Georgia (PPP): Biden +4

[CellarDoor]

But it’s just not there yet.

There's simply no modern precedent for Democrats winning Georgia. They never won it in 28 years, so don't even try.

We can't risk it. Must play it safe and get that 40% margin in MI/PA/WI

If all you do is play it safe, you might lose a state you're playing it safe on, while also losing a reach state you might have won with some effort.

Monstro is mocking the idiots that think it’s wise to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into only PA, MI, WI, and AZ and not DARE waste any money on “reach” states like FL, NC, GA and TX

Hell, if Sinema hadn't won her Senate race, I'd wager AZ being in the GA/TX column too. Even with Biden leading in all but 2 polls this year.

Honestly, I'd trade priorities between NC & GA. Invest in both states' Senate races, but start ramping up resources in those Atlanta suburbs

Democrats also won the Secretary of State race in 2018.

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

But it’s just not there yet.

There's simply no modern precedent for Democrats winning Georgia. They never won it in 28 years, so don't even try.

We can't risk it. Must play it safe and get that 40% margin in MI/PA/WI

If all you do is play it safe, you might lose a state you're playing it safe on, while also losing a reach state you might have won with some effort.

Monstro is mocking the idiots that think it’s wise to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into only PA, MI, WI, and AZ and not DARE waste any money on “reach” states like FL, NC, GA and TX

Hell, if Sinema hadn't won her Senate race, I'd wager AZ being in the GA/TX column too. Even with Biden leading in all but 2 polls this year.

Honestly, I'd trade priorities between NC & GA. Invest in both states' Senate races, but start ramping up resources in those Atlanta suburbs

Democrats also won the Secretary of State race in 2018.

I'm aware. Plus the Superintendent race. And Democrats getting more votes statewide in US House & State Senate races. And Democrats getting closer to flipping the State House.

I wouldn't doubt some Sinema coattails helped out a little bit. Otherwise, it'd probably go under the Texas mantra of "Well, it was 2018. Of course Dems would do better, but that all changes somehow in 2020"

[TrendsareUsuallyReal]

But it’s just not there yet.

There's simply no modern precedent for Democrats winning Georgia. They never won it in 28 years, so don't even try.

We can't risk it. Must play it safe and get that 40% margin in MI/PA/WI

If all you do is play it safe, you might lose a state you're playing it safe on, while also losing a reach state you might have won with some effort.

Monstro is mocking the idiots that think it’s wise to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into only PA, MI, WI, and AZ and not DARE waste any money on “reach” states like FL, NC, GA and TX

Hell, if Sinema hadn't won her Senate race, I'd wager AZ being in the GA/TX column too. Even with Biden leading in all but 2 polls this year.

Honestly, I'd trade priorities between NC & GA. Invest in both states' Senate races, but start ramping up resources in those Atlanta suburbs

Democrats also won the Secretary of State race in 2018.

I'm aware. Plus the Superintendent race. And Democrats getting more votes in US House & State Senate races. And Democrats getting closer to flipping the State House.

I wouldn't doubt some Sinema coattails helped out a little bit. Otherwise, it'd probably go under the Texas mantra of "Well, it was 2018. Of course Dems would do better, but that all changes somehow in 2020"

I agree completely. Sinema’s victory really wasn’t substantially different from O’Rourke’s and Abrams’ narrow losses. But the fact that she won and they didn’t biases people in thinking that Georgia and Texas are insurmountable compared to Arizona

[lfromnj]

Abrams came within 1.5 in a midterm year. The natural higher turnout of presidential elections always made this a Tossup. Metro Atlanta is going to reject Trump by insurmountable margins.

The group with the biggest drop off was rural white voters(maybe rural black voters but that is a much smaller group)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I wouldn't be surprised if GA caught up to and exceeded VA in 10 years. There is one underlying factor that could make this happen and that is my hypothesis of GOP dependence on margins among older white votes that just cannot be replicated in younger white voters. It would make sense for this to be applicable across the South, and likewise for Republicans across the whole region to take a hit of some magnitude once this happens.

I usually talk about this generational displacement process in the context of Mississippi as its high minority floor makes that doable in such an environment, but if GA is say Lean Democratic already, it could quickly become solidly so in just two or three cycles once this accelerates in the late 2020s.

The first step is to see if Democrats can restore and sustain higher levels of minority turnout on an ongoing basis.

[Badger]

I am amazed loffler is running anywhere near this close after her scandal.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I am amazed loffler is running anywhere near this close after her scandal.

It's the $.

If she can start imitating a living, breathing human more convincingly, her deep pockets might get her to the runoff.

[Adam Griffin]

Abrams came within 1.5 in a midterm year. The natural higher turnout of presidential elections always made this a Tossup. Metro Atlanta is going to reject Trump by insurmountable margins.

The group with the biggest drop off was rural white voters(maybe rural black voters but that is a much smaller group)

I do keep hearing variations of this, but I just crunched the numbers and it's pretty insignificant.

With 2016 county-by-county turnout patterns instead of 2018's, the GOP nets 0.4 points margin-wise. While urban areas did see a bump in their share of turnout (the 9 most-commonly defined "urban" counties went from 30.1% of voters in '16 to 30.5% in '18 - roughly half of the difference in hypothetical GOP vote share), other fast-growing and Democratic-trending areas tempered this (for instance and despite their population growth, the ATL blue suburban counties comprised 21.8% of all voters in both 16/18).

Additionally, some of the other areas where the GOP saw the biggest turnout handicaps are exactly the kinds of counties where Democrats are improving rapidly (places like Columbia, Houston, Cherokee, etc), so even slightly better representation from these places in statewide contests might be offset by swings against the GOP.

I'll upload my data later once I have it organized.

EDIT: GA 16/18 Turnout by County/Grouping

[Hammy]

I am amazed loffler is running anywhere near this close after her scandal.

Her ads consist of praising Trump and using the programmed buzzwords that get the Trump loyalist vote.

[iammucow]

Just to throw in my 2 cents regarding trends in GA and NC. While there will certainly be some shifts regarding rural/suburban voters and so forth, one thing that stands out for both states is that there is a massive generational divide, much more so than in other states.

According to exit polls for 2008, 2012, and 2016, a greater proportion of 18-34 years olds in NC voted for the Democratic candidates than that same age group nationwide. In 2008, the gap between how that age group voted and how NC voted overall was an absurdly high 48 percentage points. No other state comes close.

GA polling figures aren't quite as clear, The 2008 exit poll numbers seem to be off as they show McCain winning 18-34 year olds by a 3% margin, but Obama winning 30-44 year olds by a 12% margin. I think the categories got mislabeled and it should be there other way around. In the 2016 exit polls though, they favored Clinton by a 30% margin, far greater than the 19% margin for that age group nationwide.

This is of course assuming the exit poll figures are accurate. I'm having trouble finding good comparable data from opinion polls as they either don't include age groups or use different age groups. But if the numbers are correct, both GA and NC could be rapidly moving to the Democratic camp.

Also, if anyone is curious, for the Republican side, while young people tend to favor Democrats overall, Trump did surprisingly well with young voters in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. All other states where he did better were already staunchly Republican.

[Dr. Arch]

Just to throw in my 2 cents regarding trends in GA and NC. While there will certainly be some shifts regarding rural/suburban voters and so forth, one thing that stands out for both states is that there is a massive generational divide, much more so than in other states.

According to exit polls for 2008, 2012, and 2016, a greater proportion of 18-34 years olds in NC voted for the Democratic candidates than that same age group nationwide. In 2008, the gap between how that age group voted and how NC voted overall was an absurdly high 48 percentage points. No other state comes close.

GA polling figures aren't quite as clear, The 2008 exit poll numbers seem to be off as they show McCain winning 18-34 year olds by a 3% margin, but Obama winning 30-44 year olds by a 12% margin. I think the categories got mislabeled and it should be there other way around. In the 2016 exit polls though, they favored Clinton by a 30% margin, far greater than the 19% margin for that age group nationwide.

This is of course assuming the exit poll figures are accurate. I'm having trouble finding good comparable data from opinion polls as they either don't include age groups or use different age groups. But if the numbers are correct, both GA and NC could be rapidly moving to the Democratic camp.

Also, if anyone is curious, for the Republican side, while young people tend to favor Democrats overall, Trump did surprisingly well with young voters in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. All other states where he did better were already staunchly Republican.

While there is some merit to this observation, it's important to hedge that those improvements in this region among younger voters correlates with drop off in turnout, and that swing could just be a function of usually D-voting younger folks just not turning out, skewing the percentage proportion to make it appear like a shift happened.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I am amazed loffler is running anywhere near this close after her scandal.

Her ads consist of praising Trump and using the programmed buzzwords that get the Trump loyalist vote.

And it's not going to amount to anything when Collins was the one physically throwing tantrums in the committee hearings on Trump's behalf. I imagine that Trump is conflicted over which sycophant to support here, assuming he hasn't endorsed yet. I'm not aware if he has or not.

[Hammy]

Just to throw in my 2 cents regarding trends in GA and NC. While there will certainly be some shifts regarding rural/suburban voters and so forth, one thing that stands out for both states is that there is a massive generational divide, much more so than in other states.

According to exit polls for 2008, 2012, and 2016, a greater proportion of 18-34 years olds in NC voted for the Democratic candidates than that same age group nationwide. In 2008, the gap between how that age group voted and how NC voted overall was an absurdly high 48 percentage points. No other state comes close.

GA polling figures aren't quite as clear, The 2008 exit poll numbers seem to be off as they show McCain winning 18-34 year olds by a 3% margin, but Obama winning 30-44 year olds by a 12% margin. I think the categories got mislabeled and it should be there other way around. In the 2016 exit polls though, they favored Clinton by a 30% margin, far greater than the 19% margin for that age group nationwide.

This is of course assuming the exit poll figures are accurate. I'm having trouble finding good comparable data from opinion polls as they either don't include age groups or use different age groups. But if the numbers are correct, both GA and NC could be rapidly moving to the Democratic camp.

Also, if anyone is curious, for the Republican side, while young people tend to favor Democrats overall, Trump did surprisingly well with young voters in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. All other states where he did better were already staunchly Republican.

While there is some merit to this observation, it's important to hedge that those improvements in this region among younger voters correlates with drop off in turnout, and that swing could just be a function of usually D-voting younger folks just not turning out, skewing the percentage proportion to make it appear like a shift happened.

I'll add to this and point out that a lot of the Rust Belt states showed a 2-3 drop in the Dem vote for every vote Trump gained over Romney--and in some cases both parties lost votes (with Dems losing a much larger share--Wisconsin for example)