GA-6 Special election discussion thread

[Virginiá]

I hate seeing progressives wind themselves up on this race which is a very likely loss. I see Maddow attacking the DCCC for not investing here but seriously the district still voted for Trump and has shown no willingness to elect other Ds. I can already see when Rs win pundits declaring it is sign there is no Trump backlash and 2018 with be a smooth year for the party.

Yes. A win here is a real long-shot, imo. Just because traditionally D/R districts like these flip or narrow significantly doesn't mean they will be competitive downballot just yet (or sometimes at all). The changes in voting patterns could very well point to future success, and in this case it fits with existing long-term trends but in all reality even if it was moving towards Democrats on some level, it'll probably be a while before it is viable.

Frankly if Democrats could get this race to a mid-single digit loss I'd be very happy.

[Virginiá]

Isn't that simply due to the fact that most of these districts are much more Democratic down ballot than at the presidential level?

Anyway, looks like GA-06 will be the first big opportunity for Democrats. It would be pretty bad for them if they lost both MT and GA. Likewise, Republicans should win at least one of the two - GA is a much better bellwether than MT, though.

As I understand it, the special election in that hyper-Trump district (32b) has always voted decently Democratic further downballot. In 2012, the Democrat almost won, and this time the dem performance was slightly better than 2014. It wasn't anything special, and if you went by that performance alone, you might conclude that the early tumultuous days of Trump's presidency had pretty much no effect on their voting behavior.

As for GA-6/MT - I think it would be bad for Democrats to lose them simply because they need to be building a House majority with everything they can get in preparation for 2018, but the significance of losing those 2 seems negligible. Trump most likely hasn't been president long enough for a sizable of his supporters to become so disillusioned and upset that they turn on his party. Plus, as smoltchanov was alluding to, it can take a while for presidential voting patterns to bleed downballot.

[Virginiá]

Ossoff has an ad of his own: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omHFCkeSrsM

Turns out Donald Trump is apparently running for Congress in GA-6.

Can't say I am surprised. Nationalize the race. His best chance in that particular district is if he makes that entire race about Trump and how he would oppose Donald when it is needed. After all, this is part of what Republicans did under Obama.

[Virginiá]

Even if he wins the special, can we all agree that he's dead in 2018 when this district's voters actually show up?

I'm not sure; maybe. If he somehow wins (I'm not convinced he will yet), holding on would require making a decent name for himself there and hoping there is a backlash against Trump in 2018. If there was, I would be ok with giving him 50/50 odds on holding onto the seat. If 2018 turns out to be a more neutral year, then I could easily see him losing it, even if by a small margin.

[Virginiá]

If Ossoff wins now, why exactly would 2018 be worse for him? 2018 would probably end up having a more favorable electorate for him, given the disproportionate numbers of older voters in special elections. Despite everything that has happened, Trump's approvals aren't really as bad as you would think (but still very bad for a new president), so if 2018 turned out to be a bad year for Republicans and Trump's approvals went lower, I would expect Republicans to hurt even more in GA-6 than they would now, and that is on top of Ossoff having the power of incumbency.

[Virginiá]

I think you may be comparing Cohn's numbers to McDonald's, which are quite a bit different. The ones I posted are McDonald's; McDonald's numbers yesterday were 45 D/32 U/23 R. For comparison, Cohn's numbers from yesterday were 55 D/16 U/29 R.

Just curious - but where are they getting those numbers from?

[Virginiá]

http://www.myajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/ossoff-pulls-record-donations-for-georgia-special-election/MqGzLMjrzVRR8jE5YGs3rL/

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Virginiá]

Trump approval: 54% Approve, 45% Disapprove

Interesting. Like I suspected, these type of voters are exactly the people who love "New Trump".

Are you sure recent actions actually mean anything in this district? I'm not debating your view of what these voters may like about "new Trump," but rather that an older poll of GA-6 from Opinion Savy shows basically the same approvals:

http://opinionsavvy.com/2017/03/24/poll-ossoff-leads-in-ga6-handel-tops-republicans/

You must be logged in to read this quote.

(Mar 24th)

[Virginiá]

but I think it's at least fair to say that governing like a generic Republican/Bush 3.0 is not going to him in this particular district.

That's a fair point, though my view of his approvals is still that its not entirely about what policies or actions he takes. To a lot of people, they will always factor in the very large amount of awful character attributes and past scandals. You can see such opinions manifest themselves in polls about his trustworthiness, ability to lead, competency, temperament, and so on. In general, he treats people like garbage in so many different ways that it is almost impossible for many people to be objective about his performance as president.

[Virginiá]

Fake news!

When those charges were thrown at Mr. Gardner back in 2014, Harry Reid was the Senate Majority Leader.

In an election where the chamber flipped control to Republicans (and where polls showed this to be a likely outcome before election day, iirc), giving them control of all of Congress. Granted Obama was president, so the issue was still moot, but it's still a different situation than now, where Republicans control everything. It's a weak claim against Ossoff, unless, I suppose, one operates under the assumption that any Democrat having any power is a threat to the livelihoods of Americans.

[Virginiá]

We can just take it back in 2018 easily.

That's not really guaranteed. If Trump's unpopularity sweeps him into office, there is also a chance it can keep him in office, at least until 2020 or 2024, depending on reelection.

[Virginiá]

Conservatrash gonna be trash.

The moderators really don't moderate around here, do they?

It helps to report posts. Unless I happen to be reading a thread, I don't proactively moderate (which may be why a second moderator was added to my boards.)

Also that literally just happened.

[Virginiá]

2). gerrymandering takes place AFTER 2020... not before 2018 ()

Technically a state can redraw its districts any time it wishes. He is suggesting that Republicans would redraw it sometime after this special election to keep Democrats out. I'd actually be more surprised if Republicans didn't try and redraw this district before 2020.

[Virginiá]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/lawsuit-georgia-is-suppressing-ga-6-voters-with-registration-deadline

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This seems non-ambiguous. Runoffs are clearly defined as being applicable to the 30 days or less deadline requirement. I don't get why Georgia would even waste money on defending that.

Oh. Nevermind.

[Virginiá]

Both states will get more diverse, but if Trump is the future of the GOP, the retirement communities in Florida will be the Republican answer to NY-15 in another decade and NC has enough Appalachian exposure that nothing is assured there.  Basically, you need giant metros to be >50% of the entire state for things to work out consistently for Democrats in the South.  

I'd argue that old people will not always stay so Republican-leaning. What happens in 15-20 years when you have almost a whole generation of more heavily Republican seniors passing away and being replaced by less Republican seniors in Florida? If you combine this with the growing Hispanic electorate in FL, it presents a bigger problem for the GOP.

Of course, it also depends on where the old people moving to FL come from, but I still think the time period matters. Old people alone aren't enough to keep Florida in Republican hands, imo.

[Virginiá]

Isn't it the "youngest" old people who are the most Republican and the "oldest" old people who are the most Democratic, though?  And given that the Reagan generation comes next, this would likely continue until we actually have millennials retiring.

That is actually a pretty good question. I'm not sure if you mean the "youngest/oldest old people" within the 65+ age group, so I'll assume no - 65+ is the most Republican group in Florida, with 50-64 being the 2nd most. I think in terms of old people moving to FL to retire, they would have most of their effect on the 65+ age group, meaning that about 15 years from now Democrats will have significant support among at least the 30-60 age range, but most likely 18-60. The voters set to take the place of FL's pre-retirement age group (50-64) are very Democratic - by at least 15%, and so there simply aren't enough Republicans to hold on to anything but 65+ year olds.

The most rosy long-term scenario for Republicans in FL to me is that they have a Illinois 2016 situation going, where pretty much every age group is voting for Democrats by double digits, except 65+, which in IL swung massively to Trump with at 61-35 (T)

Of course this assumes a linear progression of voting patterns coupled with Hispanic growth, but it's possible Republicans make inroads with other groups they are currently failing hard with. The depth of it matters, but it's not off the table.

[Virginiá]

Number 1 is the easier point to address; there's a good resource available here that deals with this in part: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/03/do-we-become-more-conservative-with-age-young-old-politics

The basic gist is this: people get more conservative as they age. The baby boomers used to be the most liberal generation of them all, and are now the most conservative. This isn't that hard to understand because as people experience more of the world their worldview tends to solidify, and they become more resistant to change. While not universal, this is a definite trend that Democrats seem to conveniently ignore whenever they discuss the emerging supermajority the millennial generation will provide them with.

Except that there is real election data in America that directly contradicts this both at the national level and the state level. Yes, parties can win over older voters, but it is harder. Yes, a party can change enough to lose certain groups of voters even in old age, but these are not common events. The Boomer generation wasn't all hyper-liberal, and even now there is a subgroup of boomers that is more Democratic - the ones that grew up under Nixon. The rest are more Republican and tilt that group towards conservatives. Further, young people under Reagan started out supporting Republicans and stuck that way. Finally, just getting more 'conservative' as they age and more apt to defending the status quo does not automatically equate to supporting Republicans.

So, no, the huge age gap the parties are seeing is not automatically going to resolve itself in favor of Republicans.

[Virginiá]

Oh, I agree, but if those numbers are anywhere close to accurate, once Georgia flips, it ain't coming back. Even if Republicans did manage to make small inroads with minorities, it wouldn't be anywhere near enough to overcome that.

Is there any specific reason we don't have exit poll data like that at the state level? For the national EP, there is data on how voters of different age+racial groups voted, but that is lacking when you look at individual states.

[Virginiá]

Democrats should have run a moderate.  This is a Trump district.  Has Hillary endorsed?

I mean, to be fair, it's barely a Trump district. Any district that is only a couple points or less for Clinton or Trump do not really qualify the same as a district that went double digits for either of them imo.

Considering the primary results, Ossoff performed well, especially taking into account the lean of this district prior to Trump. Given all the attention, money & manpower Ossoff has generated, I'm not sure a better candidate could have been found in time.

[Virginiá]

By that logic Reince Preibus could be considered an outsider. He may not have won an office but he is a political operative and party hack otherwise the democrats would not have rallied around him so quickly or have pumped millions into his campaign

He was a Congressional staffer during college and then spent his time making documentaries during 2013-January. It would be correct to say Ossoff isn't the "ultimate outsider," but he was directly involved in politics mostly while he was in school, including his HS internship. However, he also isn't the kind of "political operative" your posts would seek to suggest. He hadn't been taking part in that stuff since 2013.

[Virginiá]

He's received enough money. In fact a little too much, any more would just be ridiculous... We cannot empty our coffers on one special congressional election in a red district. It's time to fund Montana at large, and save up for 2018.

I don't have exact numbers but at least up until the middle of April, most of Ossoff's funding came from small donors. Those are generally not the kind of donors you can deplete easily. 2018 is still a ways away, and I doubt there will be any money issues at that point.

[Virginiá]

Do we have any polls of at least the prior repeal bill's popularity in this district?

[Virginiá]

To be clear, the 559,000 or so new voters are in all of Georgia, of which the 100+ a day are by Ossoff's campaign.

Wait, is this since the November election? That'd be f*ing insane.

See my new thread: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=263701.new#new

If someone else can clarify what is going on, I am all ears, because it stands now, it seems GA has done auto voter registration. Seeing as Republicans control everything in that state, I'm at a loss for words as to how they went along with this...?

[Virginiá]

I saw this on DK today, and I have to ask, who exactly is putting together these emails for Ossoff?




Is trying to digitally guilt someone really the best way to solicit money?

[Virginiá]

lol...those dasdardly Democrats want people to vote! Send me your money lowly serf.

It's a shame she didn't feel any need to clarify that Georgia's deadline blatantly and unambiguously violated federal law, and that she wished to "play" by illegal rules. I swear, this constant, non-stop hypocrisy from Republican officials / operatives regarding election law is infuriating.