Georgia senate runoff elections. Let’s debate and make predictions

Politics & Elections
1

Trump has gone down. Now it’s time to find out if the same can be done to McConnell’s senate leadership. The Georgia senate runoffs will be on 1/5/2021. Here are some relevant vote totals from recent elections in Georgia.

2016 POTUS race
R - Trump - 2,089,104
D- Clinton - 1,877,963

2016 Senate race
R - Isakson - 2,135,806
D - Barksdale - 1,599,726

2018 Governor’s race
R - Kemp - 1,978,408
D - Abrams - 1,923,686

2020 POTUS race (11/7 1700 CST)
D - Biden - 2,462,099
R - Trump - 2,454,552

2020 Senate race 1 (11/7 1700 CST)
R - Perdue - 2,455,477
D - Ossoff - 2,362,705

2020 Senate race 2 (11/7 1700 CST)
D - Warnock - 1,609,979
R - Loeffler - 1,269,750

I’ll post my thoughts in a subsequent post.

2

idk if Trump’s defeat makes Republicans stay home, or get more energized. I’m mildly leaning toward the latter but I’m not really qualified to know.

I know I’ll be knocking on doors for Ossoff and/or Warnock like my life depends on it.

3

Postcards, homie. I plan to write a lot of postcards.

4

I think the key to both races will be turnout.

The Republican candidates will be hurt by Trump no longer being on the ballot. The MAGAs who came out primarily for him will likely stay home. My guess is that these votes are mainly represented by Trump’s 2016 vs. 2020 vote totals. Those 400K he got this year that he didn’t get in 2016 are likely to stay home. On the other hand, the never Trump Republicans are more likely to come out now that Trump is not running. Of particular note is that Perdue is running better this year than Trump is running.

For the Democrats my guess for the “extra” turnout (to vote against Trump) is best represented by the difference between Ossoff’s number this year and Abrams’s 2018 number. Ironically this number also turns out to be around 400K.

Where does this leave us? IMHO with two close elections. Stacey Abrams and her turnout machine may well make the difference. I think it’s going to be very close, and we can’t automatically assume the Republicans will win both races.

5

Any prediction would be a guess. My hope is that Trump tries to take the party down with him, to the point of encouraging his supporters to stay home for the runoffs. Alternately, I hope that the people who love Trump aren’t interested in elections without him as a candidate, and stay home on runoff day.

6

For more:

7

So, I know the election is on January 5, and early voting starts mid-December. Is there mail/absentee voting? When do people have to request ballots by?

I think one of the most profound results of the presidential election was, as predicted, the extreme partisan split in voting method. If the vote-by-mail option is not available, or has short deadlines, as it probably must given the date of the election, that is bad for Democrats.

I certainly hope (a lot) that Stacy Abrams and friends can pull off another win, but I will be surprised.

8

Based off what we saw two weeks ago, Democrats will easily sweep to victory in both Georgia Senate races.

9

I think the big unknown is turnout. Will the MAGA crowd show up and vote even when Donnie is not on the ballot? I suspect many of his supporters are loyal to him and not the party. Will Stacy’s GOTV effort pay off? I suspect that the attempts to overturn the vote may backfire spectacularly as many pissed off Dems are going to turn out as payback.

10

I think a lot of turnout was driven by anti-Trump voters. Which is why Cobb County which has historically been Republican but moving left, went +12 for Biden.

Anyways, as a Georgian, I’m expecting Perdue and Loeffler to win slightly. However, if either are vulnerable it’s probably Loefller.

11

My prediction is democrats get whomped in those elections.

Dems had massive turnout in Georgia and just barely eked out a victory and put the senators into a runoff election.

Never in the history of ever have dems been a big turnout in mid-term elections and I am guessing even less so in runoff elections.

Every Trumper is so freaked out, so spazzed out about the election that they will move heaven and earth to vote on January 5. They will show-up in strength.

Liberal voters mostly won’t even know it is happening and certainly won’t be arsed to get to the polls. Some will but they need ALL of them and I would be shocked if that happened.

12

There are many factors at work here:

The nevertrumpers wont be as energized. Some Republicans I know want the Senate to be controlled by the GOP, but despise trump. These are people who have voted Republican all their life, and even defend GWB (but mainly “he wasnt that bad”) but want to dumptrump.

The MAGA hat wearer wont be as energized either, however. By that time even they will realize that der beloved Führer is gone.

Stacey Abrams is very popular and will be hard at work.

Many voters are pissed at trump for his delays, and if he continues too long, this will help the Dems.

Vote by mail etc, will be allowed, iirc.

I predict a close election. My WAG is that the Dems take one seat- Warnock- and the GOP the other, but barely in both case.

13

There were 100,000 fewer votes for Ossoff than for Biden. A lot of voters either split their tickets or didn’t care about the Senate races. (Most of those 100k didn’t care – Perdue only got about 1,000 more votes than Trump.)

So, it’s a very large hill for Democrats to climb. Step one is getting people to care. Get out the vote – itself a herculean task – is step two.

14

Answering my own questions:

From here.

That article also mentions that there are other state and local runoffs in a Dec. 1 runoff election. It seems like there is a lot of potential for confusion.

15

A complicating factor in this race is Trump’s refusal to accept reality and concede. One of the strongest arguments that the Republicans have is the need for a Republican Senate to keep a check on the Biden administration. But to make this argument is to admit that there will be a Biden administration, and that is Trumpian heresy. Neither Republican candidate can risk Trump’s ire.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are perfectly happy to run with the message that a Democratic Senate is necessary for a successful Biden administration. Don’t let Mitch McConnell undo all of your hard work!

16

Be that as it may, I suspect both Republicans will be elected. Getting Georgia Dems motivated to turn out and vote again, even with Stacey Abrams doing her level (and very impressive) best, is probably not gonna happen.

17

I agree. Abrams is great. She won’t be enough to pull this out though.

18

I’m cautiously optimistic. I think elections without Trump on the ticket look closer to 2018 from now on.

19

They can (and are) easily arguing that a Republican Senate is needed to help Trump get his people nominated (for example, Amy Coney Barrett).

20

My heart wants this to be close, but my brain says that both GOP candidates will prevail by a comfortable but not overwhelming margin – say 5-7 points.