GA-SEN 2022 Megathread: Werewolves and Vampires

[Adam Griffin]

Maybe it's time to start saying that Warnock will help Abrams and not the other way around? If we're going to make sweeping assumptions about candidate caliber and performance from previous elections, then it can just as easily be noted that Warnock did 3.5 points better, produced a blacker electorate and got a significantly higher share of whites - all during a runoff/special election and with 15% higher raw turnout.

Code:

2018 GOV (3.9m votes)
White	62.5%   25% D
Black	31.6%   93% D
Other	5.9%     64% D

2020 PRES (5.0m votes)
White	61.5%   29% D
Black	31.0%   88% D
Other	7.5%     58% D

2021 SENATE (4.5m votes)
White	62.1%   29% D
Black	31.8%   93% D
Other	6.1%     57% D

[Adam Griffin]

Maybe it's time to start saying that Warnock will help Abrams and not the other way around? If we're going to make sweeping assumptions about candidate caliber and performance from previous elections, then it can just as easily be noted that Warnock did 3.5 points better, produced a blacker electorate and got a significantly higher share of whites - all during a runoff/special election and with 15% higher raw turnout.

Code:

2018 GOV (3.9m votes)
White	62.5%   25% D
Black	31.6%   93% D
Other	5.9%     64% D

2020 PRES (5.0m votes)
White	61.5%   29% D
Black	31.0%   88% D
Other	7.5%     58% D

2021 SENATE (4.5m votes)
White	62.1%   29% D
Black	31.8%   93% D
Other	6.1%     57% D

That has less to do with candidate quality and maybe more to do with the 1 million plus new voters added to the rolls AFTER 2018, and the attention that Abrams’ loss brought to voting in Georgia. They are both phenomenal and we couldn’t ask for a better tag team at the top of the ticket.

Yep, you pretty much hit the nail on the head of what I was trying to convey. I could have phrased it better, but my original point was essentially aimed at those (both here and off-site) who are expressing some semblance of "what if Warnock is on track to lose by 10 points: will God Empress Stacey's coat-tails save him?". Both you and I know the state and what governs its political progress: it's hilarious that some think that one candidate will somehow contribute a massive amount performance-wise to another where it otherwise wouldn't be present.

The one area I'll push back on is raw turnout increase. Between 2016 and 2018, GA saw a net increase of approximately 800k active RVs and Abrams did approximately 3.5 points better than Clinton. Between 2018 and 2020, GA saw another net increase of approximately 800k active RVs and Warnock did yet again about 3.5 points better than Abrams. The uber-vast majority of RV increase and participation came from AVR - which of course was a fairly predictable factor once it was implemented post-2016 and given DMV/DDS patterns of license renewal (at least in hindsight).

Essentially, both Abrams and Warnock both performed as expected in hindsight and given these trends. However, there were still major diverging trends in each election cycle that in net terms cancelled out otherwise major factors (I'm going to post my findings on this matter in the next day or so in the main GA megathread on the statewide board).

[Adam Griffin]

He's gonna get gay rights taken away from all of us

[Adam Griffin]

https://twitter.com/ChrisCillizza/status/1529818029500076033

This guy wants to be a US Senator? Good lord.

I can see why McConnell desperately didn't want him to run lol.

He may very well win this November, but I have a hard time seeing him win reelection in six years, especially since Georgia is trending Democrat faster than the speed of light. He'd certainly be DOA in a Dem midterm.

Just look at where Georgia is going. He'd be done with a Democratic President in office 6 years from now.

The problem now - one I still believe in - is the fact that there'll be no racial contrast in November. If he does as well - let alone slightly better - than Trump with black men specifically, it's probably his to lose.

[Adam Griffin]

If you watch 2014 coverage you will see that republicans outperformed expectations in Georgia that year . Most people thought Nunn/Carter at the very least would force a runoff and they didn’t

Uhhh, unless you're talking about mid-summer 2014 where polls showed Democrats in a dead-heat and/or ahead, this really wasn't the case. Prior to 2016, people who knew GA politics knew that "undecideds" were disproportionately educated suburbrons who broke 3:1 for Republicans in the final 2-3 weeks of the campaign consistently in every cycle. Unless a Democrat was polling at 50%, there was no chance of victory.

I'd argue it was a strong performance especially for Carter, who held Obama-12 statewide figures in a hostile midterm, largely by delivering 5-15 point improvements throughout most of rural GA compared to Obama (especially in the north - which would prove to be where Biden's improvements led to his narrow victory - including my home county, where he did 12 points better than Obama-12; Nunn's improvements relative to Carter's versus Obama's were largely in metro ATL).

[Adam Griffin]

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/08/05/raphael-warnock-georgia-senate-2022-profile-00049352

‘There’s Never Been Anybody Like Him in the United States Senate’

DALTON, Ga. — In the middle of a community center gym in the northwest corner of this state that is the epicenter of American politics stood the Reverend Senator Raphael Warnock. Flanked by red, white and blue balloons, the Democrat campaigning here in staunchly Republican terrain looked out at a small but supportive crowd of Black and white faces. Wearing wire-rim glasses and a trim navy suit, his bald head not quite as shiny as his gleaming brown shoes, the preacher politician made his case for re-election with a sermon on the transcendent power of pavement.

“Infrastructure is spiritual,” he said.

“I believe in this so much that something really unusual happened … something that I didn’t see coming,” he said. “The Warnock-Cruz amendment.”

The people in the bleachers seemed confused. But he had their attention.

[Adam Griffin]

Uncanny how all the GOP polls from this week are predicated on Warnock only having a 40-50% advantage over Walker with black voters.

ECU, the only nonpartisan poll from the last week (besides Monmouth) had it a much more typical 80%+.

https://twitter.com/BruneElections/status/1586438560164388865

FWIW, some of those same polls are also showing impossible support levels for Warnock among whites (35-40%). Best not to delve too deep into the decadent waters of crosstab analysis when the toplines are within the realm of believability.

[Adam Griffin]

The abortion allegations against Walker...Republicans don't care.

A video could surface of him eating a fetus and these people will still head out to the polls and cast their votes for him.

"Who cares? Walker supports banning fetus-eating: can Warnock say the same???"

[Adam Griffin]

Best ad ever:

https://twitter.com/AdImpact_Pol/status/1587097961787441154

I can't help but assume there were some intentional, motivational undertones to all of this aimed at certain voters.

"GUESS WHO'S COMING TO [THANKSGIVING] DINNER? MULTIPLE BLACK MEN IF YOU DON'T VOTE RIGHT [SANDY SPRINGS, EAST COBB, ALPHARETTA, CUMMING, CANTON & BUFORD]!!!"

[Adam Griffin]

Are most ppl assuming that this election will definitely go to a runoff?

Literally this is what both state parties and/or their respective tentacle apparatuses have been prepping for for weeks.

[Adam Griffin]

Another consideration with regard to turnout that may be less than ideal for Republicans: there is only one statewide mandated week of in-person EV for runoffs (5 days), but counties can choose to offer more (if my interpretation is correct, up to 9 days; the weekends bookending it). This will likely lead to a scenario where most rural and Republican counties have several fewer days of in-person voting available. Even though weekend voting was not a huge segment of the overall EV in this election, it may end up being a meaningfully greater share if people cannot vote over three weeks' worth of workdays.

While Walker lost early in-person voting, Kemp still won it by a fraction of a point: it's a very important voting solution for Republicans and any added discrepancies against them that force a greater share of their vote to be cast solely in a single day does not work in their favor.

Just in case anyone is curious about this year's breakdowns (i.e. both candidates who came out on top won the most early in-person votes):

Mail Votes: 68-31 (+37 Warnock)
Early In-Person: 53-45 (+7 Warnock)
Election Day: 56-41 (+15 Walker)

Mail Votes: 62-37 (+25 Abrams)
Early In-Person: 50-50 (+0 Kemp)
Election Day: 62-37 (+25 Kemp)

[Adam Griffin]

One factor I keep coming back to:  with only 4 weeks until the runoff, Warnock has substantially less time to bank early votes than in 2021.  I wonder if it matters. 

I'm not sure why that would be a factor, it's not like those people are going to stay home. They'll just vote on E-Day if they don't have the chance to vote early.

Democrats use early voting to bake in turnout from their low propensity types (i.e., inner-cities, minorities, the poor, those with mobility issues, college students, etc.)  Having to rely on ED turnout to bank those votes is a higher risk proposition, as the GOP has recently learned.

Republican turnout will be down though, without Kemp on the ballot and being demoralized from an awful midterm.

I don’t buy that.  Walker is already a deeply flawed candidate.  What could he do in the next four weeks to turnoff the true believers?  Kemp already ran significantly ahead and Walker is finishing only 0.5 points behind

D runoff turnout is more of a question that R turnout, IMO

Warnock is leading by 0.9%, not 0.5%. The CNN number is wrong based on Henry County.

1.3% actually, with Warnock at 49.6%

Damn those .41% of people that didn’t vote for Warnock and gonna make us have to go through this again in a month

Best ad ever:

https://twitter.com/AdImpact_Pol/status/1587097961787441154

I can't help but assume there were some intentional, motivational undertones to all of this aimed at certain voters.

"GUESS WHO'S COMING TO [THANKSGIVING] DINNER? MULTIPLE BLACK MEN IF YOU DON'T VOTE RIGHT [SANDY SPRINGS, EAST COBB, ALPHARETTA, CUMMING, CANTON & BUFORD]!!!"

[Adam Griffin]

Two major things I've looked at thus far regarding Walker's individual popularity in the results:

1) Undervoting/"drop-on". It's not uncommon at all for even contest #2 on the ballot to get >1% fewer votes in Georgia statewide contests, but we usually see this when there's only one high-profile contest on the ballot. This time there were two - with the Senate contest taking top billing. Yet 18,000 more people cast ballots in the #2 Kemp-Abrams race! That's almost 1 in 200 voters who said "no thanks" to the contest and where typical down-ballot drop-off wasn't applicable.

2) Libertarian spread. Again, both races received high-profile coverage and to the average layperson, both were considered highly competitive. There's no legitimate argument to be made that one Libertarian candidate was "better" than the other (to those paying true attention, they would have known that the Senate race was the riskier of the 2 in which to vote L, if anything), and still, the Senate L got almost 3x as many votes as the Gov L. That's more than 53,000 people who also said "no thanks" to the contest.

If someone wants to make an articulate argument on how these were actually Democrats leaving their ballots blank or voting L en masse, then I'm all ears. Otherwise, these two factors don't bode well for Walker in a Senate-exclusive runoff*, where these two phenomena of people shunning Walker (without casting a two-party vote) comprised a maximum of 1.8% of all November-22 voters. Do you really think these people will come back out to vote, especially if Senate control is already decided?

*Some counties may have runoffs for local races - likely very few of these, though

[Adam Griffin]

My mail ballot should arrive either tomorrow or Monday. Only one contest on the ballot, so it's getting turned around and submitted same-day!

[Adam Griffin]

[edited for the children]

[Adam Griffin]

27 counties offering Saturday voting today after the state Supreme Court overruled SoS decision to bar it given today is a state holiday.

53% of the state's vote and population are in these 27 counties. Biden won them 64-35; the remaining 132 counties combined were Trump 66-33.

https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::c7977bd6-1719-49f4-aa37-e8ab6593ed07




17 counties will offer Sunday voting tomorrow (52% of state's pop/votes). These counties combined were 64-35 Biden; remaining 142 counties were 65-34 Trump.

https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::86e6f8e0-faca-4109-b255-ba4b460c2f0b

[Adam Griffin]

Call me cautious, but I don't think we're heading for some tsunami in terms of margin. This still is Georgia and Republicans still have a baseline advantage with regard to turnout for lesser-known elections (old people, white people, wealthier people), 2021's unique dynamics notwithstanding. Plenty of them couldn't care less that Walker is a potato.

I imagine a very strong performance for Warnock will be in the vicinity of 52%.  

[Adam Griffin]

So far in the 2022 runoff election, 81,705 people have voted.

46.1% Black
38.9% White
11.1% Other
2.4% Asian
1.6% Latino

56.4% Female
43.2% Male

12.8% 18-29
6.1%   30-39
10.5% 40-49
34.1% 50-64
36.3% 65+

6.2% of 2022 runoff early voters did not vote in the 2022 general election

Obviously racial figures (and therefore gender to a large degree) are skewed based on who could vote today, but those under-30 figures were relatively high (8-9%) even before any in-person voting happened (around 15k votes): as in, higher than at any point until around the final day or so of in-person EV. The fact that there are currently 75% as many under-30s as there are 30-49 year-olds is pretty amazing.

[Adam Griffin]

Apparently there was an early morning update including some of yesterday's data (around 9,000 extra people).

So far in the 2022 runoff election, 90,293 people have voted.

46.3% Black
38.6% White
11.1% Other
2.4% Asian
1.6% Latino

56.5% Female
43.0% Male

13.3% 18-29
6.1%   30-39
10.6% 40-49
34.6% 50-64
35.2% 65+

6.5% of 2022 runoff early voters did not vote in the 2022 general election

[Adam Griffin]

So far in the 2022 runoff election, 181,643 people have voted. 91,350 voted yesterday (Sunday) - by far the biggest Sunday turnout in Georgia history (just for reference, across the two 2022 GE Sundays, there was only a combined total of 47,058 votes). Of course, there is only one week of guaranteed M-F voting this time as opposed to 3, so this is likely pushing more voters to take advantage of weekend voting where available.

Black and under-30 shares of the total electorate held steady compared to yesterday's cumulative total, while white share dropped around a percentage point & 65+ share dropped by more than 4 points. Female share increased by more than a half-point.

27% of the under-30 vote thus far (6,367/23,758) did not vote in the November 2022 General Election.

46.3% Black
37.8% White
11.2% Other
2.8% Asian
1.9% Latino

57.1% Female
42.4% Male

13.1% 18-29
7.4%   30-39
12.2% 40-49
36.2% 50-64
30.8% 65+

5.9% of 2022 runoff early voters did not vote in the 2022 general election

[Adam Griffin]

Another way to look at the above observations: in the 2022 GE, there were two guaranteed statewide Saturdays of early voting, as well as about as many voters having access to 1 or 2 Sundays of EV on top of that. Those four days combined in the election had 235,533 votes (mail + in-person) cast/received across those 4 days.

For the runoff, we've had around 160,000 votes cast specifically on 1 Saturday and 1 Sunday (this excludes ABMs that arrived prior, as well as a handful of counties that offered EV on Wed & Fri) where such was only available to roughly 53% of the state's voters. It's also possible based on yesterday's reporting that there are another 5-10k ballots yet to be reported by SoS that were in fact cast/received yesterday to add to this total.

[Adam Griffin]

I think the one-day record during EV (including ABMs, which are always included in my counts) was around 265k - I want to say that was on the final day of in-person voting in 2018 (I don't think it was 2020, but maybe).

In 2022 GE, the highest turnout was the same day, with 244k.

[Adam Griffin]

Fairly consistently seeing 30k votes per hour today. If that rate merely holds, we could see another 90k by 5 PM. Around half of the state's voters live in places where there is at least one EV location open past 5 (in some cases, 6, 7 or even 8 PM), from which another 20-30k could come in afterward.

That alone would be enough to break the one-day record - and this is on the first day of statewide in-person, rather than the last day per usual. This also ignores any potential last-hour rush from people getting off of work.

https://twitter.com/GabrielSterling/status/1597310914726100992

[Adam Griffin]

https://twitter.com/GabrielSterling/status/1597329249081622528

[Adam Griffin]

https://twitter.com/GabrielSterling/status/1597334985568325632