Georgia's Very Own Megathread!

[IceSpear]

We also fear Palin and Cruz the most for president.

[Adam Griffin]

With that commercial, I'd say we're seeing reverse psychology and someone in Broun's media is embracing it for the sake of winning the primary - a real win-win from the perspective of each. Personally, I think the McCaskill approach was better - maybe the new Pro-Nunn SuperPAC will make an investment in some air time! Go Broun Go!

[windjammer]

Of course the Grimes Campaign will troll the GA primaries, that is obvious .

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Of course the Grimes Campaign will troll the GA primaries, that is obvious .

And Nunn the KY primary?


Genius Hitchcock type strategy. Swap primaries, no motive.

[windjammer]

Of course the Grimes Campaign will troll the GA primaries, that is obvious .

And Nunn the KY primary?


Genius Hitchcock type strategy. Swap primaries, no motive.

Oups, I wanted to say the Nunn Campaign

[Bacon King]

Kingston has ads up in ATL

[Deus Naturae]

Susan B. Anthony List endorses Handel.

[JRP1994]

I was at the GOP debate in Macon, GA last night. Got to meet all 7 candidates and briefly interview them.

The debate held a straw poll, and Karen Handel won. The runner-up (I think) was David Perdue.

[Bacon King]

I was at the GOP debate in Macon, GA last night. Got to meet all 7 candidates and briefly interview them.

The debate held a straw poll, and Karen Handel won. The runner-up (I think) was David Perdue.

What sort of people attended the debate and voted in the straw poll? Did they seem like Karen Handel's sort of people? I'd love to hear more about your experience interviewing them!

[Adam Griffin]

Just wanted to share this: it's a map that compares the presidential and state house races in 2012 for HD 12 (Chattooga County & parts of Floyd County). Barbara Reece was one of two remaining Democrats out of the 35 or so districts in rural NGA; her district in 2011 was drawn just Republican enough to finally oust her. She still won Chattooga County with 58% of the vote (Romney won Chattooga with 69%). I've included % totals for each winning candidate for the precincts with the largest discrepancies. Chattooga is the last remaining Democratic bastion in rural NGA - only one Republican has been elected at the county level since Reconstruction (in 2012, and only because the presumptive Dem nominee dropped out the week before qualifying).

[TX Conservative Dem]

Georgians are looking at another Republican sweep of statewide offices in November, though we've got several Democrats holding judicial statewide offices in both the Georgia Supreme Court and GA Court of Criminal Appeals.

Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle (R) appears poised to win reelection to 3rd term, which would position him for the governorship in 2018 .

[Warren 4 Secretary of Everything]

Georgians are looking at another Republican sweep of statewide offices in November, though we've got several Democrats holding judicial statewide offices in both the Georgia Supreme Court and GA Court of Criminal Appeals.

Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle (R) appears poised to win reelection to 3rd term, which would position him for the governorship in 2018 .

No they're not. The most important race (Gubernatorial) is in play.

[TX Conservative Dem]

I assume the Georgia judicial statewide offices are non-partisan correct ?

[Adam Griffin]

Georgians are looking at another Republican sweep of statewide offices in November, though we've got several Democrats holding judicial statewide offices in both the Georgia Supreme Court and GA Court of Criminal Appeals.

Today:

[nolesfan2011]

So in GA-04, what is Tom Brown running on against Hank Johnson?

As best I can tell, he hasn't really staked out any new positions or ones that would set him apart from Johnson. More than anything, I expect he wants to use his name recognition as sheriff of Dekalb to unseat a congressman that is traditionally thought of as being downright stupid. I got to see Johnson speak at Emory one time. He was all over the place, kept reading the same parts of paragraphs over again on his sheet of paper and was very uninspiring. Brown is much better at this.
[/quote]

Johnson got lucky that he was the one who got to face the even crazier and more frazzled Cynthia McKinney to get his congressional seat, his luck may well have run out this time.

[Adam Griffin]

A new SurveyUSA/11Alive poll was released today, showing results for all contested statewide office primaries. It also shows that 6 in 10 Georgians still support keeping same-sex marriage banned, but 6 in 10 Georgians also support Medicaid expansion. Nearly 70% of Georgians support legalized or decriminalized marijuana.

Looking at some of these results, though, I tend to think it's garbage. There's no way Dr. Rad is in 4th place behind two joke Senate candidates, and I find it very difficult to believe that one ad had pushed Perdue into the lead - even if it was made by the same guy who gave us King Roy). Here's the full version; very familiar.

GAGOP Gov:

Deal 65%
Pennington 11%
Barge 8%

GAGOP Sen:

Perdue 29%
Kingston 19%
Gingrey 12%
Broun 11%
Handel 10%

GADEM Sen:

Nunn 49%
Robinson 14%
Miles 11%
Radulovacki 5%

GADEM SOS:

Carter 45%
Beckum 22%

GADEM Ins Comm:

Johnson 45%
Heard 29%

GAGOP School Supt:

Nobody over 10%
45% Undecided

GADEM School Supt:

Wilson 17%
Freeman 16%
Morgan 12%
Mays 11%
Dent 9%
Robinzine 5%*

*the dark horse in this race is Robinzine; keep an eye out for her


Should GA repeal its same-sex marriage ban, or should it be left in place?

Left in place 59%
Repeal 32%
Unsure 9%

Should Georgia expand Medicaid?

Yes 59%
No 32%
Unsure 9%

Will you sign up for coverage under ACA?

Yes 43%
No 42%
Unsure 15%

If not, why will you not sign up for coverage under ACA?

Too expensive 46%
Politically opposed 21%
Law will be changed/repealed 10%

Should Georgia keeps its marijuana laws as-is, change it to a civil offense with a $100 fine, or legalize marijuana?

Legal 37%
Civil offense 30%
Remain criminal 28%

[IceSpear]

Not good news for Nunn. She needs a Broun or a Gingrey nomination.

[Joshgreen]

Not good news for Nunn. She needs a Broun or a Gingrey nomination.

This poll is obvious junk so Nunn shouldn't be worried.

[Adam Griffin]

How about that Charter Schools amendment?

A little late, but w/e

[Adam Griffin]

I saw one of these maps floating around a couple of years ago and noticed many errors with it almost instantly. I've been meaning to do this for a long time and will ultimately get around to 2012, but here is a 2008 map of Obama's % of the white vote by county. MoE is roughly ±2.

Most people don't think about how some of the most Republican counties in the state are some of the most Democratic (outside of the core urban areas) when it comes to whites. To put it more bluntly: the blacker a county was, the more likely whites in that county were to vote for John McCain.

Full-size img

[Adam Griffin]

And since everyone was so riveted by the 2008 one I posted a few days ago, here's a 2012 version! It's amazing to see Obama not breaking 10% in 26 counties (was 8 in 2008).

[Bacon King]

Adam what is your methodology for these maps? I assume you're comparing county vote totals to county racial turnout totals? Are you assuming "black = Obama voter" and I guess other = two thirds Obama or so? There are several places on both maps that makes the results seem a bit questionable to me

How about that Charter Schools amendment?

A little late, but w/e

Omg this is amazing, there's all these divisive patterns and I have no idea what is going on. My favorite thing is that VIDALIA ONION COUNTRY HATES CHARTER SCHOOLS plz explain

[Adam Griffin]

Adam what is your methodology for these maps? I assume you're comparing county vote totals to county racial turnout totals? Are you assuming "black = Obama voter" and I guess other = two thirds Obama or so? There are several places on both maps that makes the results seem a bit questionable to me

Please tell, because I knew from the get-go that some areas wouldn't be properly represented. I used turnout by race figures from SoS and election results for 2008 & 2012. The methodology was:

2008: Blacks @ 97% Obama, Other @ 65%
2012: Blacks @ 95% Obama, Other @ 65%

In regards to "Other", I manually adjusted counties where there are larger Latino/Asian populations. Obama's performance nationally seemed to hold or increase with these groups when compared to 2008, but in most of the counties, a good chunk of "Other" = "Unknown" = white. All in all and due to this, I kept "Other" at the same number as 2008. The 2008 spreadsheet formulas spat out Obama's white statewide total at 22.6% and the 2012 was 18.6% (which, granted, seemed a tad lower than I had initially estimated; 23% & 20%, respectively).

From what I could gather, I ranked MoE as ±2 in 2008 and ±3 in 2012 (blame the increase on the "Others" being a larger share of the vote).

How about that Charter Schools amendment?

A little late, but w/e

Omg this is amazing, there's all these divisive patterns and I have no idea what is going on. My favorite thing is that VIDALIA ONION COUNTRY HATES CHARTER SCHOOLS plz explain

Many of the most Republican regions of the state went against it; I don't know what happened down south, but up here it was framed as an issue of local control and the Republicans trying to take that away in favor of "big Atlanta education that spends your tax dollars on black people". In the north, the school systems aren't bad in the sense that they're failing (though the overall quality of education may leave something to be desired), so it seems to be mainly an issue of rural folk not wanting their tax dollars redistributed to new charter schools when theirs are already doing OK. In Whitfield, we opened a charter school via local initiative in 2005, so it's not like people here are inherently against the notion.

[Bacon King]

Aha! I see the problem.

this is a link to a PDF of 2012 turnout by race and gender by county and here is one for 2008, if you weren't already using these. Scroll down to the bottom page of either and you'll see "unknown" makes up half or more of the voters who aren't white or black. Notice how neither gender nor race is specified for Unknown? That's because those are the people who didn't check the race or gender boxes when they filled out their voter registration form, which is technically optional. I believe your error is assuming that unknown = white, when in reality I figure people of all races are equally likely, more or less, to leave those boxes blank for whatever reason. The racial composition of unknown voters in a county is probably identical to the proportions of known voters in a county. Hypothetically one could look at the precinct turnout data also featured on the site and extrapolate even more clearly who these unknown voters are (this might be useful for some Metro counties).

If you didn't account for these unknowns correctly it would explain why your maps show whites in the black belt inexplicably voting for Obama in greater numbers. How else could you explain Hancock County whites five times as likely as Glascock County whites to vote D?

[Adam Griffin]

Aha! I see the problem.

this is a link to a PDF of 2012 turnout by race and gender by county and here is one for 2008, if you weren't already using these. Scroll down to the bottom page of either and you'll see "unknown" makes up half or more of the voters who aren't white or black. Notice how neither gender nor race is specified for Unknown? That's because those are the people who didn't check the race or gender boxes when they filled out their voter registration form, which is technically optional. I believe your error is assuming that unknown = white, when in reality I figure people of all races are equally likely, more or less, to leave those boxes blank for whatever reason. The racial composition of unknown voters in a county is probably identical to the proportions of known voters in a county. Hypothetically one could look at the precinct turnout data also featured on the site and extrapolate even more clearly who these unknown voters are (this might be useful for some Metro counties).

Yep, those were what I used.

I considered what you said when I was initially calculating the figures, but I ran into a number of concerns that made me decide not to include a certain percentage of them as whites:

1) We can't be for sure that there is uniform distribution across all races, even though (in some situations) your premise would seem to make since. But...

2) What reaffirms this for me is what's below. Take a look at statewide turnout figures among each identified group (roughly aggregated here):

2008

White: 77%
Black: 76%
Other: 66%
Hispanic: 60%
Unknown: 60%
Asian: 58%

2012

White: 76%
Black: 73%
Other: 62%
Unknown: 60%
Latino: 57%
Asian: 55%

The Unknown and Other groups' turnout rates parallel Latino and Asian turnout figures much more closely than they would if it were an even distribution. Picking about a dozen counties at random from the lists yielded the same results. In close to 90% of counties, white and black turnout exceeded 90% of all voters in both elections. It simply can't be an even distribution, or these numbers would be in the 70s in both cases for both elections.

3) One of my friends who heads a local chapter of the Coalition of Latino Leaders once told me that she always encourages those that they register in VR drives not to specify race, which stems more than anything from a general fear of being "targeted".

If you didn't account for these unknowns correctly it would explain why your maps show whites in the black belt inexplicably voting for Obama in greater numbers. How else could you explain Hancock County whites five times as likely as Glascock County whites to vote D?

Hancock stood out to me, but you and I both know that the polarity that exists there in general is odd (the two "cocks" being historically the most Democratic and Republican counties). Hancock is (I believe) the blackest county in Georgia; it's not too much of a stretch to say that in an extraordinary case like that, the overwhelming Democratic dominance and (presumably) being used to local, black politicians could create circumstances where the whites there are demonstrably less racist (or at least more willing to support black Democrats just as much as white ones). Of course, one could also use this argument to suggest that the whites in my part of the state should be the most opposed as a rural region to voting for Obama, instead of being the most inclined. =/