What is the main reason why David Perdue lost his 2020 as an incumbent?

[Cyrusman]

Hindsight looking back, 2020 David Perdue seems like the ideal candidate for the GOP in the suburbs.

-Long family history and name in GA
- Was elected and served in the senate prior to the Trump era
- Soft spoken and didn't push a bunch of conspiracy theories (at the time, this was before he tried to primary Kemp)
- Didn't come off as divisive and toxic in the suburbs.

Considering 2022 Hershal Walker came very close to winning in the general, I have a feeling 2020 Perdue would have won had he gone up against Warnock in 2022. Not by Kemps margin, but still win.


Why did he lose in 2020? You don't see well known, non divisive incumbent senators lose often.

[MargieCat]

He won the first round, but did not make the 50% threshold to avoid a runoff.

A stupid law that was passed by his cousin, Sonny Perdue.

Loeffler and Perdue lost the runoffs because of Trump's election lies. Lower propensity Trump voters didn't bother to show up in the runoff. Democrats meanwhile were energized and showed up so that Biden would not be dealing with a GOP senate.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

He did enough to survive the first round, because once again boring old white Republicans didn't do as badly in the suburbs as Trump.

However, the Libertarian candidate's support is what forced the runoff but not for the reason you think. The Libertarian voters wouldn't have voted Perdue, but by voting Libertarian, they increased the total amount of votes and thus Perdue fell short of the target by 0.3%.

As for the runoff, he was completely favored to win that until around Christmas time. Then there was the whole stimulus checks drama, Trump claiming the election was rigged etc, and by 2021 arrived Warnock was now favored to win and Perdue was in a tossup race with his odds shrinking by the day. Republican turnout absolutely cratered in that runoff despite Perdue getting the margins he needed in the suburbs. In fact, had Perdue even gotten Herschel Walker's % turnout in some of those Northern Georgia counties he probably would have won. However, I don't think there was really any path for Loeffler.

[ProgressiveModerate]

GA is still a very polarized state where big time ticket splitting is increasingly rare. Even in 2022, the delta between how Raffensburger and Walker performed wasn't as large as one might expect anywhere else in the country.

While Perdue was certainly soft spoken and outran, he also didn't go out of his way to distance himself from Trump enough to outrun him and get 50% to win outright, and the very chaotic circumstances surrounding the runoff caused him to ultimately lose.

[TML]

The ultimate reason was that this seat proved to be the decisive seat for Senate control, and given that Democrats were much more motivated on that front than Republicans (Trump's rallies during the runoff campaign were more about his personal election grievances than retaining Senate control for Republicans), along with the state's D trend from 2012 onwards, it was not surprising that Perdue ultimately lost (IMO, if Senate control had come down to a runoff race in a state like Louisiana or Mississippi, it is highly likely that Republicans would have retained Senate control).

During the general election season, however, 538's forecast for Perdue's race had him as a modest favorite until the final week before Election Day, when the race tightened significantly and he was only seen as a slight favorite by Election Day itself (in fact, in 538's final Election Day forecast, his projected vote share was already under 50%). It has been pointed out that Perdue didn't put enough distance between himself and Trump, and given that the final tightening of his race before Election Day occurred shortly after Barrett's Supreme Court nomination, I suspect that Perdue's Barrett vote probably contributed to his race tightening in the final week.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Also he lacked an electability argument. One one hand you can't run as a MAGA conservative if you think Biden won the election but you can't run as a check on Biden if you think the election was stolen. Perdue tried to walk a line between the two but angered people on both sides in the process.

[MarkD]

Perdue lost because he got approximately 55,000 less votes in the Jan. 2021 runoff than Ossof. When you get less votes than your opponent, you've lost. (Sorry for belabouring the obvious, but I don't know what is the point of asking why did so-and-so lose?)

[TML]

Perdue lost because he got approximately 55,000 less votes in the Jan. 2021 runoff than Ossof. When you get less votes than your opponent, you've lost. (Sorry for belabouring the obvious, but I don't know what is the point of asking why did so-and-so lose?)

The OP is asking why candidates with certain qualities which should have been enough to win in theory didn't actually win. It would be beneficial to address that part of the OP's question, as myself and other posters in this thread have attempted to do.

[cg41386]

He simply didn't run that great of a campaign, and he was rather boring.

[Cyrusman]

He simply didn't run that great of a campaign, and he was rather boring.

Honestly I think that may have been one of his strongest traits at this point in time for the GOP

[CityofSinners]

Perdue lost because the runoff election became all about Trump's quest to overturn the election and control of the senate.
He never had the strong personal brand other senators like Manchin,Collins or Murkowski have. Neither did he try much to differentiate himself from the generic republican brand.

Perdue came into office during a time where GA was safer for republicans and the republican brand was much more suburban friendly. Many politicans struggle to adapt to changing party coalitions. Especially when the change is as rapid as it was in Georgia.

[President Johnson]

Strong Democratic turnout in the runoffs is the obvious answer. Trump actually helped to lower turnout on the Republican side with his campaign rallies and by stoking massive doubt on the process.

It's actually stunning that the Democratic senate majority in 2021 was solely based on Georgia's unique runoff requirement and two special elections from death and poor health. Without these, Republicans would have kept 53 seats in 2020 with just Alabama and Colorado being a tradeoff.

[Reactionary Libertarian]

Also he lacked an electability argument. One one hand you can't run as a MAGA conservative if you think Biden won the election but you can't run as a check on Biden if you think the election was stolen. Perdue tried to walk a line between the two but angered people on both sides in the process.

This. Trump destroyed Perdue’s strongest argument for re-election by convincing Republicans that the election was stolen and Trump was still president. Plus Trump was attacking Republicans on the stimulus checks, which Ossof campaigned on.

[Landslide Lyndon]

To add to all those above, the guy was creamed by Ossoff in the debate they had.
It was so bad that Perdue backed out from the second and final debate the two campaigns initially agreed to have.

[Tekken_Guy]

Strong Democratic turnout in the runoffs is the obvious answer. Trump actually helped to lower turnout on the Republican side with his campaign rallies and by stoking massive doubt on the process.

It's actually stunning that the Democratic senate majority in 2021 was solely based on Georgia's unique runoff requirement and two special elections from death and poor health. Without these, Republicans would have kept 53 seats in 2020 with just Alabama and Colorado being a tradeoff.

On the other hand, the Democrats senate majority would be wider if not for an infidelity scandal, a Supreme Court death that allowed an endangered blue-state senator to flex her moderate image, Democrats triaging a battleground state too early because of a perceived red wave, and a hurricane that got a relatively unpopular governor a massive rally-round-the-flag in the home stretch.