GA-6 Special election discussion thread

[Adam Griffin]

Some Republicans may be celebrating tonight but this is GA-06. Comstock, Issa, Yoder, Roskam and Walters are sitting at home like

Meanwhile GA-6 is all like

[Adam Griffin]

What about the turnout difference from November?  43% turnout is pretty big for a primary but I bet it was higher in November.  It all depends on how many Republican voters show up in June.   I bet all the Democrats turn out again.

In raw numbers, 326,000 people voted in the GA-6 congressional race in 2016 (125k Dem and 202k GOP).

In 2014, 210k people voted in the congressional race (71k Dem and 139k GOP).

So this turnout was just a little below that of the last midterm.

[Adam Griffin]

[Adam Griffin]

If I had to make a wild guess about why the areas that are darker red are in fact darker red, then I'd surmise that the Ossoff campaign and the reality of Trump were more successful at galvanizing Latinos to vote in a special election than the Clinton campaign and the threat of Trump were in a regular election.

There's a good deal of overlap with those darker areas and Latino neighborhoods in both Fulton and Dekalb.

[Adam Griffin]

Why does Sanders' opinion even matter? He needs to retire, because his holy roller act is old.

...because he's undeniably the most popular and influential political figure in the United States right now?

My point is that his opinion in this race isn't exactly that relevant, because the district isn't the sort of area where he would play well. Ossoff hardly needs his blessing or approval and the same can be said of other candidates.

And for all we know, he may know this and it may be why he responded in the ambivalent way in which he did. It's not as if he sought out a reporter and began to scream "I DON'T KNOW ABOUT THAT GUY". Obviously if he said "he's not a true progressive" or "he's my kind of guy", it could blow up either way - especially with the margin where it is.

[Adam Griffin]

MS is another Southern state all too many people forget about. Assuming the Clinton implosion isn't the new maximum % among rural and black voters, Mississippi's rapid demographic turnover is going to eat away at the GOP over time. Romney only won MS by like 4 among those under the age of 65.

[Adam Griffin]

Here's turnout by precinct from April 18 as a share of the 2016 presidential turnout:

[Adam Griffin]

Well Republicans got 51% or so of the combined vote in the primary, so assuming turnout is the same, he needs to pick up votes somewhere.

A fairly decent amount, perhaps. My turnout map by precinct shows that Democratic precincts pretty substantially undervoted GOP precincts as a share of their 2016 turnout, yet the D/R margin was identical to 2016.

It's also possible that the above-normal turnout of first-time and unlikely voters disproportionately came from GOP precincts, but that doesn't necessarily make sense on the surface to me.

Considering this, there is theoretically more potential Democratic vote (as a share of 2016 voters)  that didn't vote in April than Republican vote that could be tapped for the run-off. Whether it's actually feasible to get them out (probably not, given both the strategy being pursued and the default dynamic wrt Dems in specials) is another question.

[Adam Griffin]

It's probably safe to say that he already won a number of Republicans in the primary. He can't win the race without some Republican votes.

According to NYT, Ossoff won anywhere from 15-20% of Republicans in April.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Adam Griffin]

I've been pondering the odds of there being a recanvass for this race. If the margin is within one percentage point, either side can request one. I'm guessing it wouldn't be a big, long ordeal since it's not the same thing as a recount, however.

[Adam Griffin]

It's almost as if Dems are making up for rudely, selfishly and ignorantly not investing hundreds of millions of dollars in GA over the past few cycles by pouring it all into one race in one district at once. Now if they'll just dump another $50 million into all of the other CDs like they have done in NC thus far, we'll be going places!

[Adam Griffin]

I meant to post about this a week or two ago, but I had heard through someone in the state party that Ossoff's campaign basically stopped phone banking (and/or canvassing possibly) for some period of time because they have totally saturated the district, contacted every voter by phone and door multiple times and were starting to piss off rather large numbers of people. Not sure how reliable/true that is but I wouldn't think the person would've just made it up.

[Adam Griffin]

I meant to post about this a week or two ago, but I had heard through someone in the state party that Ossoff's campaign basically stopped phone banking (and/or canvassing possibly) for some period of time because they have totally saturated the district, contacted every voter by phone and door multiple times and were starting to piss off rather large numbers of people. Not sure how reliable/true that is but I wouldn't think the person would've just made it up.

Do you think they'll start up again when early voting opens (May 30)?

They very well may have already: I first heard this two weeks ago or so. I can't imagine they're just sitting on their hands for a long period of time, regardless of voter sentiment. Again, it could also have been a word-of-mouth exaggeration sort of thing...gossip spreads quickly and isn't always truthful in said circles! If anything, with the recent court ruling, they would have been able to focus on registering new voters and the like.

[Adam Griffin]

I assume that tomorrows GA SD-32 runoff may offer a good proxy for June's runoff. 

What are its voting habits like compared to GA-06?

Trump won SD32 by 13 (compared to winning GA-6 by 2) and the 4/18 two-party composition of the electorate was 60% R, 40% D.

[Adam Griffin]

Georgia 32nd senate district runoff is today. Judson Hill abandoned it to for his failed and pathetic attempt at winning Georgia 6th house of reps. This will be an easy GOP hold, but I will still watch it.

Do you have a results page for it?

It'll appear at the link below in a couple of hours, and there'll also be a link to it on the main page of GA SOS.

http://sos.ga.gov/index.php/Elections/current_and_past_elections_results

[Adam Griffin]

3 precincts to go:

KAY KIRKPATRICK (REP)         56.98%   18,602
CHRISTINE TRIEBSCH (DEM)  43.02%   14,046

The margin in this district is almost identical to Trump's margin.

[Adam Griffin]

3 precincts to go:

KAY KIRKPATRICK (REP)         56.98%   18,602
CHRISTINE TRIEBSCH (DEM)  43.02%   14,046

The margin in this district is almost identical to Trump's margin.

Apparently it's done now, and it maintains the same results.

Appears so.

[Adam Griffin]

Grey = partial precincts; many had huge swings that painted an inaccurate picture, so I just colored them grey instead.

[Adam Griffin]

FWIW, since this might shed some (faint) light on interest/enthusiasm in the region: this week's runoff in SD-32 broke the record for votes in a Georgia special legislative runoff with 32,673 votes.  The old record was 23,214 in 2011.

I'd say part enthusiasm, part rapidly-growing area that's way above its 2010 population estimate.

[Adam Griffin]

IN wasn't a surprise on Election Night 2008 - the Obama campaign was heavily invested in the state from the primary, saw the opportunity, and maintained a full effort there through the general. The campaign had 2 field offices in Hamilton County (74-25 Bush) alone; more than 30 throughout the state by the time Election Day arrived.

It may have been a surprise in the way the media outlets framed it on Election Night - "OMG this state hasn't went Democratic since 1964/Bush won it by 20 points four years prior" - but both sides knew that IN was going to be very close, especially in the final weeks. The McCain campaign took it for granted and didn't bother putting any resources into the state until the first week of October, when became clear that Palin was hurting them there and Obama's ground-game was potentially deadly.

In August 2008, Obama had more field offices open in Indiana than in New Hampshire, Colorado, Nevada, Georgia or North Carolina.

[Adam Griffin]

GA GOP voters are a bunch of dirty liars when it comes to polling responses, and GA-6 is in the perfect area for this effect to be at its strongest (wealthier, more moderate "don't judge me I'm not that kind of GOP" types).

Basically any and all "undecideds" in the final weeks in GA contests go to the Republican candidate, even though they pretend to be all swing-y in the run-up to the election. If Ossoff isn't above 50% in aggregate polling in the final weeks, then he ain't likely winning.

However, this particular contest is obviously different for a lot of reasons, so maybe that doesn't hold true.

[Adam Griffin]

GA GOP voters are a bunch of dirty liars when it comes to polling responses, and GA-6 is in the perfect area for this effect to be at its strongest (wealthier, more moderate "don't judge me I'm not that kind of GOP" types).

Basically any and all "undecideds" in the final weeks in GA contests go to the Republican candidate, even though they pretend to be all swing-y in the run-up to the election. If Ossoff isn't above 50% in aggregate polling in the final weeks, then he ain't likely winning.

However, this particular contest is obviously different for a lot of reasons, so maybe that doesn't hold true.

Yet this wasn't the case in the first round. Ossoff gained like 3% from his polling average.

Yep, but that was a jungle primary. In any other context, it'd simply be a larger than expected turnout in the Democratic primary rather than an over-performance in the general. There has been a lot of ground work done in this district and that likely turned out many voters not considered to be likely to vote in April's election. Presumably that surge - based on their newly-established voting history - is now being accounted for in runoff polls.

[Adam Griffin]

If it works out how it usually does in GA, virtually all of those undecideds will go to Handel. I'm not sure why everybody's so excited about a 2-3 point lead in a poll.

[Adam Griffin]

If it works out how it usually does in GA, virtually all of those undecideds will go to Handel. I'm not sure why everybody's so excited about a 2-3 point lead in a poll.

Unless they are lying, there is an equal amount of undecided Trump and Clinton voters.

Remember that a 50/50 presidential electorate went 60/40 in favor of Price. I think that in conjunction with typical "undecided" Georgia trends + general margins of error in polling is enough to still believe this is very much within MoE.

[Adam Griffin]

It will be very tough for dems to take the house without winning one of these special elections.

KS-4 and MT-AL aren't even in the top 75 most competitive GOP-held House seats when balancing PVI, average overall turnout and public perception of AHCA.

If a mid-term wave does strike, it's going to topple dozens upon dozens of seats before those.

Democrats struck out in special elections in 2005. The GOP lost House seats in specials in 2009. Sans any indicators like increased turnout pointing to a spike in enthusiasm for one side (which we're seeing), special election results are pretty meaningless.