Georgia senate seats runoff(s) megathread

[wbrocks67]

Just completed our second (and final) extensive runoff poll. From here on out, we'll be doing tracking (which only asks demographics/vote intention/vote method/name rec).

There's nothing really new or unexpected to report, but an interesting data point we picked up is that Loeffler & Perdue are both struggling with Republicans under the age of 40, and even more so when narrowed down to under the age of 30. Many rate their likelihood to vote as low, their enthusiasm to vote even lower, and the percentage who say they've requested a ballot at this point is far lower than it was in our polls of the general election. They are also the most likely demographic to report that they haven't been contacted by any candidate's campaign. In our previous poll, we found Republican youth to be the most anti-Trump 2024, so it's possible we're picking up an under-the-radar trend here.

In the past, GA Republicans have had some of the better youth outreach we've seen. Kemp's 2018 campaign in particular did a fairly good job organizing with college Republicans, and reaching out to rural millennials. If the Republicans narrowly fall short here, Republican youth dropoff could wind up being the decisive reason.

Are things showing up in your recent polls that were a while back? i.e. Ossoff struggling a bit more than Warnock?

[OneJ]

Here's what 2020 GE non-voters are looking like rn. Obviously can't extrapolate too much from this.

https://twitter.com/lxeagle17/status/1339025414572806145

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

It's not just that McConnell leadership needs to go when he passed 2017 tax cuts and dont want 1200 bucks as stimulus, he needs to be removed from Senate Leadership

[Roll Roons]

https://twitter.com/NilesGApol/status/1339037734539816961

The Atlanta metro gets all the attention, with good reason, but swings in smaller cities like Augusta, Athens, Savannah, Columbus and Macon were just as critical to Biden winning the state. In a lot of these counties, he put up the best performance since Carter, if not FDR. Are Ossoff and Warnock also campaigning here?

[Lourdes]

https://twitter.com/JeffCoxWGXA/status/1339017528379584512

https://twitter.com/JeffCoxWGXA/status/1339046897659629568

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/JeffCoxWGXA/status/1339017528379584512
https://twitter.com/JeffCoxWGXA/status/1339046897659629568

It's critical to know where the turnout is falling, from the data it seems Atlanta and the Suburbs are holding up ok which is a good sign but we need more details.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

We are getting days closer to ending McConnell and his failed leadership and Majority Leader Schumer finally and we will get a1200 bonus check by time Biden is inaugurated

An incumbent R should be up 3/4 pts to avoid losing 😃😃😃

[Horus]

https://twitter.com/JeffCoxWGXA/status/1339017528379584512
https://twitter.com/JeffCoxWGXA/status/1339046897659629568

It's critical to know where the turnout is falling, from the data it seems Atlanta and the Suburbs are holding up ok which is a good sign but we need more details.

Turnout in swingy burbs and other Biden-Kemp areas like Buckhead will be very high. The big question - will turnout dip more in heavily black areas or in rural white areas? That will determine these elections.

Right now I would probably bet on the latter. They're pretty demoralized. But you never know.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I think too many in this thread don't know what margin of error means.
As far as LA, Landrieu won every Runoff except for 2014

[Rookie Yinzer]

Are Ossoff and Warnock also campaigning here?

They were both there fairly recently, definitely in the last week.

[Adam Griffin]

Higher in-person turnout relative to November is only indicative of the reality that fewer likely voters will be voting by mail in this election (again, do not read heavily into the overall requested mail ballot figures for enthusiasm/return likelihood given half of them are automatic). As I speculated on Monday, it also appears that higher in-person/lower mail black voting is (mostly) offsetting what might otherwise be an immediate drop-off in black representation among the AIP crowd - though Silver showed how there's usually a surge in black voting early in the in-person cycle that quickly fades (historically, it has varied from cycle to cycle: sometimes black voters show up in the early days disproportionately, and sometimes at the very end - the former has tended to be the case in over the past 4 years).

Here's what 2020 GE non-voters are looking like rn. Obviously can't extrapolate too much from this.

https://twitter.com/lxeagle17/status/1339025414572806145

A good sign in terms of "meeting [normal] expectations": when you take explicitly-identified racial groups and reassign the "others" based on long-standing other-unknown registration discrepancies in GA, it's basically a stand-in for "young people who have recently registered/just started voting", with an approximate breakdown of 50% white, 40% black, 10% other; white number is on-point. Normally, the black figure would decline while the other figure would increase over time, but given non-black, non-white low-propensity behaviors, the former may hold at the expense of the latter.

EDIT: ugh, that's requests rather than votes. But still potentially great given that a disproportionately-young group had to manually request those ballots.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Pitiful McConnell won't pass the 1200/300 bucks in his Stimulus offer, D's are gonna remember this in GA and in 2022/2024, we will get the last laugh when we vote out his failed leadership, Tom Nelson will blanch Johnson and D's will win in PA, you can't hold onto your tax cuts to rich and just pass unemployment

[ProgressiveModerate]

Higher in-person turnout relative to November is only indicative of the reality that fewer likely voters will be voting by mail in this election (again, do not read heavily into the overall requested mail ballot figures for enthusiasm/return likelihood given half of them are automatic). As I speculated on Monday, it also appears that higher in-person/lower mail black voting is (mostly) offsetting what might otherwise be an immediate drop-off in black representation among the AIP crowd - though Silver showed how there's usually a surge in black voting early in the in-person cycle that quickly fades (historically, it has varied from cycle to cycle: sometimes black voters show up in the early days disproportionately, and sometimes at the very end - the former has tended to be the case in over the past 4 years).

Here's what 2020 GE non-voters are looking like rn. Obviously can't extrapolate too much from this.

https://twitter.com/lxeagle17/status/1339025414572806145

A good sign in terms of "meeting [normal] expectations": when you take explicitly-identified racial groups and reassign the "others" based on long-standing other-unknown registration discrepancies in GA, it's basically a stand-in for "young people who have recently registered/just started voting", with an approximate breakdown of 50% white, 40% black, 10% other; white number is on-point. Normally, the black figure would decline while the other figure would increase over time, but given non-black, non-white low-propensity behaviors, the former may hold at the expense of the latter.

EDIT: ugh, that's requests rather than votes. But still potentially great given that a disproportionately-young group had to manually request those ballots.

I think 95% plus of the time, if someone goes out of their way to request a ballot, they will end up voting in one form or another

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1339197213323501569?s=20
Some Good News For Perdue/Loleffer ?

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1339197213323501569?s=20
Some Good News For Perdue/Loleffer ?

In theory yes, but in this instance, it probably won’t have a huge impact. It can’t hurt them however, and in a race that has potential to be very close every vote matters.

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

I can't see how that helps Perdue or Loeffler--Warnock and Ossoff have been campaigning on relief packages that they've opposed. Their argument would be "if we didn't have these two incompetent Senators, this relief package could've gotten passed much sooner."

[The Dowager Mod]

The grifting never stops.
https://twitter.com/NoahShachtman/status/1339210253506895872

[T0rM3nTeD]

12/16 Update

Total of 379,087 (+65K) mail ballots accepted so far (1.32M in the General)
Total of 1.605M (+186K) mail ballots requested so far (1.782M in the General)
Total of 335,961 (+167K) EIP votes so far (2.694M in the General)

Breakdown of those votes by county following same percentages that they broke in the General would result in:

Dems - 388,465 (+119K)
GOP - 326,583 (+114K)

Dems +61,883 (+4.7K)

[ProgressiveModerate]

The grifting never stops.
https://twitter.com/NoahShachtman/status/1339210253506895872

I mean tbf, pretty much anyone who owns a home, particularly one that's expensive, will try to make it seem as bad as possible during appraisal for tax purposes. These attacks on Loeffler's and Perdue's finances make them look like terrible people, but I almost think Democrats are overusing this attack method, ultimately few except the engaged who are definately voting and have likely already made up their mind care about all their financial problems. People get that Loefeller and Perdue are bad, but Ossoff need to also be able to explain why they are good.

[GALeftist]

Regarding the stimulus package, I think Jayapal said the CPC will vote it down if it doesn't have stimulus checks, which I'm guessing will undercut any appeal from Perdue or Loeffler on that front unless McConnell blinks first.

[SingingAnalyst]

I haven't looked through 46 pages of commentary, so I don't know if this question has been addressed, but: why would a GA voter split her or his vote on Jan. 5?

Of course, if every voter split their ballots, the GOP would control the Senate unless both races ended in an exact tie. Continuing the journey through math fantasyland, any one of the four outcomes would have a 25% probability of happening if the races were independent, which of course they are not.

As of now, I'd say 3 of the 4 possible outcomes have about a 30% chance of happening, with Ossoff - Loeffler at about 10%.

Things to consider:
1. Some older, rural, white GOP voters have died since Nov. 3; and a number of those who turn 18 between Nov. 3 and Jan. 5 (more urban, more minority, more Democratic) have registered.

2. The Chambliss effect: in 2008, Saxby Chambliss (R) outpolled his Democratic opponent 49.9 - 47.2 on election day. Four weeks later, when everyone knew the Democrats had the presidency and both houses of Congress, Chambliss won comfortably, 57-43. The key difference in 2020, of course, is that, unlike in 2008, Senate control hangs in the balance (not to mention 12 years of the kinds of demographic changes described in 1 above).

Will the "Chambliss effect" be a factor this year?

[Calthrina950]

I haven't looked through 46 pages of commentary, so I don't know if this question has been addressed, but: why would a GA voter split her or his vote on Jan. 5?

Of course, if every voter split their ballots, the GOP would control the Senate unless both races ended in an exact tie. Continuing the journey through math fantasyland, any one of the four outcomes would have a 25% probability of happening if the races were independent, which of course they are not.

As of now, I'd say 3 of the 4 possible outcomes have about a 30% chance of happening, with Ossoff - Loeffler at about 10%.

Things to consider:
1. Some older, rural, white GOP voters have died since Nov. 3; and a number of those who turn 18 between Nov. 3 and Jan. 5 (more urban, more minority, more Democratic) have registered.

2. The Chambliss effect: in 2008, Saxby Chambliss (R) outpolled his Democratic opponent 49.9 - 47.2 on election day. Four weeks later, when everyone knew the Democrats had the presidency and both houses of Congress, Chambliss won comfortably, 57-43. The key difference in 2020, of course, is that, unlike in 2008, Senate control hangs in the balance (not to mention 12 years of the kinds of demographic changes described in 1 above).

Will the "Chambliss effect" be a factor this year?

There are some moderate suburbanites (such as forsythvoter) who have become alienated from Loeffler, but would still feel comfortable voting for Perdue. I don't fully understand their motivations either, given that both Loeffler and Perdue have hitched themselves on the Trump Train and have identical voting records. Moreover, both have made ignorant and controversial statements, and both have made explicit appeals to Trumpist voters.

[wbrocks67]

Trying to synthesize it all w/ todays update

VBM + IN PERSON EARLY
Nov GE: 4.03M (56.5% white, 27.7% black) ---> +28.8 white
12/15: 483K (53.9% white, 33.4% black) ---> +20.5 white
12/16: 715K (54.5% white, 33.1% black) ---> +21.4 white

VBM requests
Nov GE: 1.78M (51.2% white, 31.4% black) ---> +19.8 white
12/10: 1.17M (53.6% white, 31.2% black) ---> +22.4 white
12/13: 1.25M (53.0% white, 31.6% black) ---> +21.4 white
12/15: 1.42M (52.2% white, 32.6% black) ---> +19.6 white
12/16: 1.61M (52.3% white, 32.7% black) ---> +19.6 white

VBM accepted
Nov GE: 1.32M (53.0% white, 30.3% black) ---> +22.7 white
12/16: 379K (56.9% white, 30.7% black) ---> +26.2 white

IN PERSON EARLY votes
Nov GE: 2.69M (58.2% white, 26.4% black) ---> +31.8 white
12/16: 336K (51.9% white, 35.8% black) ---> +16.1 white

[Tender Branson]

Trying to synthesize it all w/ todays update

VBM + IN PERSON EARLY
Nov GE: 4.03M (56.5% white, 27.7% black) ---> +28.8 white
12/15: 483K (53.9% white, 33.4% black) ---> +20.5 white
12/16: 715K (54.5% white, 33.1% black) ---> +21.4 white

VBM requests
Nov GE: 1.78M (51.2% white, 31.4% black) ---> +19.8 white
12/10: 1.17M (53.6% white, 31.2% black) ---> +22.4 white
12/13: 1.25M (53.0% white, 31.6% black) ---> +21.4 white
12/15: 1.42M (52.2% white, 32.6% black) ---> +19.6 white
12/16: 1.61M (52.3% white, 32.7% black) ---> +19.6 white

VBM accepted
Nov GE: 1.32M (53.0% white, 30.3% black) ---> +22.7 white
12/16: 379K (56.9% white, 30.7% black) ---> +26.2 white

IN PERSON EARLY votes
Nov GE: 2.69M (58.2% white, 26.4% black) ---> +31.8 white
12/16: 336K (51.9% white, 35.8% black) ---> +16.1 white

The trendline looks more and more like the one ahead of the GE ...

Could be good news for Dems, but who knows ?

[SteveRogers]

I haven't looked through 46 pages of commentary, so I don't know if this question has been addressed, but: why would a GA voter split her or his vote on Jan. 5?

Because a large number of voters are irrational and prone to go with their “gut.”