Tuesday, January 05, 2021

Sweet Home Georgia

(It's not a mistake, it's a Dollhouse reference)

Georgia heads back to the polls for two Senate run-off elections today, and I honestly don't know what to expect.

On the side of evil:

  • Perdue barely missed taking an outright majority in the first round, and the combined GOP vote in the special election was I believe ahead of the combined Dem vote.
  • As everyone knows at this point, Dems historically underperform in Georgia run-offs.
  • Polls have shown a deadlock, but it seems as if the polls this cycle have had a slight D slant, so a deadlock may translate to a slight R advantage.
On the side of good:
  • Early vote turnout figures look excellent for the Democratic candidates. And it seems plausible that in a run-off it will be easier to turn out the early vote than the in-person vote.
  • It's also not implausible that Republicans are demoralized after the 2020 election (even if they somehow actually think they won and it was "stolen", they might be less than keen to participate in an election they think will be "stolen" again).
  • Donald Trump being, shall we say, "distracted" might also undermine GOP enthusiasm.
  • The blue shift in highly-educated suburbs is, among other things, a shift in a relatively high-turnout constituency, which may undercut some of the historical "Dems struggle to turnout in run-offs" baggage.
Honestly, I don't know what to think. But here's hoping that these months where we Warnock-ed our Ossoff pay off!

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