Abrams is closing the gap. I’ve seen a lot of chatter about how crosstabs are underestimating the percentage of the vote that will be women. Apparently women have made up at least 55% of the vote in every general election since at least 2016. I can’t say she’ll win but y’all saying she’s going to lose by 5+ points are wrong. Again.
I want to trust you on this. You were right about Georgia in 2020 after all.
But do you happen to have any insight on the ground for the Senate race too? Do you think either candidate could win without a runoff? And if so, who actually looks favored right now?
The stats are accurate and have been the case in all but 2 elections (2002 & 2006) in the 21st century (while the 2014 data is inexplicably missing from the website's ZIP file now, I doubt it dropped below 55% even if midterms are where it tended to occur in previous cycles & given the overall cycle/black registration efforts in 2008 & beyond):
2000 55.43% F, 44.57% M
2002 54.09% F, 45.91% M
2004 56.00% F, 44.00% M
2006 54.15% F, 45.85% M
2008 56.24% F, 43.76% M
2010 55.08% F, 44.92% M
2012 56.44% F, 43.57% M
2014 N/A IN GA-SOS FILE
2016 56.39% F, 43.48% M
2018 55.79% F, 44.07% M
2020 55.35% F, 44.45% M
To be fair, however, the reason for this is entirely due to the fact that 1 in 4 otherwise eligible black male voters in GA are in prison, on probation or otherwise disenfranchised from the voting process (females comprised
63% of the black vote in 2018 & 61% in 2020).
After all, ask yourself: why should GA have a half-million fewer voters than NC of all places (despite 200-300k more people) - especially and
after AVR was implemented here and not there?
EDIT: I ran the black versus non-black gender figures for 2018 & 2020 (based on VR turnout stats from those elections), and what you end up with is basically a "normal" gender distribution among non-black voters in GA - "normal" being organic gender balance plus a point or two given that women typically outlive men by several years and older voters have disproportionate turnout compared to younger groups. Here's the average for the two elections:
AVERAGE OF 2018 & 2020 GENERALS
Black 61.92% F, 37.98% M
Other 53.08% F, 46.74% M
INDIVIDUAL BREAKDOWNS
2018-Black 62.85% F, 37.07% M
2020-Black 60.98% F, 38.89% M
2018-Other 52.92% F, 46.92% M
2020-Other 53.23% F, 46.55% M
If Dobbs is going to have an impact, it'll likely have to show up among the latter group. Georgia's gender imbalance at the polls is based on the aforementioned criminal justice imbalance, so the point of this is just to caution against being too excited about such figures: after all, the electorate was basically 56% female in 2018. All things otherwise equal, it'd probably take a 57-58% female electorate for an Abrams win - and given we're probably on track for 4.5m vote turnout in November, it becomes increasingly difficult to massage such an advantageous imbalance into reality.
