GA-SEN 2022 Megathread: Werewolves and Vampires

[MT Treasurer]

Warnock wins by as much as 2021 if this is the case.

If this is the case with Perdue, it will be the case with any other Republican as well. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, for this seat to flip nothing short of a Republican tsunami will be required, and I don’t buy that Warnock is more vulnerable than Hassan, Kelly, and/or Cortez Masto. I know this makes me a self-hating RINO, but the vast majority of those suburban Georgia 'moderates' are about as persuadable as Hillary Clinton/Justin Fairfax voters in McLean, VA.

[MT Treasurer]

I think Perdue is a decent choice for the Rs. I'm open to voting for Perdue in 2022 depending on how the Ds do with their trifecta, and frankly, of all the R contenders for the seat (MTG, Collins, Perdue, Loeffler), I really am not open to voting for the other three for varying reasons.  However, Perdue will need to run a far better campaign than he did this cycle. If we are still hearing in 2022 about how Trump wasn't responsible for the riots, we shouldn't be shocked if the ATL suburbs trend even further D.

I think we know this story ends, don’t we? Between this and Del Tachi's comment about Perdue not being anathema to Buckhead whites/being formidable in those areas because it’s a Biden midterm, this thread honestly couldn’t have been off to a better (or, well, more ominous) start.

[MT Treasurer]

No Republican is going to win back 'the '''moderate''' Atlanta suburbanites' who turned out for a runoff election to vote out their incumbent Republican Senator to give Biden a trifecta, regardless of how 'moderate' they are.

[MT Treasurer]

I actually think there’s a narrow path for Walker to win/Warnock to lose, but it will require everything to fall into place & it would be a somewhat unconventional R winning coalition by GA standards. Walker’s not going to win by converting supposedly "undecided", "moderate" Atlanta suburbanites/exurbanites who voted out their generic R Senator to give Biden a trifecta in a runoff election, he’s going to do it by pushing R base turnout to Nov. 2020 levels (Perdue did receive more voters than Ossoff in that election), activating a small but non-insignificant untapped base of fairly apolitical voters in the urban areas in particular, and accelerating trends among non-college-educated voters of color, primarily by portraying himself as an outsider and focusing on culture wars (that All-Star Game boycott controversy might have been a preview of this). It’s narrowing the gap in Clayton/DeKalb more so than clawing back lost ground in Cobb/Forsyth that’s his best path.

I’m not saying that that’s likely to happen, but it’s probably his (or any Republican's) best and only chance in the GA of 2022. Obviously this is a near-guaranteed D win in 2028 regardless of what happens next year.

[MT Treasurer]

In my opinion this race is Likely D.
You've got the natural trends in Georgia, the personal popularity of Warnock, the infighting in the Republican Party there (non-Trumpists vs Trumpists), the good polling, the terrible image of the voter suppression laws (water bottles) likely alienating moderates, and the way the economy and baseline factors like that are likely to be decent for the Dems in 2022.

The Republicans can in theory win the race, but everything needs to fall right for them.

I honestly think the runoff law/50%+1 rule is a better argument for rating this Lean D (not Likely) than any of the things you listed. It may be less difficult than we think for someone like Walker to win a very narrow plurality in the first round, but I maintain that people underestimate how much of an uphill battle any runoff election will be for the GOP here. If they want to beat Warnock, they have to do it in November.

[MT Treasurer]

GOP is better served with a more 'unconventional' candidate like Walker who has at least some potential to reshape coalitions/turnout patterns a little. Toss-up for now, but he really needs to break 50%+1 in November in order to win the seat.

[MT Treasurer]

I still think Walker wins the nomination and then loses to Warnock by a point or two. My opinion hasn't really changed.

I think Republicans flip New Hampshire and Nevada before Georgia.

I agree with this (also AZ before GA), but I could see Walker winning a narrow plurality in November. It just wouldn’t be enough because he’d very likely lose the runoff. If the Republican wins an outright majority in November, it’s a really bad night for Democrats (assuming there were other candidates or at least a Libertarian on the ballot).

[MT Treasurer]

I don't see why Walker is considered a "weak candidate" while Laxalt is considered a "strong candidate."

Of course you couldn’t resist inserting your silly fixation on NV/Laxalt into the discussion of this race. This was already touched upon in other threads (not that you’re even receptive to that message because you’ll always cling to your inelastic & deep blue Nevada/weak Laxalt narrative regardless of actual election results), but the difference is that Laxalt's campaign is hyper-focused on making the case for firing the incumbent (and the national party which said incumbent can be tied to fairly easily) while Walker's campaign amounts to little other than the same 'inspirational', slick, and repetitive ads recycled over and over again without any effort to define Warnock at all (and to define him before Warnock has defined himself, which he already has). This is an absolutely self-defeating strategy given that Walker can’t afford even the slightest underperformance among white voters and that negative campaigning (if executed competently) is almost always more effective than any barrage of 'positive' ads.

Basically, the Laxalt campaign actually understands how federal races are won in a midterm under an unpopular President from the other party, whereas the Walker campaign really doesn’t.

[MT Treasurer]

Candidates like Walker have potential but they are usually hit or miss. Unfortunately (for the GOP), all signs point to miss in this case, so we’ll see if there’s a wave that can carry him across the finish line.

I very much agree that this is a race any Republican who would have actually focused on Warnock (and stayed focused on the incumbent) would have won.

[MT Treasurer]

With SSRI use on the rise across Cobb County, Georgia Democrats could only stigmatise - but Walker’s campaign, no doubt advised by David Perdue, has landed its finger on the pulse of Atlanta’s suburbia.

In all fairness, the man behind this predictable attempt at character assassination is noted psychopath Bill Kristol, who - it goes without saying - is a far greater danger to society than Herschel Walker will ever be. I already said this last cycle when the Lincoln Project came up as a subject, but there’s a lot to be said about the concentration of extremely ghoulish individuals among NeverTrump political strategists & lawmakers.

[MT Treasurer]

*snip*

This ad is very good.

Inb4 MT Treasurer getting giddy about "BIPARTISAN"

Well, you know my mantra that high-profile political campaigns in competitive races are all about rhetoric and theatrics, which is notable because (a1) both disciplines aim at the manipulation of an audience (if you think that’s a coincidence, you’re mistaken), and (a2) the people who tend to be extremely skilled in both are overrepresented in the highest positions in power (if you think that’s a coincidence, you’re mistaken).

I’ve always appreciated your interest in/willingness to look at campaigns and events from a less ideological and more psychological lens and you seem to be familiar with some techniques of mass manipulation (repetition being one of them, as you’ve alluded to in previous posts), so what technique would you say this ad uses (if it does)? What makes this an effective ad?

[MT Treasurer]

It's all about perception and making a convincing argument. It doesn't matter how "moderate"/"bipartisan" someone is. If you can convince the voters you are one through effective messaging, that's all it takes! Elissa Slotkin, Don Bacon, Maggie Hassan and Susan Collins are all good examples of this.

I don’t disagree with the crux of this, but what about that ad, though? (question for everybody, you can take your seat )

Is it Warnock's 'bipartisan bill' eliminating regulations for peanut farmers that’s going to stand out here? Is that the most memorable part of the ad?

[MT Treasurer]

Might be worthwhile considering how the GOP's runoff strategy differs from their general election playbook. I’m obviously not on the ground, so the GA posters can confirm/rebut this, but from my (very limited) outsider perspective, it seems like it’s (a) anticipating Warnock's highly 'theatrical' campaign style and projecting an image of him as a trained and untrustworthy actor in every respect, incl. his self-proclaimed independence (their first ad that began airing a few days after the November election introduced this theme, see ad 1 below), (b) a lot more focused on the character assassination/personal history of the incumbent, which reinforces the first theme — see ad 2 below as an example, (c) taking over Kemp's much-vaunted "turnout operation" (which can only get you so far but is of particular help in a lower-turnout runoff in which your party is reliant on the lower-propensity voters) in addition to (d) public appearances/ads with Kemp. I’m sure I missed something (outreach to Hispanic and Asian voters seems to be a bigger priority this time as well, as are reminders to Republican-leaning voters to vote early), but this seems to be it, mostly. It’s not bad on paper, but their biggest problem remains the fact that they’re being vastly outspent.

Ad 1-

https://twitter.com/nrsc/status/1590792729847816193

Ad 2-

https://twitter.com/HerschelWalker/status/1597221848592547840

[MT Treasurer]

Yeah I’m not exactly seeing many good signs for Walker right now. His pathway was largely dependent on Democratic complacency.

I actually disagree with this — his pathway is just as dependent on persuasion as it is on Republican turnout, and it was never really dependent on a drop-off in Democratic turnout (which was never realistic in the first place). Re: the first point — there’s a reason the Walker people have been hitching their wagons to Kemp, and it’s not because of turnout. While only a fraction of those non-Walker/Kemp voters may be persuadable in the runoff election, they’re numerous enough to make a difference in what is still a 50/50 state.

I never bought Democrats becoming "complacent" in this race, nor was there ever any reason to believe that would be the case. Not only is it hard to overstate how reliable their coalition in GA has become, but it’s also never really been the case that Democratic and minority turnout is particularly low in the South, even in runoff elections.

Walker should be more worried about GOP turnout (again) lagging behind Democratic turnout than about Democratic turnout being particularly high. He can mitigate the first problem, he can’t do anything about the second one.

[MT Treasurer]

This seat would mean Dems could be more confident in retaining control through the 2024 election, because a single vacancy in a state with an R governor controls appointments would no longer flip the chamber.

It could also have a significant impact on 2024.  In the event that election was an R blowout, they would need to win 11 seats for a supermajority. There are currently exactly 10 senate seats up in states where Trump won or came within 5% in 2016.  A Warnock win would mean R's would have to win VA or NM for a supermajority (along with MN and ME, which haven't really been close in any election since 2016).

Damn. Who is even thinking of a Republican supermajority?? At this point the discussion is where can they win to get a majority.

Well, there has been this idea floating around out there for a while (as far back as 2012, I believe) that the Class I map would inevitably give Republicans a supermajority and a generational hold on the Senate as soon as it came up in a favorable year.  Of course, it hasn't yet.

I also don’t think there’s any discussion about "where they can win to get a majority," which is pretty obvious to even a casual observer (WV/OH/MT/NV).

There’s just a non-negligible number of Senate seats after those four that would only flip in a decisive Republican win in the presidential race as opposed to a more neutral year (MI/PA/WI/AZ), but even if you grant them that scenario, a supermajority seems out of reach. What would even be seat 60? NM? Even that only gets them to 59, and this assumes that Walker wins the runoff!

Still, even a 55- or 56-seat majority probably means Democrats don’t get the Senate back any time soon. However, they’d still be in a very good position in the House (sort of ironic that Democrats won the former while losing the latter this year).

[MT Treasurer]

Warnock will win by 10+ Points. The Question is when will the Race be called. My guess between 8 and 9pm ET!

So basically a Chambliss vs. Martin 2008 situation? If Republican turnout is way down, it could happen, but I’d think a high single-digit win is closer to Warnock's realistic ceiling, and I’m not sure I’d even bet on that. Don’t really get why people are so confident here.

[MT Treasurer]

Warnock will win by 10+ Points. The Question is when will the Race be called. My guess between 8 and 9pm ET!

So basically a Chambliss vs. Martin 2008 situation? If Republican turnout is way down, it could happen, but I’d think a high single-digit win is closer to Warnock's realistic ceiling, and I’m not sure I’d even bet on that. Don’t really get why people are so confident here.

Camden County which went +33 Walker in November only has about 4K People Voting through 2pm. Walker needs to be closer to 9K to have any chance at all.

Camden County suggest Republican Turnout WAAAY DOWN!

That’s most likely bad news for Walker, but also just a snapshot of a single county at a particular time. How many votes were cast early? How many remaining votes will be cast? If you know the answers to those two questions, it’ll be a lot more indicative.

I’m not denying that this election is an uphill battle for the GOP or that Warnock could win in a rout, but I wouldn’t call it yet.

It would also be helpful if you provided a source for your claims, especially turnout reports, which tend to be deliberately selective to feed a particular narrative.

[MT Treasurer]

*snip*

Thanks! Someone in the replies mentioned that election day (only) turnout on Nov. 8 was 7k in this county and that they do seem to be on pace on to match that, but how many early votes were cast for the runoff this time (in this county)?

[MT Treasurer]

*snip*

Thanks! Someone in the replies mentioned that election day (only) turnout on Nov. 8 was 7k in this county and that they do seem to be on pace on to match that, but how many early votes were cast for the runoff this time (in this county)?

According to https://georgiavotes.com/county.php, Camden County has cast 8,981 early votes in the runoff.  (This was 81.4% of their November 8 early vote, which works out to just over 11K.)

Thank you! (also for providing the source)

So ~9K early votes + ~7K election day votes = ~16K in total would be a realistic estimate for Camden County? ~18K votes were cast in November, so that would amount to 85%-90% of the November total.

Maybe not enough for Walker, but not nearly as bad for him as 2016 made it out to be.

[MT Treasurer]

Brantley County >95% in

Walker 92%
Warnock 8%

~5,500 votes cast so far.

In January 2021:

Perdue 91%
Ossoff 9%

~6,600 votes cast back then.

[MT Treasurer]

Brantley County >95% in

Walker 92%
Warnock 8%

~5,500 votes cast so far.

In January 2021:

Perdue 91%
Ossoff 9%

~6,600 votes cast back then.

Washington County >95% in

Walker 51%
Warnock 49%

~6,800 votes cast so far.

In January 2021:

Perdue 49%
Ossoff 51%

~8,500 votes cast back then.

[MT Treasurer]

Brantley County >95% in

Walker 92%
Warnock 8%

~5,500 votes cast so far.

In January 2021:

Perdue 91%
Ossoff 9%

~6,600 votes cast back then.

Washington County >95% in

Walker 51%
Warnock 49%

~6,800 votes cast so far.

In January 2021:

Perdue 49%
Ossoff 51%

~8,500 votes cast back then.

Pierce County >95% in

Walker 89%
Warnock 11%

~6,700 votes cast so far.

In January 2021:

Perdue 88%
Ossoff 12%

~7,900 votes cast back then.

[MT Treasurer]

Interesting.  Didn't Walker already do somewhat better than 2020/21 in the South Georgia rurals in the GE?

I’m only comparing to 2021 because there was no Ind. candidate on the ballot, it was the closest race, and I can’t find a county map for the November 2022 election — everyone is showing the runoff results.

[MT Treasurer]

Towns County >95% in (this one is in North GA)

Walker 80%
Warnock 20%

~6,400 votes cast so far.

January 2021:

Perdue 81%
Ossoff 19%

~7,200 votes cast back then.

[MT Treasurer]

Towns County >95% in (this one is in North GA)

Walker 80%
Warnock 20%

~6,400 votes cast so far.

January 2021:

Perdue 81%
Ossoff 19%

~7,200 votes cast back then.

Rabun County >95% in (this one is also in North GA)

Walker 77%
Warnock 23%

~7,400 votes cast so far.

January 2021:

Perdue 79%
Ossoff 21%

~8,400 votes cast back then.