Georgia senate seats runoff(s) megathread

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With Georgia as the state in which I do the most work, I'm greatly looking forward to how busy I'll be over the next two months.

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Israel-related attacks from the right are designed to excite the white Evangelical/Born Again Christian base (usually a 35-40% of the Georgia electorate). This is an issue of high salience to them, and it's more of a base turnout tactic for Republicans rather than an attempt at a wedge.

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Pulled our first survey of this race out of the field this morning, which of course means I'm working on the weekend. This poll was conducted half before the Warnock oppo dump and half after. Broad generalities, as usual:

-Toplines are close in both races, and fairly similar to the toplines from our first survey of the 2018 Secretary of State runoff.
-Self-ID Democrats are far more enthused to vote in the runoff than self-ID Republicans, which is a total flip from the numbers we saw in the general. However, Republicans still rate their likelihood to vote higher than Democrats, so the effect here seems to be a wash.
-Democrats are more likely to say that their party controlling the Senate in 2021 is very or somewhat important than Republicans.
-A plurality thinks that an evenly divided Senate would definitely or probably be a good thing for the country, and modest majorities think an evenly divided Senate would definitely or probably help unite the country and generate bipartisan cooperation.
-Warnock is in a far stronger position than Ossoff and leads Loeffler on all of the important candidate qualities (cares about people like me, is honest and trustworthy, shares my values, has the right qualifications and temperament). Ossoff is really struggling with qualifications and temperament and we are expecting "has a bright future, but just isn't ready yet"-style attacks.
-"Defund the police" is still a big problem for Democrats. Court packing, Green New Deal, and filibuster abolishment are not, and none fit into successful anti-Dem narratives the way that defunding the police does.
-QAnon and Marjorie Taylor Greene are massive problems for Loeffler (particularly among college educated and high income folks). Perdue doesn't have this problem (yet), another reason why he's much better positioned at this time. The issue for Dems will be working QAnon/MTG into a broader narrative against Loeffler effectively (something the party is famously bad at).
-Self-ID Republicans are split almost evenly on whether Trump should "remain in politics and run for President again" or "remain in politics but support a different candidate who shares his views." A good chunk say "retire from politics altogether," mostly Republican youth.

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Dems need to not only tie MTG/QAnon to both Loeffler and Perdue but also hit both of them HARD for the insider training stuff. There should be nonstop ads about that.

Agreed. And that should even be a tactic going forward for Democrats. Make Boebert, Taylor-Greene, and others a Republican liability like they made The Squad to us.

The difference is that Taylor Greene is simply crazy / dumb, AOC / Omar on the other hand are not crazy nor stupid, they are toxic because they are basically extreme far left.

A better analogy for Taylor Greene is probably Maxine Waters.

Sorry, but comparing Maxine Waters (a longtime community servant who would've probably gone unrecognizable in a lineup before 2017, when right-wing media caricatured her as a typical "angry Black woman") to MTG (a carpetbagger who owes her political career to her support of a conspiracy theory about Satan-worshipping pedophiles that has already motivated domestic terror attempts and is far more toxic than the left wing of the Democratic party) is among the stupidest non-olawakandi takes I've read on this forum.

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1) Do you have any way of gauging whether or not the poll indicates that Black turnout in the runoff will be proportionally higher than the general election % of voters (Due to the potential of Georgia's 1st black Senator?

2) Any indication regarding likely method of voting among various demographics?

3) Any idea or indication regarding what % of general election voters are expected to vote in the runoff?

Unfortunately not, for all three. The first is a major wild card that we'd normally rely on on-the-ground numbers for, and eventually early voting/VBM data. The second we can always ask about (and probably will in future tracking surveys) but didn't here. The third we can model as soon as the 2020 voting data is made available on the voter file, which we're expecting soon.

From what you've seen so far, do you think there are a decent # of ticket splitters or do you foresee it ending up being D/D or R/R?

Hoping Ossoff can make up some ground, surprised he's not doing well in temperament? I could see experience just b/c he's never held office before. Are Perdue's favorables good?

It's too early to tell on the first. My gut reaction is to say that it probably winds up being D/D or R/R, but this election has been incredibly weird all around.

The Perdue/Ossoff race is a favorability wash (both are popular among their voters and unpopular among the other's). We never picked up the Perdue favorability collapse that public pollsters did at the end, even when we were picking up late movement toward Ossoff. There's a much greater favorability imbalance in the Loeffler/Warnock race, though we expect more movement there.

Ossoff is almost certainly struggling on qualifications rather than temperament. He is perceived as very young, and efforts to highlight his experience as a congressional staffer don't help, since this is perceived as a job for a young person. We've heard rumblings that Ossoff's team is considering reaching out to Biden's team to cut an ad about how Biden was a young Senator as well, but there is resistance in both camps. Ossoff's doesn't want to over-nationalize, and Biden's doesn't want to risk being closely associated with a potential loss before even being sworn in.

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Dems need to not only tie MTG/QAnon to both Loeffler and Perdue but also hit both of them HARD for the insider training stuff. There should be nonstop ads about that.

Agreed. And that should even be a tactic going forward for Democrats. Make Boebert, Taylor-Greene, and others a Republican liability like they made The Squad to us.

The difference is that Taylor Greene is simply crazy / dumb, AOC / Omar on the other hand are not crazy nor stupid, they are toxic because they are basically extreme far left.

A better analogy for Taylor Greene is probably Maxine Waters.

Sorry, but comparing Maxine Waters (a longtime community servant who would've probably gone unrecognizable in a lineup before 2017, when right-wing media caricatured her as a typical "angry Black woman") to MTG (a carpetbagger who owes her political career to her support of a conspiracy theory about Satan-worshipping pedophiles that has already motivated domestic terror attempts and is far more toxic than the left wing of the Democratic party) is among the stupidest non-olawakandi takes I've read on this forum.

Are you seriously defending Maxine Waters? She's one of the most ignorant, corrupt, and self-serving members of either House of Congress, and hasn't done anything to benefit her constituents during her nearly thirty years in Congress. A "community servant"? Waters is only a "community servant" when it's for the sake of earning publicity and benefiting her family. And I'm saying this as a black person.

The suggestion of the original post was that there is some kind of equivalency between Waters and Greene because they both appear to be "crazy/dumb," despite the fact that Waters earned this reputation by being swept up in meme culture and caricaturization after decades of being a non-factor, while Greene immediately rose to semi-prominence as a willing proponent of a violent, anti-semitic conspiracy theory.

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Dems need to not only tie MTG/QAnon to both Loeffler and Perdue but also hit both of them HARD for the insider training stuff. There should be nonstop ads about that.

Agreed. And that should even be a tactic going forward for Democrats. Make Boebert, Taylor-Greene, and others a Republican liability like they made The Squad to us.

The difference is that Taylor Greene is simply crazy / dumb, AOC / Omar on the other hand are not crazy nor stupid, they are toxic because they are basically extreme far left.

A better analogy for Taylor Greene is probably Maxine Waters.

Sorry, but comparing Maxine Waters (a longtime community servant who would've probably gone unrecognizable in a lineup before 2017, when right-wing media caricatured her as a typical "angry Black woman") to MTG (a carpetbagger who owes her political career to her support of a conspiracy theory about Satan-worshipping pedophiles that has already motivated domestic terror attempts and is far more toxic than the left wing of the Democratic party) is among the stupidest non-olawakandi takes I've read on this forum.

Are you seriously defending Maxine Waters? She's one of the most ignorant, corrupt, and self-serving members of either House of Congress, and hasn't done anything to benefit her constituents during her nearly thirty years in Congress. A "community servant"? Waters is only a "community servant" when it's for the sake of earning publicity and benefiting her family. And I'm saying this as a black person.

The suggestion of the original post was that there is some kind of equivalency between Waters and Greene because they both appear to be "crazy/dumb," despite the fact that Waters earned this reputation by being swept up in meme culture and caricaturization after decades of being a non-factor, while Greene immediately rose to semi-prominence as a willing proponent of a violent, anti-semitic conspiracy theory.

I certainly think Marjorie Taylor-Greene is an utterly reprehensible character, and I would agree that she's risen to prominence much faster than Waters did. But you described Maxine Waters as if she were some kind of dedicated, caring motherly figure, devoted to her constituents and to her office, who has been wrongly demeaned by Republicans, when she is anything but.

"Community servant" and "public servant" are job descriptions that I feel are often romanticized. I intended it as a descriptor of a government official, not any type of compliment (or insult), and have no strong feelings in any direction about Maxine Waters. I apologize for that confusion.

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Last night I saw two Ossoff ads and one Warnock ad on NBC in Jacksonville, Florida. Yet to see an ad for either of the GOP candidates. I'm surprised its them and not the GOP who are going after those edge counties in southern Georgia. Maybe the Democrats have money to burn?

Possibly trying to juice AA turnout in Brunswick.

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The voter file has been updated with preliminary Georgia 2020 data (most of the third party services hustled to get Georgia done first in time for the runoffs).

It looks like Democratic turnout was 70% while Republican turnout was 90%. We had modeled for Democratic turnout to be 68% and Republican turnout to be 84%. If this same pattern happened nationwide, it seems to confirm the working theory that the polling misses where they occurred predominantly came from undershooting Republican turnout. The electorate was also far more partisan than we anticipated in even our highest partisanship models (i.e. independent/nonpartisan voters were a lower share of the electorate) which also probably helped Democrats in the polls.

Our final poll, which showed Biden winning the state by 3 points (everyone here knows that I always say margins are meaningless, but it's as specific as I'm allowed to get), would have shown a tie under the turnout model based on the actual figures.

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Thanks for the information, so in GA at least it appears the Nate Cohn theory that Republican turnout was higher relative to democratic turnout than expected appears to be true.

This sounds about right. Republican partisan turnout is almost always higher than Democratic, even in safe Democratic states/districts/etc. and in wave years. There are very few competitive races that Democrats wouldn't win if their partisan turnout rates reached standard Republican levels.

This year, it seems that both parties' turnout was higher than we anticipated, but Democrats only slightly whereas Republicans it was far more significant.

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The voter file has been updated with preliminary Georgia 2020 data (most of the third party services hustled to get Georgia done first in time for the runoffs).

It looks like Democratic turnout was 70% while Republican turnout was 90%. We had modeled for Democratic turnout to be 68% and Republican turnout to be 84%. If this same pattern happened nationwide, it seems to confirm the working theory that the polling misses where they occurred predominantly came from undershooting Republican turnout. The electorate was also far more partisan than we anticipated in even our highest partisanship models (i.e. independent/nonpartisan voters were a lower share of the electorate) which also probably helped Democrats in the polls.

Our final poll, which showed Biden winning the state by 3 points (everyone here knows that I always say margins are meaningless, but it's as specific as I'm allowed to get), would have shown a tie under the turnout model based on the actual figures.

That definitely sounds to me like good news for the Dems. That would suggest that the vote that Trump got, as well as that Congressional/Senate Republicans got, was probably pretty close to a ceiling for Republicans (at least for the time being).

That makes me more optimistic about the runoffs and also the 2022 midterms than I was before, because it suggests that things may be less favorable for Republicans in lower turnout elections when Trump is not himself directly driving up GOP turnout by being on the ballot. This would also bode well for 2024 and future Presidential years, since GOP turnout in those future Presidential years pretty much can't be higher than it was this year, and they still lost.


Also just wondering - does the voter file data you are using have modeled race data in addition to the voter registration declared race? If so, and if you are allowed to share, how many of the "unknown" race voters are modeled as white vs non-white? And how does that compare to 2016 (and 2018)? There have been some articles claiming that African American vote share was lower in GA, but it is unclear if that is really true because of the "unknown" race voters. Similarly it would be helpful to know the turnout percentage for voters that are African American as compared to White. Because if Biden did in fact win with African American turnout not being that great, that would definitely be a good sign for Dems in the future, since it suggests Dems may be able to win GA even without absolutely perfect black turnout. That might also suggest that some of the swings to Trump in some African American rural counties may be more due to turnout differentials than black voters switching to the GOP than has been thought (which would also be a good thing).

If we knew that these things were the case, I would definitely be a lot more optimistic about Dem chances in the runoff election.

And so I also hope that you are correct and this turns out to be the case in other states as well. It would suggest that the "Emerging Democratic Majority" thesis might actually be still more on-track than has been feared and would suggest that the GOP will sooner or later be forced to go in the 2012 autopsy direction.

Modeled ethnicity on our file for 2020 voters has 5% unknown. 57% white, 29% Black/African American (2016 was 59/30, 2018 was 58/31). We usually don't put much stock in these numbers, though. Modeled ethnicity is really difficult to get right and is prone to a lot of unavoidable error.

Should be noted that in Georgia and many states, the voter file has modeled party as well (for states without registration), though its significantly easier to model party ID than race.

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Lol, very sad I missed another round of the spending vs. message back and forth.

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https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1330342622905442304?s=21

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The voter file has been updated with preliminary Georgia 2020 data (most of the third party services hustled to get Georgia done first in time for the runoffs).

It looks like Democratic turnout was 70% while Republican turnout was 90%. We had modeled for Democratic turnout to be 68% and Republican turnout to be 84%. If this same pattern happened nationwide, it seems to confirm the working theory that the polling misses where they occurred predominantly came from undershooting Republican turnout. The electorate was also far more partisan than we anticipated in even our highest partisanship models (i.e. independent/nonpartisan voters were a lower share of the electorate) which also probably helped Democrats in the polls.

Our final poll, which showed Biden winning the state by 3 points (everyone here knows that I always say margins are meaningless, but it's as specific as I'm allowed to get), would have shown a tie under the turnout model based on the actual figures.

What turnout model did yall use for your recent GA-senate-runoff poll? (and do you, personally, anticipate the runoff will likely have the same Dem/Repub turnout %'s)

I'm not allowed to get that specific about our work, but I expect turnout percentages to drop precipitously in a non-regular general election, even if the overall Democrat to Republican ratio stays the same.

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Neither of these candidates are particularly good debaters. I’m sure CNN was expecting something starkly different when they decided to carry this.

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Loeffler’s performance in this debate is probably the closest I’ve come to seeing a poll come to life.

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I can’t believe she beat Doug Collins.

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Just a reminder that if Loeffler wins she immediately gets to do all of this again in two years.

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One thing that I find so curi ous about this race is that it seems like both sides are pessimistic on their chances of winning. Normally on Atlas, and throughout other election communities, Democrats tend to be bullish on Democrats while Republicans tend to be bullish on Republicans, yet for these, I feel like I'm seeing a more than usual number of people from both sides saying the other side will win. Democrats generally seem worried their voters won't show up, and the opposite is true for Republicans, who worry their base won't show up. Anyone else who feels this way?

I generally get a sense that both parties feel as though they could have done better with their candidates, which I'm sure goes a long way with regards to optimism/pessimism towards a win.

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apparently 7% of voters who are voting in the runoffs did not vote in the general, I wonder who they are? its weird

My take is that it's voters who now realize that their vote actually matters, but idk if this group is primarily red or blue.

Republican turnout in the general was nearly 90%, so I'd be astonished if they're managing to turn out voters who didn't vote in the general at this point.

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https://www.newsweek.com/kelly-loeffler-slammed-posing-former-kkk-leader-ahead-georgia-runoff-elections-1554401

Suburban women are going to lap this up, well done Brian Kemp. Hope some KKKelly ads are in the works, and I'm so glad that she beat Collins.

I might be wrong, but Doug Collins seemed to have a fairly good record on civil rights for African Americans when compared to other Southern Republicans.

Doug Collins from what I recall is good friends with Hakeem Jeffries and a few other CBC members. Interesting guy.

fwiw his seat is only 7% black, literally almost half of the national average, and has a significantly smaller slave and plantation history than the rest of the state as it is quite mountainous and not that many rivers and great soil for plantations.

Doug Collins is one of the prime examples of a politician whose actual record deviates from their rhetorical choices significantly.

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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.

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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?

Ossoff is still perceived far differently than Warnock and has different vulnerabilities, but the fact of the matter is that this is boiling down to a purely partisan exhibition.

[Pollster]

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?

Ossoff is still perceived far differently than Warnock and has different vulnerabilities, but the fact of the matter is that this is boiling down to a purely partisan exhibition.

are public polls matching what you're seeing in the H2H? i.e. a very close race, with maybe a slight Dem advantage?

We're definitely seeing a very close race, but I wouldn't say the data is there (publicly or privately) to classify anybody as having an advantage.

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I might just be a political oddball but I do actually care about the deficit and responsible spending and I'm not convinced a blanket $2,000 stimulus check is good policy. I'd much prefer the Dems take some time to lay out all the different options for stimulating the economy (e.g., infrastructure spending, tax credits for parents that need child care for the pandemic), rather than just jump on the more checks for everyone train.

Yeah, exactly, from a European perspective the debate which is taking place in the US is pretty weird, I mean, it's logical to compensate the loss of income for the people who are forced to shut down their business, who have lost their job or who are facing reduced working hours because of lockdown and anti Covid measures but giving a $2000 check to everybody, including the federal and state workers who are unaffacted by these measures is wasteful.

The problem is that this could potentially run into a 5th/14th amendment issue - fully employed people could make the argument that being denied stimulus checks is a violation of their due process rights.

There's also the idea that more money directly put in people's pockets pays economic dividends in the longrun, which is the same reasoning past administrations have given for cutting payroll taxes.

The political power behind both, though, is that people having more money is popular.