Georgia's Very Own Megathread! (v2)

[Rookie Yinzer]

Teresa Tomlinson will be the Senate nominee.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Teresa Tomlinson will be the Senate nominee.

I think so too, assuming Abrams doesn't run for it.

Abrams is running against Kemp in a rematch after she fights for electoral reform in federal court. Our state senator was at our county party Christmas banquet and said Abrams told her that she's letting Tomlinson take on Perdue.

Surprised this list doesn't include Yates. After her stint in Washington she came away with plenty of anti-Trump bonifides.

Yates has made it abundantly clear that she wants nothing to do with electoral politics

ETA: Hopefully Isakson does Georgia Democrats a favor and retires so Scott Holcomb can run for an open seat in 2022. Abrams said she planned to run for Governor even in a Clinton midterm so I'm not too phased about what the national environment might be for them.

[Rookie Yinzer]

To contrast, look at the GA-GOV primary. Many people wanted to clear the way for Abram's opponent, Stacy Adams, and many in the GADEM didnt want Abrams to run and disrupt the primary. But the deadly primary allowed Abrams to emerge, and also aired out the dirty laundry that was found out about Adams.

Who? What? That is not how the Governor primary transpired at all. Abrams announced first and was the frontrunner the entire time. There were obviously people skittish about her chances (me included) but an Abrams victory was never in doubt. There was no "dirty laundry" exposed in the primary either other than Abrams writing the Op-Ed about her own debt.

Anyway a primary for Senator won't do any damage to the eventual nominee. There is nothing about Teresa Tomlinson, Scott Holcomb, Jon Ossoff and their potential candidacies that will cause deep divides in the state party. They'll be riding the coattails of the POTUS nominee anyway.

[Rookie Yinzer]

When you say her in this second paragraph, do you mean Abrams?

I guess that leads me to question asked you if Abrams was / is such in a brace of a****** who's Rob most of her legislative colleagues the wrong way, how did she ever wind up minority leader?

Yes.

As far as how she got the job, I don't know. I got involved with local politics roughly around the same time she was elected Minority Leader; never bothered to ask around about how that transpired. She's certainly capable and qualified, so perhaps that cancelled out other concerns in a chamber where Democrats were at their nadir.

I think no one wanted it. LOL. Why they kept re-electing her? She knew how to get stuff done, helped kill the GOP supermajority in the House (or prevented it entirely, I forget) and outmaneuver Republicans. Just like when she defeated an abortion bill by one vote by convincing a Republican to defect because the bill didn’t go far enough to restrict abortion.

[Rookie Yinzer]

I’m not in favor of an Abrams Senate run AT ALL. Hope she stays out.

[Rookie Yinzer]

I still think her dragged out concession irreparably hurt her image in the state. I would like to see some polling to back this up but while it was a good cause I can't imagine it reflected well on her with most voters.

It did hurt, but I think it's temporary, not irreparable.  Most voters will not care about it in 2 or 4 years.

Hurt among whom? People who already hated her?

[Rookie Yinzer]

I still think her dragged out concession irreparably hurt her image in the state. I would like to see some polling to back this up but while it was a good cause I can't imagine it reflected well on her with most voters.

No, it didn’t. Have you actually met average voters? They simply don’t care about this kind of thing.

It especially won’t matter in 2020. The average voter probably forgot about it by December (if they even heard about it in the first place), because they don’t pay attention to politics outside of the final two months of an election.

This. The low information people who hate her don't care because Kemp is still getting sworn in on Monday, the low information people who love her believe the election was stolen and that Kemp is a white good 'ol boy crook that they've seen for decades in the South. Nothing changes. Next.

I still prefer her to run in a rematch because she thrives best discussing Georgia specific issues. Perdue's race is Lean R and her losing two statewide races in consecutive cycles isn't a good look. Unlike Beto in Texas, her state will be realistically Democratic in the near future. No need to rush into another campaign just because it's there.

[Rookie Yinzer]

The man who pointed a gun at a teenager on television and had twelve black people arrested for registering people to vote is officially our Governor!

[Rookie Yinzer]

Abrams is launching a “Thank You” tour in Albany on Monday (she launched her Gubernatorial campaign there). I’ve never heard of such a thing.... is she really about to go through with a Senate run?

[Rookie Yinzer]

Who will be the Republican front runner for Senate if Isakson retires in 2022? If Handel had won last year (and 2020) I would say her to combat the gender gap and hemorrhaging of Republican support in the Suburbs.... but she didn't.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Abrams is probably running for Senate

https://www.thedailybeast.com/stacey-abrams-retools-her-dark-money-group

Yeah. Teresa Tomlinson has changed her language about the Senate seat saying that at the end of the day both her and Stacey's objective is to make sure a Democrat is in the seat. I mean.... I want Abrams to be Governor but she might as well do it. She has the wind at her back, starts out with 100% name ID (more than Perdue tbh), and the race immediately starts out as Tilt R/Toss-Up.

Any else seen that ad some PAC has been running telling Perdue to end the shutdown? Getting started on him early lol

[Rookie Yinzer]

She’s obviously being heavily courted by National Democrats and could have changed her mind. The person who told us she was aiming for a rematch with Kemp was one of her allies in the state House. I’m sure it was true at the time but things change.

[Rookie Yinzer]

If Abrams goes for the Senate in 2020, who goes for Governor in 2022? Tomlinson?

Presumably a third Abrams run, which is half the reason I don't want her running for Senate in 2020. This'll be the next decade of GA politics until/unless she wins something.

LOL. Seriously! I hope there is someone in the state Democratic Party that is dynamic and can run a spirited and bold campaign. We need other folks at the top of the ticket besides Ms. Abrams.

Scott Holcomb has aspirations for higher office but he’ll probably run for Isakson’s seat.

[Rookie Yinzer]

So what State Senate and State House seats can we (Democrats) take next year?

[Rookie Yinzer]

Nathan Deal and the conservative Gwinnett County Sheriff endorses it as well. I meant to canvass for this but never had the time. I hope it passes!

[Rookie Yinzer]

If milquetoast John Barrow can get to 48 percent in a runoff, Tomlinson can pull Perdue into a runoff on Presidential Election Night.

I like her and will be all for her if Abrams turns it down.

[Rookie Yinzer]

It's going to fail because of old people who not only will be dead by the time it is completed but never would have needed to use it anyway. I'm so over it. This should have been on the ballot in November in the first place.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Not looking good for MARTA:

No      30,019   55%
Yes      24,915   45%

59 of 157 precincts reporting

100 percent in:

NO 49,936  54.32%
YES 41,985 45.68%

[Rookie Yinzer]

I know Georgia Votes kept track of this during early voting and it may have been posted here but did we ever get a final total of “didn’t vote in 2016” votes in the 2018 elections and how they broke down by race?

[Rookie Yinzer]

Kemp would be an absolute idiot to sign this abortion bill. It's just gonna get struck down in court and he's walking a fine line no matter what. He has no room for a big unforced error if he wants to win again and this just might be that. Especially if some movie/tv productions pull out because of it.

Hasn't Kemp previously said that he'll sign it?

Yes and said again that he would yesterday. I guess this is the hill they want to die on.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Tomlinson would start off at a disadvantage if Ossoff got in. It'd be even more interesting if Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock got in. But I don't know if he has political ambitions.

[Rookie Yinzer]

McBath turned down a $2k contribution from Ilhan Omar:

Up in D.C., the conservative Free Beacon has pointed to a $2,000 campaign contribution that U.S. Rep. Illhan Omar, D-Minn., reported making to fellow freshman Democrat Lucy McBath of Marietta.The website noted that McBath did not report the contribution – which is true. The McBath campaign told us this morning that the contribution was not accepted.

https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/the-jolt-peachtree-city-ordinance-would-permit-libel-suits-against-critics/K4Xt15TUWCG9MaUAr5FmCN/

This is probably a smart move.  The district has a substantial Jewish population.

Hopefully McBath doesn't get challenged by the JD's

There is no constituency for that mess in GA-06. LOL.

[Rookie Yinzer]

[Carter for Nabilah flyer]

Why? Bordeaux's got this.

Nobody expected Bordeaux to make it as close as she did. I expect a flood of non-white candidates to get in decrying a white woman representing a majority-minority district. I wonder if Sam Park, Brenda Lopez, Pedro Marin will give up their state legislative seats and go for GA-07.

[Rookie Yinzer]

https://twitter.com/JeffreyCook/status/1121846495857168385

*screams* It's coming!

[Rookie Yinzer]

https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1122888944096440320