atlas colors. Sorry. The deep blue (Atlas red) here translates to a two-party margin for Dems of 40 points or more, while the deep red (Atlas blue) translates to a GOP margin of 40 points or more. Any precinct that appears very light gray literally comes down to a couple of votes.