GA-6 Special election discussion thread

[RI]

Democrats had an advantage in early voting for 11 days, which suggests that most of their voters have already voted by now. There is also the fact that not every Republican showing up is voting for a Republican.

Basically, don't be surprised if Ossoff's winning the early vote, but he could very easily get shredded by election day vote.

[MAINEiac4434]

Democrats had an advantage in early voting for 11 days, which suggests that most of their voters have already voted by now. There is also the fact that not every Republican showing up is voting for a Republican.

Basically, don't be surprised if Ossoff's winning the early vote, but he could very easily get shredded by election day vote.

Yeah, this has all the makings of a canabilized Election Day vote.

[Gass3268]

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[Pandaguineapig]

Democrats had an advantage in early voting for 11 days, which suggests that most of their voters have already voted by now. There is also the fact that not every Republican showing up is voting for a Republican.

But with this being a primary with multiple republican choices rather than a 1v1 you can assume 90%+ are

[Matty]

Evidence is emerging that ossof's early vote advantage is waning.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Democrats had an advantage in early voting for 11 days, which suggests that most of their voters have already voted by now. There is also the fact that not every Republican showing up is voting for a Republican.

But with this being a primary with multiple republican choices rather than a 1v1 you can assume 90%+ are

I think this is an unwarranted assumption for two reasons.  First and most important, "Republican primary voter" does NOT mean the same thing as "Republican".  Many local races in this area have only Republican candidates, so voting in the Republican primary is the only way to have a vote in those elections.  I have done this myself and know many other people who have.  There are also tactical voting considerations in some primaries that may cause a voter to choose the other party's primary.

Second, Republicans who are likely to cross over because they're not happy with their party (and there are many such at present) are likely to do so regardless of how many Republicans are on the ballot.  It's true that more Republican choices will probably mean fewer Ossoff crossovers, but I doubt this will have a huge effect.

Certainly a majority of the GOP primary voters are likely to vote for a Republican.  But to automatically assume that it will be 90%+ is to ignore the actual environment.

[Holmes]

I mean didn't Republicans have an 8% advantage in early votes in KS-04 and Thompson was at 60% in early returns? This district barely even compares on top of that because it's based on what party you voted for in your previous primary, so we don't know how many Rubio/Kasich -> Clinton voters are turning out so far.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I mean didn't Republicans have an 8% advantage in early votes in KS-04 and Thompson was at 60% in early returns?

He only got 60% of the EV in Sedgwick County. It's just that it took a while for the rural counties to cancel it out because, well, they're rural counties - and were left to do it on their own for much of the night because the more conservative ED Sedgwick vote came in really slowly.

[The_Doctor]

Based on the 2% Trump win in Georgia's 6th coupled with the strong wave of Democratic enthusiasm why isn't it at least likely that Ossoff reaches 51% on Tuesday? So far the Democrats are running ahead of their 2016 numbers and this is a suburban Atlanta district. Why would they vote for a Republican if they believe they're voting on the Trump Administration?

[GlobeSoc]

After KS-04 and the presidential election, I'm just going to assume most elections have a counting bias for Democrats early on and Republicans catching up later

[Brittain33]

After KS-04 and the presidential election, I'm just going to assume most elections have a counting bias for Democrats early on and Republicans catching up later

Seriously. Has this always been a thing or just since 2016?

[GeorgiaModerate]

After KS-04 and the presidential election, I'm just going to assume most elections have a counting bias for Democrats early on and Republicans catching up later

Seriously. Has this always been a thing or just since 2016?

Before the prevalence of early voting, it was the other way around.  There tended to be a Republican lean to counts early in the evening of Election Day.  Smaller precincts count faster than larger ones, so rural precincts (more of which are R leaning) tend to report faster than urban (more of which are D leaning).

Nowadays the early vote tends to get reported immediately, and Democrats have jumped on early voting more than Republicans, so the trend has reversed.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Evidence is emerging that ossof's early vote advantage is waning.

I can't really see Ossof winning, but the trend is toward the Democrats in that part of GA. 

[Adam Griffin]

Based on the 2% Trump win in Georgia's 6th coupled with the strong wave of Democratic enthusiasm why isn't it at least likely that Ossoff reaches 51% on Tuesday? So far the Democrats are running ahead of their 2016 numbers and this is a suburban Atlanta district. Why would they vote for a Republican if they believe they're voting on the Trump Administration?

I don't have the side-by-side numbers to definitely confirm it, but I'm expecting that a greater share of likely voting Democrats in GA-6 have already early voted compared to who had done so in KS-4 at this comparable point. I remember Cohn saying a few days ago that something like 80% of the people remaining who had a 80% chance or greater of voting in a midterm were Republican or Republican leaners.

That 30-point gap in preferences in Sedgwick between EV (Thompson +22) & ED (Estes +10) could look quite small compared to what we see in GA-6 if there isn't substantial breakdown of usual voting fundamentals.

[heatcharger]

Based on the 2% Trump win in Georgia's 6th coupled with the strong wave of Democratic enthusiasm why isn't it at least likely that Ossoff reaches 51% on Tuesday? So far the Democrats are running ahead of their 2016 numbers and this is a suburban Atlanta district. Why would they vote for a Republican if they believe they're voting on the Trump Administration?

I don't have the side-by-side numbers to definitely confirm it, but I'm expecting that a greater share of likely voting Democrats in GA-6 have already early voted compared to who had done so in KS-4 at this comparable point. I remember Cohn saying a few days ago that something like 80% of the people remaining who had a 80% chance or greater of voting in a midterm were Republican or Republican leaners.

That 30-point gap in preferences in Sedgwick between EV (Thompson +22) & ED (Estes +10) could look quite small compared to what we see in GA-6 if there isn't substantial breakdown of usual voting fundamentals.

Will it matter if Ossoff is at 60% in the early vote? According to Cohn, the current EV electorate is 46% D, 37% R, 17% NA, which makes that quite difficult, but perhaps there are a fair amount of "crossover" votes. What % of the overall vote do you expect to come from the EV?

[Classic Conservative]

Today's Vote: https://mobile.twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/852327832185430016

Republicans: 52%
Democrats: 32%
Independents: 16%

Nate Cohn says Trump would've won today according to the data.

[Hindsight was 2020]

It was fun while it lasted

[henster]

Today's Vote: https://mobile.twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/852327832185430016

Republicans: 52%
Democrats: 32%
Independents: 16%

Nate Cohn says Trump would've won today according to the data.

Yea, this was always going to be a heavy lift, I think Ds can win over suburban districts but the south is a different animal. I think the path to majority runs thru PA, NY, CA, MI, FL.

[Dr. Arch]

Today's Vote: https://mobile.twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/852327832185430016

Republicans: 52%
Democrats: 32%
Independents: 16%

Nate Cohn says Trump would've won today according to the data.

Yea, this was always going to be a heavy lift, I think Ds can win over suburban districts but the south is a different animal. I think the path to majority runs thru PA, NY, CA, MI, FL.

These were people who voted R in the primary. We're not even sure if they're registered Rs. Can we not do this? Let's wait until election day.

[Figueira]

Clearly what we need to do now is give up on winnable races

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Remember guys, it's not as if the 2016 electorate here was 47% D or similar - Clinton got a lot of republicans here and so will Ossoff.

[DrScholl]

A lot of Democrats have already turned out and most of the Democratic early votes are probably banked. There are only a couple of days of early voting left, so I think Democrats have done a good job in turning out for the early vote.

[heatcharger]

A lot of the EV among D voters is from outside Dekalb county:



Means there's a lot of vote for Ossoff to pickup on Election Day. Theoretically at least.

[Adam Griffin]

Based on the 2% Trump win in Georgia's 6th coupled with the strong wave of Democratic enthusiasm why isn't it at least likely that Ossoff reaches 51% on Tuesday? So far the Democrats are running ahead of their 2016 numbers and this is a suburban Atlanta district. Why would they vote for a Republican if they believe they're voting on the Trump Administration?

I don't have the side-by-side numbers to definitely confirm it, but I'm expecting that a greater share of likely voting Democrats in GA-6 have already early voted compared to who had done so in KS-4 at this comparable point. I remember Cohn saying a few days ago that something like 80% of the people remaining who had a 80% chance or greater of voting in a midterm were Republican or Republican leaners.

That 30-point gap in preferences in Sedgwick between EV (Thompson +22) & ED (Estes +10) could look quite small compared to what we see in GA-6 if there isn't substantial breakdown of usual voting fundamentals.

Will it matter if Ossoff is at 60% in the early vote? According to Cohn, the current EV electorate is 46% D, 37% R, 17% NA, which makes that quite difficult, but perhaps there are a fair amount of "crossover" votes. What % of the overall vote do you expect to come from the EV?

In KS-4/Sedgwick County, Thompson got 61% of the EV; he barely carried Sedgwick overall and lost the CD by 6-7 with Sedgwick comprising 70% of the CD's vote. If the gap between ED/EV is even modestly larger than that for GA-6 as a whole, then there's no way he hits 50% or comes even reasonably close.

[Adam Griffin]

What % of the overall vote do you expect to come from the EV?

I think it'll be a larger share than KS-4...around 40% - maybe as much as 50%. In regular elections, it has recently not been uncommon for a nominal majority of votes statewide to be cast before Election Day. A district like this socioeconomically + less worry about longer lines on ED will probably mean it's less than that, though. We may see another 20-30k votes come in over the next 3 days. There were 7,000 votes cast today alone (out of 39,000 total).

EDIT: One potential variable working in the opposite direction here is Dekalb. There are still no well-positioned early voting locations in the more Democratic portions of the county, so ED turnout here will likely be disproportionately larger than its share of the electorate on Election Day.