Georgia senate seats runoff(s) megathread

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/30/politics/biden-harris-campaign-georgia/index.html

Harris is going there on Sunday and Biden Monday. Would Biden risk political capital unless this was at least leaning Dem?

At this point, it seems like the electorate seems pretty likely to end up Biden-leaning, however a Biden-leaning electorate produced Republican down ballot victories in many instances, so trying to get as many straight ticket voters as possible in these runoffs is a good strategy for Democrats.

[ProgressiveModerate]

If Democrats win these runoffs and therefore get a Senate majority, their Senate majority will be because:

-Republicans flunked WV and MT senate races in 2018
-Martha McSally
-Narrowly flipping NH-Sen in 2016 and actually investing despite it seeming uncompetitive at first
-2 special elections in 2020
-A runoffs law put back into place by Republicans that was designed to help boost their chances of winning

[Brittain33]

If Democrats win these runoffs and therefore get a Senate majority, their Senate majority will be because:

-Republicans flunked WV and MT senate races in 2018
-Martha McSally
-Narrowly flipping NH-Sen in 2016 and actually investing despite it seeming uncompetitive at first
-2 special elections in 2020
-A runoffs law put back into place by Republicans that was designed to help boost their chances of winning

..and not because a sizable majority of Americans live in states that lean Democrat.

[The Houstonian]

If Democrats win these runoffs and therefore get a Senate majority, their Senate majority will be because:

-Republicans flunked WV and MT senate races in 2018
-Martha McSally
-Narrowly flipping NH-Sen in 2016 and actually investing despite it seeming uncompetitive at first
-2 special elections in 2020
-A runoffs law put back into place by Republicans that was designed to help boost their chances of winning

They also flunked FL in 2018 and NC in 2020.

[Skill and Chance]

If Democrats win these runoffs and therefore get a Senate majority, their Senate majority will be because:

-Republicans flunked WV and MT senate races in 2018
-Martha McSally
-Narrowly flipping NH-Sen in 2016 and actually investing despite it seeming uncompetitive at first
-2 special elections in 2020
-A runoffs law put back into place by Republicans that was designed to help boost their chances of winning

They also flunked FL in 2018 and NC in 2020.

FL 2018 most definitely, but Biden lost NC anyway so I don't think Cunningham was ever going to win.

[ProgressiveModerate]

If Democrats win these runoffs and therefore get a Senate majority, their Senate majority will be because:

-Republicans flunked WV and MT senate races in 2018
-Martha McSally
-Narrowly flipping NH-Sen in 2016 and actually investing despite it seeming uncompetitive at first
-2 special elections in 2020
-A runoffs law put back into place by Republicans that was designed to help boost their chances of winning

They also flunked FL in 2018 and NC in 2020.

True, but Republicans losing a Senate seat in WEST VIRGINIA, a state where Trump nearly won 70% of the vote, is more embarrassing. In hindsight, NC was always going to be difficult, and it's really impossible to know if Cunningham would've won since Biden himself lost NC, but yeah FL-2018 is really unexceptable.

[Brittain33]

If Democrats win these runoffs and therefore get a Senate majority, their Senate majority will be because:

-Republicans flunked WV and MT senate races in 2018
-Martha McSally
-Narrowly flipping NH-Sen in 2016 and actually investing despite it seeming uncompetitive at first
-2 special elections in 2020
-A runoffs law put back into place by Republicans that was designed to help boost their chances of winning

They also flunked FL in 2018 and NC in 2020.

I feel much less bad about FL 2018 after seeing FL 2020. Dems didn’t deserve to hold that seat, even in a Trump midterm.

[Matty]

The reason I am so skeptical of the polls showing ossof and warnock up by high single digits is that we have an election to compare those numbers to. Biden won by 0.3 in GA, Perdue won by 2 with that same electorate.

And, while the EV does show dems doing slightly better than the EV in November, it doesn’t suggest a +7 D race at all.

Sometimes, the top lines of polls are enough to discredit them. Who are all these people switching from Perdue to ossof since November?

[ProgressiveModerate]

The reason I am so skeptical of the polls showing ossof and warnock up by high single digits is that we have an election to compare those numbers to. Biden won by 0.3 in GA, Perdue won by 2 with that same electorate.

And, while the EV does show dems doing slightly better than the EV in November, it doesn’t suggest a +7 D race at all.

Sometimes, the top lines of polls are enough to discredit them. Who are all these people switching from Perdue to ossof since November?

The thing is the current data suggests Democrats doing not just slightly, but notably better in the EV than in November is pretty much every metric except age, but counties in metro Atlanta still have above average turnout of younger folks so most of the drop-off seems to be in more rural areas anyways. While I agree the final race result is extremely unlikely to be D+7, Democrats currently seem to be up in the EV numbers by anywhere from 7 points to 15 points, which is consistently higher than in the GE using the same methodology to calculate that number, generally it seems to be about 5-8% better than how Biden was doing.

As for your second question, we could see some people change their vote from November for 2 reasons.

First off Biden has already won, which may give some swing voters reason to vote R in these Senate races instead of D since there's no longer a need for a check on Trump.

On the flipside of that, these Senate races are being taken much more seriously than they were pre-November, and heavily nationalized, so more voters are aware about who canidates are and it increases polarization; someone who may have voted Biden-Perdue in November because he was an inoffensive incumbent has fallen victim to this partisanship and now vote for Ossoff. We also saw slight undercounts in both senate races compared to the GE.

Again, I agree that Ossoff and/or Warnock winning by 7 is improbable, but at this point, it isn't any less likely than Perdue and Loefller winning by that margin.

[Non Swing Voter]

Seems like without Trump on the ballot the GOP isn't as motivated.  I guess Republicans are just hoping for massive turnout on Election Day at this point.  I still think this is a really risky strategy.  It's not a November Presidential election.  It seems dubious to think there will be huge turnout on runoff day.

[GeorgiaModerate]

The reason I am so skeptical of the polls showing ossof and warnock up by high single digits is that we have an election to compare those numbers to. Biden won by 0.3 in GA, Perdue won by 2 with that same electorate.

And, while the EV does show dems doing slightly better than the EV in November, it doesn’t suggest a +7 D race at all.

Sometimes, the top lines of polls are enough to discredit them. Who are all these people switching from Perdue to ossof since November?

It's not vote switchers so much as turnout differences: black turnout looks to be up from the GE, while Trump voters may be turning out less in the runoff.  It doesn't take much of a shift in those two components to make the difference in a close election.

[Brittain33]

The reason I am so skeptical of the polls showing ossof and warnock up by high single digits is that we have an election to compare those numbers to. Biden won by 0.3 in GA, Perdue won by 2 with that same electorate.

And, while the EV does show dems doing slightly better than the EV in November, it doesn’t suggest a +7 D race at all.

Sometimes, the top lines of polls are enough to discredit them. Who are all these people switching from Perdue to ossof since November?

It’s not necessarily switching. As the number of voters shrinks, it could be that proportionally more Biden-Perdue voters skip the runoff than Biden-Ossoff voters, changing the composition of the Biden electorate. (I have no reason to believe it’s happening, but we don’t need people to switch to get this kind of change.

[BudgieForce]

The reason I am so skeptical of the polls showing ossof and warnock up by high single digits is that we have an election to compare those numbers to. Biden won by 0.3 in GA, Perdue won by 2 with that same electorate.

And, while the EV does show dems doing slightly better than the EV in November, it doesn’t suggest a +7 D race at all.

Sometimes, the top lines of polls are enough to discredit them. Who are all these people switching from Perdue to ossof since November?

If election day turnout actually does plummet like that poll is suggesting, democrats winning by a decent margin isn't that far fetched. But that's a big if.

[Tender Branson]

A couple hours ago, RealClearPolitics briefly posted the new JMC polls on their website, then realized that by including them, the Dems would pull ahead in their average - then removed the polls again ...

[Matty]

If dems take both GA seats, then 2022 should start off as a lean D election

[brucejoel99]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/30/politics/biden-harris-campaign-georgia/index.html

Harris is going there on Sunday and Biden Monday. Would Biden risk political capital unless this was at least leaning Dem?

I'm honestly surprised that Biden & Harris (& Obama too, for that matter) ever even left Georgia for a single moment once it became obvious what's at stake there.

[tagimaucia]

No way to really know, but I can't help but wonder if "paint Warnock as a scary Black Marxist Radical" as the primary GOP strategy in both runoffs might actually have ended up hurting Purdue and Loeffler more than its helping-- and regardless of the end result, could be driving up black turnout on the margins beyond what it would be otherwise.

[wbrocks67]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/30/politics/biden-harris-campaign-georgia/index.html

Harris is going there on Sunday and Biden Monday. Would Biden risk political capital unless this was at least leaning Dem?

I'm honestly surprised that Biden & Harris (& Obama too, for that matter) ever even left Georgia for a single moment once it became obvious what's at stake there.

Yeah, I'm honestly shocked they haven't been back more. Why has Obama only gone once?

[wbrocks67]

No way to really know, but I can't help but wonder if "paint Warnock as a scary Black Marxist Radical" as the primary GOP strategy in both runoffs might actually have ended up hurting Purdue and Loeffler more than its helping-- and regardless of the end result, could be driving up black turnout on the margins beyond what it would be otherwise.

It definitely could've hurt them with the college+ whites who were considering going back to the GOP after Trump is done but have now seen that Loeffler and Perdue have been super Trumpy

[Matty]

Yea because the suburbs have historically been turned off by accusing people of Marxism

Lol

[wbrocks67]

Yea because the suburbs have historically been turned off by accusing people of Marxism

Lol

A) the suburbs of 2020 are not the same of even 6 years ago
B) it's not really marxism to specific... it's just the fact that Loeffler/Perdue are being very Trumpy and using very Trump-y and racist attacks on Warnock, and I wouldn't imagine that would sit well with many of the Biden voters in the suburbs...

[Rookie Yinzer]

Harris and Biden coming here let's me know that numbers are looking real good for Dems. Their only goal now is to keep Election Day from being too Republican leaning.

[SCNCmod]

It's almost laughable how hard FoxNews is trying to completely smear Warnock- even saying that the reason Warnock does not have any events scheduled today is because he's hiding due to the "allegations that he ran over his wife's foot ...that came to light recently." (reality these have been out for a long time- and when examined, his wife's foot was perfectly fine).

In some ways it's not even a smart strategy for Fox.  If they are trying to keep the Senate in Republican hands, you would think they would target Ossoff... who polls indicate is likely to get fewer votes than Warnock.  I also think these over the top attacks on Warnock have only served to increase AA turnout.

[DrScholl]

No way to really know, but I can't help but wonder if "paint Warnock as a scary Black Marxist Radical" as the primary GOP strategy in both runoffs might actually have ended up hurting Purdue and Loeffler more than its helping-- and regardless of the end result, could be driving up black turnout on the margins beyond what it would be otherwise.

It probably did. Making a Black person into a scary, dangerous threat is something Black people have seen for years and are tired of. That alone is enough to drive up Black turnout.

Yea because the suburbs have historically been turned off by accusing people of Marxism

Lol

In this case it isn't true so it would put some voters off. No one with any common sense is going to actually believe that Warnock is a Marxist. Loeffler looks crazy for saying that.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Lol, I'm in Massachusetts and I just got an ad for Perdue for Senate