GA-SEN 2022 Megathread: Werewolves and Vampires

[patzer]

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.

[patzer]

Regardless of the environment, it's very clear to me after these specials that Walker has a near zero chance of winning the runoff. One of ME/NM/OR/MN Governor flipping is more likely than Walker winning the runoff

I’d honestly be surprised if Walker manages to hold Warnock under 50% and to a runoff. Feels more likely that Warnock just wins outright with 51 or 52%.

[patzer]

Y'all will probably be only a few percent of the total vote, but in this closely divided state I expect that will be enough for a split Kemp/Warnock result.  (I strongly doubt there will be many Abrams/Walker ticket splitters.)

I’m struggling to think of who exactly an Abrams Walker voter would be. Maybe a very low info Democrat who is into sports?

Hardcore Trumpists who hate Kemp for not trying to steal the 2020 election. At least a few of them might want to vote Abrams to see Kemp go down.

[patzer]

Among GA-01, GA-06, GA-11, and GA-12, which are the best long term prospects for Dems?

I’d personally argue that the only truly safe districts for the Republicans for the coming decade are the 8th, 9th, and 14th. Given that the 3rd and 10th both contain the bulk of the growth of the southern suburbs of Atlanta.

Guess it depends on which of the pro-Dem trends are strongest. 6th and 11th rely on white suburban voters more (I suspect those are probably the districts in which Abrams will have ran most behind Warnock); I’d say the 6th would likely be a good place for Carolyn Bourdeaux to run in a future election if she wants to make a comeback to Congress. The 10th is probably the most likely aside from those two, but has a very strange coalition of black voters in the expanding south Atlanta suburbs, the Athens area which is largely liberal white voters, and rural black voters.

[patzer]

I can't think of a case why the 8th would be competitive, but the 9th theoretically could be if Hall zooms leftward and Dems get Stalinesque margins out of Gwinnett. The 14th if the Cobb portion becomes deep blue and Paulding sees an influx of suburban Democrats.

Over a couple decades, one could make a case for the current 8th flipping in the event of Georgia becoming a solid enough Dem state that the migration patterns in rural areas reverse, with rural Republicans leaving and it slowly building up from 30% black to closer to 50%. Very much the least likely of all the districts though.

[patzer]

To me, it seems like Atlanta's influence only started hitting Forsyth County at the start of the century; prior to that it was effectively a rural county politically.

Forsyth has also gotten a notable Asian population growing very very fast. I imagine that also has some impact on the politics. I hope Michelle Au runs for SD-48 at some point, she seemed like a really great State Senator though trying to run for re-election as a Senator under the new maps would've been political suicide this cycle. If Ds want any chance of flipping the State Senate this decade, SD-48 is probably the easiest way to start.

Strangely, Wikipedia didn’t have this year’s state senate election results, so I’ve just added them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Georgia_State_Senate_election#Results

SD-48 is indeed the closest seat (R+13 this year) followed by SD-37 (R+18).

Interestingly, the next closest seats are seven seats in which the Republican candidates all got between 61 and 62% this year. Control of the state senate will almost certainly lie in flipping some of those.