GA-SEN 2020 Class III Megathread: She Who Loeffs Last

[Adam Griffin]

Lieberman would be as weak of a candidate as Barksdale (performance notwithstanding). If we can't do better than this, then we're not ready for primetime.

[Adam Griffin]

So if the "jungle primary" happens...

Does that mean that all candidates will be on one ballot (multiple Republicans, multiple Democrats)? And the a January runoff between the top two vote getters?

That’s correct

Would that be worse for Democrats?

I’m trying to understand why they’re also pushing for a traditional primary along with Collins rather than a jungle primary.

Yes. Both sides have reason to fear the jungle primary, which is why there are groups on both sides of the aisle trying to end it (of course, there are groups on both sides supporting it as well). I'd argue Democrats have more to fear, however.

Even with Warnock, the field in a functional sense can't be cleared in a jungle primary and there's a high probability it won't be; all candidates appear on the same ballot, like what happened in the GA-6 April 2017 "primary". There are already multiple declared Democratic candidates in this race. While many will be sensible enough to drop out or avoid qualifying in the first place, not all will come to that conclusion. Even just one rando can siphon off 0.5-1% of the vote in a high-turnout presidential contest where there's a meaningful cohort of low-information voters showing up just for the presidency.  

A Democrat losing 0.5 points in a statewide race in GA at this point is exponentially more damaging than a Democrat losing that much in a statewide race elsewhere because of the runoff issue and how difficult it is to hit 50%+1. There's also the opportunity for the GOP to simply pay a few thousand dollars in candidate fees and get Aaaron Aaa or whomever to run as a Democrat (not sure about how/if alphabetization applies on jungle primary ballots, but the point still stands) even if all actual Democratic candidates end their campaigns.

[Adam Griffin]

This race was never Likely R.

The only thing that gives me pause here is the long, long trend of Republican overperformance in runoffs/specials in GA. I think that could reverse if Trump has already won reelection and this is Dem voters' 1st chance to thumb their nose at him, but I'm not sure.  In the event Trump loses, it's hard not to see a runoff being an easy Republican win.  

Of course, if the legislature succeeds in changing this from a Louisiana primary to a normal open primary, the odds of a runoff go way down.

Honestly, I think Barrow losing the runoff by less than 4 points even while losing Cobb and underperforming badly in Gwinnett, Newton, Henry, etc. pretty much shows that this is a thing of the past.

To be fair, Barrow and his strategy is also a thing of the past. The reason Barrow kept it so close (and let's not forget that Miller was actually a tad bit closer) in the runoff is because he did like 10-15 points better in his old stomping grounds than other candidates would (Miller did slightly better than Barrow most everywhere else). Generic Democrats can't expect that overperformance to offset losses elsewhere.

Gone are the days of us losing by 10+ points more in the runoff than in the general, sure, which is in part fueled by more "reliable" voters going R-to-D. However, Georgia Democrats are still heavily-reliant upon low-propensity voters and will in all likelihood continue to underperform in runoffs for some time barring unique or unusual circumstances. Relative to the GE, you can't have youth, Latino and Asian turnout drop like a rock and black turnout drop meaningfully in runoffs and expect to do better with the average Democratic candidate.

Speaking of which, do you think a Loeffler vs. Collins January runoff is a serious risk?  I would think the Dem floor is well over 1/3rd of the vote?

No chance of that under any realistic scenario I can imagine.

[Adam Griffin]

https://twitter.com/lachlan/status/1271230900907450369?s=21

She very possibly has the worst political skills of anyone currently holding a major public office.

This is what happens when an inept gov picks someone with zero politicial skills and competence only based on what qualification exactly?

I doubt this seat flips, especially with the Dem jungle primary vote equally split between 2 candidates, there may be a Collins vs. Loeffler runoff. Anyway, I would rate this one as Lean Collins.

The jungle primary vote won't be equally split; the polls are garbage because nobody outside of high-info black ATL Ds, state politicos and his churchgoers have known who Warnock is until recently. Lieberman is going to get like 3% max - though the other 7-8 Democrats on the ballot combined will siphon enough (probably another 1-2% total) in conjunction with him to deprive Warnock of a majority even if Democrats manage a combined majority, triggering a runoff and a likely Collins performance that improves the total R vote-share enough in January to clear a majority (50.5-53%) without much concern.  

[Adam Griffin]

Like I said quite awhile ago, this is why all the known commodities wanted to run for the Perdue seat. Not having a primary in a state where your party lacks any real institutional power is a nightmare.

Without the ability to flush out 7-8 no-name Ds + Lieberman, you'd need Democrats to be winning statewide by high single digits to even have a shot at crossing 50 in November (and this is assuming Lieberman is a dud who gets like 2-3%). Since that's not going to happen, hello January runoff. In terms of victory then, that's not going to happen either (maybe if Trump somehow wins re-election).

The fact that DPG is worried about getting locked out is a concern even my pessimistic ass never truly worried about...but maybe the polling is accurate regarding Lieberman. The possibility that he is getting this kind of support isn't completely unfathomable, because, well...re-read the second sentence in this post.

[Adam Griffin]

Adam, what do you think will be the final margin, I think that Lieberman will get around 10% and that Warenock will get high 30s. Also, what is your response to my question if you want to answer?

Really impossible to say. If Lieberman somehow doesn't end up being a dud, then I'd wager that his share of the vote would be around one-third of Warnock's (and that Collins runs ahead of Loeffer, meaning a Collins vs Warnock runoff). The other 7-8 Democratic candidates are still likely to pull anywhere from 0.1% to 1% each in addition, depending. Maybe something like 36% Warnock, 28% Collins, 20% Loeffer, 12% Lieberman in that specific scenario.

Outside of ATL, it seems Warnock and allies have basically been sitting on their laurels (perhaps with some campaign mindset of "Don't you know who I am? I lead MLK's church!" - the reality is that nobody outside of his parishioners, high-info ATL politicos and various activists did in fact know this prior to his entry). In today's political environment, that's honestly fine for a Georgia Democratic primary (see Ossoff) - but this isn't a Democratic primary. Lest we need to look to the recent TN-2020-SEN primary (or its 2014 GOV/SEN, or 2012 SEN), or MS-2015-GOV, or SC-2010-SEN, a lack of outreach can lead to disproportionate support based solely on name rec, alphabetical order, "normal-sounding names" and whatnot among Deep South Democratic (primary) voters. Rurals (white and black alike) who enter the booth without instruction will act accordingly.

It seems like they've just been sitting on their money and/or focusing it on the Atlanta media market alone, but I am not an oracle for the entire state in terms of campaign activity. I do know however that non-ATL D voters will do all sorts of crazy s[inks]t without proper and consistent instruction from disciplined statewide efforts, though. I also know that every other campaign has reached out (multiple times, including Lieberman's) to my region of the state save for his.

I don't think Lieberman has much of a future in GA politics - especially if running against qualified, competent prior elected officials. Name rec goes further here than in most states, but unless he ends up running in some future race where his opposition is inexperienced/lackadaisical, it's not going to go anywhere.  

This reminds me in many ways of Barksdale's 2016 bid, where big promises and potential were made/claimed at the onset, but never actually materialized...

[Adam Griffin]

Why did the GA Dems in 2016 nominate Barksdale instead of running someone who ran for office in Georgia before

1) Isakson was largely considered unbeatable (given he outperformed Trump by 9 points, accurate)
2) Barksdale pledged to put millions into his campaign at the onset and millions more later (he put $3m in initially, but never followed up with further investment; that pledge also made it more difficult for him to raise money (he raised less than $1m excluding his own contribution) because people knew he had his own and he had pledged to self-fund to a large degree)

[Adam Griffin]

I doubt black people are  voting for lieberman. His supporters are most likely rich suburban voters who are now turned away from him because of this new scandal. Hopefully Warnocks team digs up new stuff

As much as I tend to consider Southron rich white suburbrons my personal #1 enemy, there simply aren't enough of them in GA to skew polling so substantially in favor of Lieberman. "Historically" (i.e. an average of every GE from 2004-2016), you're basically talking a 60% black, 30% white, 10% other D electorate (I suspect 2020 will be a bit whiter/browner and less black if we win, just like Abrams managed in '18 relative to '16, '14 and '12). Rich white suburbrons wouldn't make up more than 10% of GA's Democrats even with gains among white suburbanites at-large, so they're not to blame. These types tend to be "more tuned in" - which doesn't mean they're necessarily more informed, but alas. They're not going to be committed to voting Lieberman because they saw a few ads.

If we take at face value what the aggregate of polls have shown in terms of overall statewide vote share, then it'd be due to non-ATL and/or rural Democrats (black, white and everybody in between) being surveyed, knowing none of the names, and randomly picking one. When select groups of voters don't know anybody, you can basically divvy their votes up the same way you would probabilities in coin-flips.

I'd been hesitant to jump on the "Warnock is a bad candidate" train, but this might explain why Lieberman isn't yet dead in the water.

https://twitter.com/NilesGApol/status/1295437598111027206

#candidatequality moves less in an extremely polarised state like GA when it comes to a D vs R race, but Warnock's best shot at winning was clearing the field prior to the November election (or getting into a runoff in which Trump had already won the presidency, I suppose).

Can confirm I haven't seen any ads from Warnock either.

Well...at least I no longer feel alone. I went and sat with my mother today during the 6 PM hour; I saw 3 Ossoff ads via the Chattanooga media market. At least one of the Senate candidates is making an effort...

The best-case scenario I can say here is that Warnock's team is hoarding cash for a runoff - which I don't think is ideal. There's no history that says that a Democrat is going to do better in a runoff than in November (including 2018), and certainly no history that says Democrats can expect to do better after winning a landslide presidential election 1-2 months prior.

Who knows what they've been doing or not - personally I'm increasingly just assuming "not much" - but being in such a position, I'd have been doing everything in my personal power to connect with both Lieberman and Tarver in an attempt to "bring them into the fold" and convince them to end their campaigns, with the sole intent of consolidating their vote for November. Sans those 2, a 3-4 point two-party lead would almost certainly be enough to clear 50: while Democrats getting 51.5-52.0% might seem like a reach, I still feel it's less so than thinking you can win a runoff the week after New Year's when the Democratic machine has blown its load and/or Trump is defeated.

[Adam Griffin]

> Atlas: *complains about Warnock's lack of TV ad presence*

> Warnock, immediately thereafter: *starts airing first ad*

Ight, which one of you is Rev. Warnock &/or a member of his campaign?

Literally just received my first text outreach from the campaign...either today is the day they decided to start doing everything or they're lurking Larry Sabato-style on Atlas, lol.

[Adam Griffin]

Stacey Abrams did it right. He's doing it wrong. Can y'all imagine what would have happened if she had waited until 2.5 months before Election Day to start doing anything of consequence with a presidential-sized electorate? For all the instances of voter suppression from 2018, some of y'all are acting like one of the key Democratic campaigns being MIA on a mass scale until this week is a net-positive (especially the one that's supposed to be uniquely-equipped at mobilizing black voters)? Give me a break.

A lot of these comments are hack excuse-making or high-info mentality trying to masquerade as sage advice that explains low-info mentality. GA is disproportionately low-info and low-propensity, which is why you need as much time before the election to organize and make yourself known (especially if you're running in a de-facto primary). Likewise, being active wouldn't "confuse" anybody: what would voters in the primary have done? Wrote in Warnock in the Ossoff race and vice-versa? C'mon. Ossoff certainly didn't d[inks]k around to make himself known, and he is the better-known of the two. And I guarantee you nobody who was going to vote in an August runoff would've been confused by one more candidate running ads.

Most elections in the state have more than one high-profile contender on the ballot simultaneously, whether it be Senate-Governor (plus 10 others) or Senate-President. If Georgians can handle voting in two separate primary elections + an additional runoff, then I think we can handle two Senate candidates campaigning concurrently. The candidates who have done the best here over the past 12 years (Obama, Martin, Carter, Nunn, Abrams) all had one thing in common: they started their campaigns early and aggressively. The ones who didn't (Barksdale, Thurmond, most downballot statewide candidates) bombed. Hell, less than two weeks from today 12 years ago was when Obama pulled out of GA (after being here for the better part of a year) because they believed it was a lost cause.

[Adam Griffin]

Basically and as I've said before, the only non-silly justification for this is they've just been hoarding cash and banking on the runoff (personally I don't think Warnock would have trouble raising gobs of cash for the runoff post-11/3, but whatever)...which is an OK strategy given the circumstances (with the other 2 more-prominent Ds not dropping apparently) but not at all ideal given how things are likely to play out. And like I said many months ago, this is why everybody wanted to crowd into the Perdue race and face each other there - because a contested jungle primary without consolidation followed by a runoff slaughters your chances and can make an otherwise less-likely victory scenario seem like the more-likely victory scenario.

However and with a Libertarian in the race/a likely close contest, the odds for a Perdue-Ossoff runoff aren't necessarily that low either...

[Adam Griffin]

Yep, the Obama endorsement will do it (to be fair, it was already "done" as far as being the first-place D).


https://twitter.com/LiebermanForGa/status/1309537739671560192?

And this is why you don't let candidates have access to their social media campaign accounts, y'all!