Georgia's Very Own Megathread! (v2)

[Zaybay]

Ossoff is not going to win statewide. Can Democrats please stop considering losers as major candidates ?

I mean some candidates like beto had a very impressive run but I am getting sick of all the loser retreads.
Both ossof and gillum are massive failures.

Id say Abrams was ok enough to get a 2nd chance but thats it.

TBF, most people asking for him to retread want him to run against Al Lawson.

Abrams and Beto are fine because they over performed in states where it's hard for a Democrat to win. Ossoff and Gillum both under performed and I think they need to aim for a smaller office before running for a big one. Ossoff should run for state Senate or Congress again. Gillum should aim for Congress too, or a low-level statewide office.

.....Thats what I just said. Al Lawson is a Democratic Congressman, and Gillum could easily primary him and take his seat.

[Beet]

To be fair, Beto lost by 2 in a D+9 year in a R+11 state. He didn't over perform at all. Abrams lost by 1 in a D+9 year in a R+7 state. She underperformed slightly. When you add in that they were both running against polarizing opponents, it looks even worse.

[MycroftCZ]

Ossoff is not going to win statewide. Can Democrats please stop considering losers as major candidates ?

I mean some candidates like beto had a very impressive run but I am getting sick of all the loser retreads.
Both ossof and gillum are massive failures.

Id say Abrams was ok enough to get a 2nd chance but thats it.

TBF, most people asking for him to retread want him to run against Al Lawson.

Abrams and Beto are fine because they over performed in states where it's hard for a Democrat to win. Ossoff and Gillum both under performed and I think they need to aim for a smaller office before running for a big one. Ossoff should run for state Senate or Congress again. Gillum should aim for Congress too, or a low-level statewide office.

.....Thats what I just said. Al Lawson is a Democratic Congressman, and Gillum could easily primary him and take his seat.

Agreed. I hope Gillum stays in politics but I think he's got to aim way lower than President. I feel like the last 2 years have shown us the damage that an inexperienced President can do. 

[lfromnj]

Primarying Lawson would be like primarying John Barrow in 08. He is way too conservative for his current district but if the florida GOP gerrymanders or there is a jax based district then he might be able to hold on in the moderately conservative Tallahassee district.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Griff, do you have enough info to make a map of the Democratic white vote in each county for 2018?

[ON Progressive]

To be fair, Beto lost by 2 in a D+9 year in a R+11 state. He didn't over perform at all. Abrams lost by 1 in a D+9 year in a R+7 state. She underperformed slightly. When you add in that they were both running against polarizing opponents, it looks even worse.

"Polarizing" really isn't a bad thing for a Republican in states like GA/TX, where there are very few swing voters and where their base is close to or is a majority of the electorate.

[_]

Ossoff is considering a Senate bid.

N O

Why not? Genuinely asking. I probably won’t for him in a primary.

Considering he lost a Special in a District that was taken in the Midterms, him being uninspiring, and the field of possible candidates being good enough to avoid running a retread loser, I think it's obvious that he shouldn't be the candidate.

[Rookie Yinzer]

To be fair, Beto lost by 2 in a D+9 year in a R+11 state. He didn't over perform at all. Abrams lost by 1 in a D+9 year in a R+7 state. She underperformed slightly. When you add in that they were both running against polarizing opponents, it looks even worse.

Just because it was D+9 nationally doesn’t make it the case in individual states. Abrams lost by 1 with an electorate that had Trump with a +7 approval. She did not underperform at all.

[Adam Griffin]

Griff, do you have enough info to make a map of the Democratic white vote in each county for 2018?

I don't physically have it compiled yet, but yes: the data is now available. I'm going to get it done in the next day or two...or maybe longer, depending; there was a lot more diverging of white voters from past midterms (urban vs suburban vs rural) than in other elections, so I'm really going to need to look at a lot of data before making assumptions given all the concerns I pointed out on the previous page.

[Aurelio21]

Sorry but from as far as I am from Georgia and Texas, these excuses for the GOP (meh national trend) do not count.

Gov-elect Kemp clearly abused his power with keeping as many potential Democratic voters from the polls. And in Texas, a Latino trying to registrate as voter is regarded as "voter fraud" by the GOP.

@all GOPers: Keep discounting these factors and the significantly reduced margin in the run off elections compared to those 10 years ago. Then 2020 will be a big surprise. 

[Adam Griffin]

Well, here's the map...

[Adam Griffin]

I've become convinced that my Clayton County figures for 2014 were notably off - my formula had a greater margin of error in counties with small white populations and this was ground zero of the bias. To some degree, this may also be true in Dekalb, but I'm of the belief that the issue there is far less substantial in scope (i.e. I'm not convinced Carter only got 55% of whites there in 2014).

We also researched the dynamic in 2014 of whites being more Democratic in rural counties that are heavily-black in the calcs; however, after a lot of digging, my conclusion was that this is not the result of inherent biases in the formula, but indicative of a broader dynamic where rural whites are more prone to vote D in places where they have no hope of usurping the local black power structures.

However, there may be a small discrepancy with Hancock as well (for similar reasons as Clayton; though it was a prime focal point in the 2014 investigation into the formula and no matter how the demographics were massaged, elevated white rural D support was present).

[Rookie Yinzer]

Walton County goes from last place in 2014 to “zooming” ahead of like 50+ counties OMG!

At least she’s digging Dems out of holes in populous suburbs/exurbs like Fayette, Cherokee, Forsyth, Hall, Cobb, and Gwinnett. Hopefully they continue to trend Dem.

[ON Progressive]

That collapse in rural Southern GA, and we still do better with whites than Carter.

[Adam Griffin]

That collapse in rural Southern GA, and we still do better with whites than Carter.

If we could only fuse the two; combine all the counties where Abrams did better than Carter with all the counties where Carter did better than Abrams, and it's a reverse image of 2018 (50.2% D, 48.8% R).

[Antonio the Sixth]

The seeming long-term slump of Black turnout after 2012 is a really worrying trend in American politics.

[Bidenworth2020]

The seeming long-term slump of Black turnout after 2012 is a really worrying trend in American politics.

democrats need to lift them up. We need to stop neglecting their votes.

[GeorgiaModerate]

A recount has been ordered in the HD-28 GOP primary (the de facto general election) do-over that was ordered after the original primary had many voters given ballots for the wrong district.  In the current count, the incumbent trails by two (2) votes.

https://politics.myajc.com/blog/politics/trailing-votes-georgia-house-incumbent-seeks-recount/8wg4An68mOYGiNG5KNOy5M/

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

(sorry - not a GA-specific post)

The seeming long-term slump of Black turnout after 2012 is a really worrying trend in American politics.

democrats need to lift them up. We need to stop neglecting their votes.

I see the "Democrats abandoning black voters" trope without some actual examples of where they do so. For one thing Democrats haven't been able to legislate at the federal level since 2010, so passing reforms that the black community disproportionately supports, e.g., cracking down on payday lending, gun control, criminal justice, has been pretty much impossible. Same at the state level in most states up until next month. The Democrats' crowning achievement in the last decade has been the ACA, where the Medicaid expansion and ACA-implemented exchanges have disproportionately brought health insurance to POC, and they've made protecting the ACA's improvements in coverage (and expanding health care generally) an issue core to their identity as a party. Democrats just won a hard that kept Food Stamps funding in the most recent Farm Bill. I'd be willing to entertain a good argument for how the party has left black voters out to dry but it has to provide some examples and address some of the above.

The first major legislative agenda of the (Federal) House Democrats is a sweeping electoral reform meant to improve voting accessibility, which (even if it is moot) is a good tone to set for future legislative priorities.

[Adam Griffin]

Somewhat related to the above discussion (but not substantially): I'd been meaning to take a look at how the black share of the Democratic electorate had shifted in GA over the past couple of decades. Here it is. Unsurprisingly, whites remained the plurality/majority of Democratic voters through 2002, black participation spiked during the Obama years, and has since settled into a more stable pattern reflective of recent demographic patterns.

These numbers take into account the adjusted projections for the total share of the electorate that was black (including others/unknowns) that were posted on the previous page.

[Bidenworth2020]

(sorry - not a GA-specific post)

The seeming long-term slump of Black turnout after 2012 is a really worrying trend in American politics.

democrats need to lift them up. We need to stop neglecting their votes.

I see the "Democrats abandoning black voters" trope without some actual examples of where they do so. For one thing Democrats haven't been able to legislate at the federal level since 2010, so passing reforms that the black community disproportionately supports, e.g., cracking down on payday lending, gun control, criminal justice, has been pretty much impossible. Same at the state level in most states up until next month. The Democrats' crowning achievement in the last decade has been the ACA, where the Medicaid expansion and ACA-implemented exchanges have disproportionately brought health insurance to POC, and they've made protecting the ACA's improvements in coverage (and expanding health care generally) an issue core to their identity as a party. Democrats just won a hard that kept Food Stamps funding in the most recent Farm Bill. I'd be willing to entertain a good argument for how the party has left black voters out to dry but it has to provide some examples and address some of the above.

The first major legislative agenda of the (Federal) House Democrats is a sweeping electoral reform meant to improve voting accessibility, which (even if it is moot) is a good tone to set for future legislative priorities.

When I say neglecting their votes, I mean they are beginning to recognize the Hispanic part of the coalition more in media and such since it is a growing sector, while practically ignoring the damn near unanimous support AA's give them. in terms of policy, I think dems are being pretty good to blacks, but that rarely gets recognized.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Catalist analysis of GA-GOV. There is a lot of really great stuff here. Looks like it hasn't been posted here yet, although it is now a week old:

What Happened in the Georgia Gubernatorial Election?

[GeorgiaModerate]

Michael Williams, the worst of the GOP candidates for governor this year and my (thankfully on the way out) state senator, has been indicted for insurance fraud, making false statements, and false report of a crime.

https://www.ajc.com/news/local/former-candidate-for-governor-indicted/mFyt65azxuJhQPu5ANuRbJ/

[YE]

Michael Williams, the worst of the GOP candidates for governor last year and my (thankfully on the way out) state senator, has been indicted for insurance fraud, making false statements and false report of a crime.

https://www.ajc.com/news/local/former-candidate-for-governor-indicted/mFyt65azxuJhQPu5ANuRbJ/

Deport him in the deportation bus.

[Adam Griffin]

Surprising to see Catalist data showing Abrams underperforming Clinton among non-white voters...