GA-6 Special election discussion thread

[krazen1211]

Many voters are rallying to Handel due to the shooting of Congressman Scalise.


Link

[ajc0918]

Tomorrow's forecast calls for rain: https://weather.com/weather/hourbyhour/l/USGA0028:1:US

[The Other Castro]

Doing some rough calculations, and assuming a total vote turnout of ~240K (with 58.5% EV), I think Ossoff would need at least the following ED totals for each EV performance level to reach 50%:

54% EV needs 44.4% ED
55% EV needs 42.9% ED
56% EV needs 41.5% ED
57% EV needs 40.1% ED
58% EV needs 38.7% ED

Assuming a uniform decrease in Ossoff EV strength for each county (and taking into account the shift in proportion of EV by county from round 1 to round 2), these may be the benchmarks Ossoff needs to hit for each county's EV per potential overall EV level:

54% EV: DeKalb - Ossoff 63.3%, Fulton - Ossoff 52%, Cobb - Ossoff 49%
55% EV: DeKalb - Ossoff 64.3%, Fulton - Ossoff 53%, Cobb - Ossoff 50%
56% EV: DeKalb - Ossoff 65.3%, Fulton - Ossoff 54%, Cobb - Ossoff 51%
57% EV: DeKalb - Ossoff 66.3%, Fulton - Ossoff 55%, Cobb - Ossoff 52%
58% EV: DeKalb - Ossoff 67.3%, Fulton - Ossoff 56%, Cobb - Ossoff 53%

42.9% of the EV, as Adam mentioned earlier, definitely seems doable. For that to be enough, he'll likely need at least 55% of the EV. This places Cobb as a pretty good rough benchmark for whether Ossoff has a fighting chance for 50% overall. If he is below 50% in the Cobb early vote and you extrapolate the rest of the EV from that, he would therefore require over 43% of the ED vote. Therefore, for each 1% point he is under 50% in Cobb's EV, that's about another 1.4% points he needs to be above 43% for the ED vote.

*Disclaimer: My math may be wrong as I am running under not a lot of sleep at the moment.

[Roronoa D. Law]

Tomorrow's forecast calls for rain: https://weather.com/weather/hourbyhour/l/USGA0028:1:US

Doubt weather will have any effect everybody knows how important this race is. Would not be surprised if people line up in Decatur or Cumming trying to vote like in April. Unless an I-85 collapse or if a tractor trailer falls off I-285 onto 400 I doubt people who intended to vote stay home.

[GeorgiaModerate]

The numbers crept up in all three counties today; mail ballots will be accepted until the polls close tomorrow.  The early voting numbers through today:

Cobb 27916 (19.7%)
DeKalb 32679 (23.0%)
Fulton 81415 (57.3%)
Total 142010

[swf541]

I see Atlas has hit the panic button

Possibly. I don't even understand why. This race was still functionally a toss-up even when Ossoff had a tiny lead, and even if Handel now has a tiny lead in some polls, it's still as much a toss-up as it was before.

I'd say I am no more nervous than I was 3 weeks ago, as it's unavoidable in a toss-up where the stakes are largely symbolic but heavily so - Democrats need a win for morale, which would also help with recruiting and fundraising.

Yea we get a fake poll and then a junk poll and then ATLAS PANIC BUTTON FEVER.  The race was always close and shockingly /s is still close! Who would have thought a toss up race would stay within the margin of error?

[Adam Griffin]

I cant believe all this over a the crazy man with a gun

If ossoff looses the radical left will begin shouting "Bc he wasn't a progressive populist enough" without recognizing that populism is why this district swung left

You have to understand that suburbans in Georgia are just terrible people. These are the same ones who make Georgia close in polling and then damn near unilaterally swing to the GOP every single time. Their perspective is one of deluding themselves into believing they're "undecided" and "thoughtful" voters because they make good money and are well-educated. Their subconscious selves of course are constantly looking for the slightest reason to justify jumping ship from "undecided" to Republican at the last minute, and they always find their excuse.

* Assuming this shooting has had any real impact; this may be the excuse for them but not the reason

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I cant believe all this over a the crazy man with a gun

If ossoff looses the radical left will begin shouting "Bc he wasn't a progressive populist enough" without recognizing that populism is why this district swung left

Win or lose, $23+ million for a House race is a waste. That money could have gone to other races, helping broke state parties recover, stop ALEC from calling a constitutional convention, and so on. There is much better bang for the buck elsewhere than this.

[Virginiá]

Win or lose, $23+ million for a House race is a waste. That money could have gone to other races, helping broke state parties recover, stop ALEC from calling a constitutional convention, and so on. There is much better bang for the buck elsewhere than this.

How much was from small donors? The kind of donors everyone has been saying Democrats should rely on. I keep reading your posts and getting the feeling that you think the establishment has been fully funding Ossoff.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Win or lose, $23+ million for a House race is a waste. That money could have gone to other races, helping broke state parties recover, stop ALEC from calling a constitutional convention, and so on. There is much better bang for the buck elsewhere than this.

How much was from small donors? The kind of donors everyone has been saying Democrats should rely on. I keep reading your posts and getting the feeling that you think the establishment has been fully funding Ossoff.

Thank you I keep bring this up but its in one ear and out the other

[Gass3268]

Win or lose, $23+ million for a House race is a waste. That money could have gone to other races, helping broke state parties recover, stop ALEC from calling a constitutional convention, and so on. There is much better bang for the buck elsewhere than this.

How much was from small donors? The kind of donors everyone has been saying Democrats should rely on. I keep reading your posts and getting the feeling that you think the establishment has been fully funding Ossoff.

I believe his average has been $40.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Win or lose, $23+ million for a House race is a waste. That money could have gone to other races, helping broke state parties recover, stop ALEC from calling a constitutional convention, and so on. There is much better bang for the buck elsewhere than this.

How much was from small donors? The kind of donors everyone has been saying Democrats should rely on. I keep reading your posts and getting the feeling that you think the establishment has been fully funding Ossoff.

I believe his average has been $40.

So the odds that an average donation gets him one more vote is like 1%? As, I said there's a real point of diminishing returns that was hit long ago.

[Adam Griffin]

Jfern doesn't seem to understand that people give money to the candidates to whom they want to give, and that said money isn't automatically earmarked "for all candidates" or whichever ones he likes in lieu of that.

[Pyro]

In this episode of "How Do Democrats Keep Losing?"

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

In this episode of "How Do Democrats Keep Losing?"

Sounds a lot when Hillary begged Matti for a dollar.

[heatcharger]

snip

Second one is definitely fake.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Jfern doesn't seem to understand that people give money to the candidates to whom they want to give, and that said money isn't automatically earmarked "for all candidates" or whichever ones he likes in lieu of that.

Even if I liked Ossoff, this would be a waste. Of course people like you got mad when Van Jones said that the Hillary campaign basically set a billion on fire, so I guess it makes since that you don't see the issue with over $23 million in a House race.

[Adam Griffin]

snip

Second one is definitely fake.

I'm actually pretty sure they're real (they were shared here some time ago, but maybe it was fake then). Nevertheless, campaigns do it because it works: people pour money into campaign coffers when they receive a higher frequency of emails. Of course, all campaigns engaging in this behavior create an inflationary-like effect where even more emails have to be sent over time in order to yield the same results. You can largely thank Barack Obama's campaign for this.

[Adam Griffin]

Jfern doesn't seem to understand that people give money to the candidates to whom they want to give, and that said money isn't automatically earmarked "for all candidates" or whichever ones he likes in lieu of that.

Even if I liked Ossoff, this would be a waste. Of course people like you got mad when Van Jones said that the Hillary campaign basically set a billion on fire, so I guess it makes since that you don't see the issue with over $23 million in a House race.

When did I get mad about that? Unlike you, I don't have to build strawmen to assail your character.

Whether it's a "waste" or not isn't up to us to decide. The guy has raised the money he has because he became the lightning rod for anti-Trump resentment in a way that the others never did (just like "MUH HILLARY" became the lightning rod for you and others). His district barely being won by Trump is the contributing factor, unlike the others that were won by Trump by 20-30 points. There are no other elections going on - the kind of money that's being raised wouldn't be raised if it were a mere appeal to "fund future campaigns now" or whatever.

Even if you could raise the $23 million (probably more like $30m by now) and spread it across multiple specials, it wouldn't have any meaningful effect. Money advantages and superior campaign infrastructure can only buy you 2-3 points over what you'd get organically: that means Quist would have still lost and so would Thompson. You also seem to forget that in most cases, the GOP easily matches in the end whatever Dems raise, so the advantage you think that money would buy would be completely wiped out in the end anyway.

[Virginiá]

Even if I liked Ossoff, this would be a waste. Of course people like you got mad when Van Jones said that the Hillary campaign basically set a billion on fire, so I guess it makes since that you don't see the issue with over $23 million in a House race.

Of course it's too much, but people keep sending him money, and he is locked in a tight race, so he is going to keep hoovering up as much as he can so long as he thinks it will make even a tiny difference. Compounded even more so if he has consultants telling him they need more ads/mailers/whatever.

However, the thing about small donors is that they are not easily fatigued, and with so long to go before the 2018 elections, whatever fatigue has set in will almost definitely not exist by then. It's highly unlikely this race, win or lose, will have any negative impact financial-wise on next year's elections.

[heatcharger]

snip

Second one is definitely fake.

I'm actually pretty sure they're real (they were shared here some time ago, but maybe it was fake then). Nevertheless, campaigns do it because it works: people pour money into campaign coffers when they receive a higher frequency of emails. Of course, all campaigns engaging in this behavior create an inflationary-like effect where even more emails have to be sent over time in order to yield the same results. You can largely thank Barack Obama's campaign for this.

The second one looks like it was whipped up by someone trying to make the Ossoff campaign look desperate. The formatting looks too sophomoric.

But yeah, I'm aware of how modern campaigns create a sense of alarm by sending fundraising emails numerous times to the same people, but Ossoff's campaign hasn't exactly been broke at any point recently, as far as I'm aware.

[Cactus Jack]

Dang, I picked a cherry of a time to come back into this thread. Quick question: does the average night of political discussion on the Congressional board usually involve this much screaming at each other?

[Ronnie]

snip

Second one is definitely fake.

I can confirm it is real.  I got emails exactly like that one all the time before I unsubscribed.

EDIT: Here's a screenshot from my personal Microsoft Outlook for the doubters out there: https://i.imgur.com/pXc4dpN.png

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Jfern doesn't seem to understand that people give money to the candidates to whom they want to give, and that said money isn't automatically earmarked "for all candidates" or whichever ones he likes in lieu of that.

Even if I liked Ossoff, this would be a waste. Of course people like you got mad when Van Jones said that the Hillary campaign basically set a billion on fire, so I guess it makes since that you don't see the issue with over $23 million in a House race.

When did I get mad about that? Unlike you, I don't have to build strawmen to assail your character.

Whether it's a "waste" or not isn't up to us to decide. The guy has raised the money he has because he became the lightning rod for anti-Trump resentment in a way that the others never did (just like "MUH HILLARY" became the lightning rod for you and others). His district barely being won by Trump is the contributing factor, unlike the others that were won by Trump by 20-30 points. There are no other elections going on - the kind of money that's being raised wouldn't be raised if it were a mere appeal to "fund future campaigns now" or whatever.

Even if you could raise the $23 million (probably more like $30m by now) and spread it across multiple specials, it wouldn't have any meaningful effect. Money advantages and superior campaign infrastructure can only buy you 2-3 points over what you'd get organically: that means Quist would have still lost and so would Thompson. You also seem to forget that in most cases, the GOP easily matches in the end whatever Dems raise, so the advantage you think that money would buy would be completely wiped out in the end anyway.

In the Kansas and Montana races, the Democrat was outspent by a significant margin. And I'm sure it can help a lot more than 2-3 points in state legislature races. ALEC has been doing great in most states since the party isn't very focused on down ticket races. They're getting closer to a constitutional convention. And those races are more important as we get closer to redistricting. But nope, they'd rather spend well over $100 per vote Ossoff gets.

[Virginiá]

But nope, they'd rather spend well over $100 per vote Ossoff gets.

Again, "they."