Georgia senate seats runoff(s) megathread

[Arizona Iced Tea]

https://twitter.com/JerryDunleavy/status/1345773077997694977

[wbrocks67]

Well see here's the thing. Ossoff may have been overstepping with saying she "campaigned" with him, of course. That was a bit of an exaggeration.

HOWEVER: we're really mincing here, considering Loeffler obviously did know who he was when she took the picture, and this was not the first time she has either taken pictures with, or outright campaigned with racists and white supremacists, so, she doesn't get the benefit of the doubt, and while Ossoff's exact characterization of it may have been incorrect, his overall point stands, that Loeffler HAS been appearing with them, and campaigning with other white supremacists (Marjorie Green, etc)

So really a bit of a "both sides" thing as the media probably feels they need to ding the Democrats on *something* so that it doesn't appear they are hitting the GOP too hard or being "too nice" to the Democrats

[wbrocks67]

Nate's characterization seems a bit misleading as he says: "Of course, the strong Dem turnout means there are more GOPers left now"

well yes i guess technically, but hasn't the whole "Dems are cannibalizing their E-day vote with the early vote" thing been debunked? So there are still a ton of possible Dem voters left to vote as well?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Nate's characterization seems a bit misleading as he says: "Of course, the strong Dem turnout means there are more GOPers left now"

well yes i guess technically, but hasn't the whole "Dems are cannibalizing their E-day vote with the early vote" thing been debunked? So there are still a ton of possible Dem voters left to vote as well?

Yes, it has been mostly debunked, but it's unclear how many of the Republicans who early voted in Nov who have not yet voted in these runoffs will end up actually voting on e-day; it could be nearly all of them or maybe only 60%; we just don't know.

So I guess while Democrats aren't canabalizing their own vote, the GOP could be saving votes.

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1345771197909389323
https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1345771694603063296
https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1345772068005142528
https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1345772335610163203

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1345772966886445056
https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1345773356902191105

[It’s so Joever]

https://twitter.com/JerryDunleavy/status/1345773077997694977

You Trumpies created the post-truth society. I am just glad young Democrats are using it to their advantage.

We are the Trump Democrat generation. We saw firsthand how unilateral disasarmament nearly destroyed our country. Don’t expect us to play nice.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Counties with the highest drop-off in early voting compared to November; the lightest colors mean only a 10% drop off while dark red indicates up to 40%.

[roxas11]

https://twitter.com/JerryDunleavy/status/1345773077997694977

Honesty this interview with Ossoff shows why kelly loeffler is such a terrible candidate

When Bret Baier grilled Kelly on Whether She Would've Voted to Override Trump's Veto
she completely fell appart and refused to answer the question

When Jake Tapper grilled Jon Ossoff over the claim that Loeffler Was Campaigning With a Klansman. Ossoff correctly pointed out that the Doles photo was not an “isolated incident,” and That she been caught hanging out with other white supremacist.

[Pollster]

Not going to impact the race, but this audio clip is pretty incredible.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Not going to impact the race, but this audio clip is pretty incredible.

Trump needs to be prosecuted for attempted election fraud once he's out of office.  That's literally what he's trying to do.

On another note, are you doing polling work in Georgia?  If so, any hints you can drop for us?

[OneJ]

I generally agree, but I think 350k seems on the high end of Ossoff's current lead. As I've said before, i think my model which shows him with a 213k is a slight undercount, and in reality it's prolly closer to 250k or so, but 350k gives the benefit of the doubt to Ossoff.

I think the one thing we can all agree on is that Perdue will likely have to net AT LEAST as many votes as he did on e-day in November.

Well remember that Cohn has access to a lot more data. One of the charts he tweeted a few days ago pointed to an EV electorate that was very Dem (pointing towards a double digit advantage) so it's probably not as far out as one might think that Ossoff currently has a raw vote lead of ~300,000+.

[forsythvoter]

One underdiscussed topic is what do folks think is the percent of the black vote that Ossoff / Warnock will get? Polls seemed to show Biden got 88-90% of the black vote, which is actually on the low end for a Democrat in a deep southern state like GA. I think there are some reasons to think Ossoff / Warnock will outperform this by a few percentage points.

If black voters make up 3% more of the electorate vs. November and give Ossoff / Warnock a 5% greater margin, that actually brings down the white share that Ossoff / Warnock need to receive from Biden's 30% to 26% or so.

My guess is 91%. While Biden did only probably win about 89% of the black vote in Georgia, the final 11% was probably something like 8-9% Trump and 2-3% 3rd party. These 2-3% 3rd party may have less of a reason to show up in a binary runoff but if they did, they would likely skew D. Furthermore, historically, black Democrats in the South have had a stronger showing in off years, so my gut says they would win about 91 or 92% of the black vote.

Yeah that seems reasonable. What percent of the black vote did Abrams get? I feel like the % black vote for Ossoff / Warnock will end up somewhere between the Biden and Abrams numbers.

CNN's exit for 2018 has Abrams at 93% black vote and Kemp 6%

I did some number crunching this morning. Here is one view of what each side needs to think they can do better than to win the election. Essentially, we would be headed for an exact tie if:

1) Ds get 91% of the black vote (89% Biden), 26% of the White vote (30% Biden) and 65% of the Asian / Hispanic vote (65% Biden) AND
2) Black % of electorate is ~30% (27% in Nov Gen and 31-32% in early turnout so far)

So election will come down to which side can overperform these benchmarks. I personally think this still points to a close race. I can't really see the Ds doing 4% worse among whites than Biden but I also could see final electorate coming in below 30% black.


Jan Est.           D     R      D Share
White      55% 26% 74% 14%
Black       30% 91%  9% 27%
A/H           5% 65% 35%  3%
Other       10% 50% 50%  5%

Overall D Share = 50.0%


Nov Gen.             
                      D      R     D Share
White      56% 30% 70% 17%
Black       27% 89% 11% 24%
A/H           5% 65% 35%   3%
Other      12%  50% 50%  6%

Overall D (Biden) Share = 50.1%

[It’s so Joever]

Counties with the highest drop-off in early voting compared to November; the lightest colors mean only a 10% drop off while dark red indicates up to 40%.

That Chatham number is worrisome.
While Atlanta is the center, smaller cities such as Albany, Augusta, and Savannah are what gave Biden the edge.
Had he not seen good numbers in those areas he would have narrowly lost.

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/JerryDunleavy/status/1345773077997694977

Honesty this interview with Ossoff shows why kelly loeffler is such a terrible candidate

When Bret Baier grilled Kelly on Whether She Would've Voted to Override Trump's Veto
she completely fell appart and refused to answer the question

When Jake Tapper grilled Jon Ossoff over the claim that Loeffler Was Campaigning With a Klansman. Ossoff correctly pointed out that the Doles photo was not an “isolated incident,” and That she been caught hanging out with other white supremacist.

Exactly. Ossoff was not completely wrong in what he was saying. "Campaigning" may have been a stretch, but this is ongoing behavior of Loeffler of "hanging out" with white supremacists and racists

[Edu]

lol at republicans who have been living their whole life using smears like marxist, communist, terrorist, unpatriotic, etc, etc, etc to every democrat that runs for anything, now being shocked and appalled when smears are used against them

[wbrocks67]

A few more votes counted.

VBM accepted drops to White +21.8, and continues to be lower than the VBM accepted from the GE (+22.7). Total VBM+IPEV drops to White +24.95, down from +28.8 from the GE.

VBM + IN PERSON EARLY
Nov GE: 4.03M (56.5% white, 27.7% black) ---> +28.8 white
1/1: 3.00M (55.8% white, 30.8% black) —-> +25.0 white
1/3: 3.03M (55.75% white, 30.8% black) —> +24.95 white

VBM requests
Nov GE: 1.78M (51.2% white, 31.4% black) ---> +19.8 white
1/1: 1.373M (51.4% white, 32.9% black) —> +18.5 white
1/3: 1.374M (51.4% white, 32.9% black) —> +18.5 white

VBM accepted
Nov GE: 1.32M (53.0% white, 30.3% black) ---> +22.7 white
1/1: 928K (54.0% white, 31.9% black) —> +22.1 white
1/3: 958K (53.8% white, 32.0% black) —> +21.8 white

IN PERSON EARLY votes (final)
Nov GE: 2.69M (58.2% white, 26.4% black) ---> +31.8 white
1/1: 2.07M (56.7% white, 30.3% black) —> +26.4 white

[wbrocks67]

Current betting odds, per ElectionBettingOdds.com

Perdue 53.6%
Ossoff 46.3%

Warnock 56.9%
Loeffler 43.0%

[It’s so Joever]

Using the snap map enthusiasm measure thing I did last election (veeery mixed results)

It appears that Ossoff has the edge of all four by far.
There are more Ossoff related posts than all other three candidates combined. Interestingly nothing related to Perdue or Loeffler, although still plenty of residual Trump support, especially in the North.
Definitely not as engaged as right before November, but still a lot of people posting about it for a runoff.

This is anecdotal and not meant to be taken seriously.

[Non Swing Voter]

So is the general thinking that Republicans need Election Day turnout to be pretty massive at this point to make up for the presumed lead Democrats have built to date?

i.e., if less than 1 million people show up on Election Day it would be hard for Republicans to make up the deficit?

[wbrocks67]

So is the general thinking that Republicans need Election Day turnout to be pretty massive at this point to make up for the presumed lead Democrats have built to date?

i.e., if less than 1 million people show up on Election Day it would be hard for Republicans to make up the deficit?

It appears that way. So essentially the question is, is there a ton of GOP voters that have been waiting to vote E-Day and they'll give Perdue/Loeffler the lead? Or are they just not going to materialize

[Rookie Yinzer]

That Chatham number is worrisome.

Chatham has a VBM backlog. My aunt turned her ballot into a dropbox on 12/22 and it wasn't processed until 12/31.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Update:

Democrat's estimated lead has grown slightly as expected; now up to + 7.4. They also widened the margin in terms of raw votes from 213k last time my model was updated to 224k. Not a huge increase but in a close race every vote matters. Again, based upon my methodology, I think 224k is a slight undercount of their true lead, maybe by about 40k or so, but that's speculation on my part.

If votes broke as they did in the GE, Republicans would need a turnout of about 1.1 million on e-day to win. The votes needed on e-day can change based upon how heavily the e-day vote breaks for the GOP.



As always, these numbers are estimates and not exact

[ProgressiveModerate]

I wonder if it would be best for the GOP to purposely make Loefeller have a lot of gaffes to increase their chances at saving the Senate by making every voter willing a split a ticket vote Warnock - Perdue. She would rile up the Trump base who show up to vote for her and Perdue while their at it, and Perdue runs as a more sensible canidate who garners crossover support. It's too late to change what as been done but their closing messages could have impact on who does and doesn't show up on e-day and how they vote.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Just saw a new (at least to me) DSCC ad during the NFL broadcast that showed Loeffler and Perdue as wealthy, out-of-touch elites and encouraged Republicans to not vote on Tuesday.  Haven't seen that suggestion before.