Georgia's Very Own Megathread! (v2)

[Virginiá]

People don't care about it because it's not something blatant (to them) like some guy getting caught on video creating fake votes, or a literacy test, which has a unique place in history. Even poll taxes are being indirectly used in New Hampshire (and arguably other states) with voter registration requirements like paying hundreds of dollars to register a car, and yet no one really seems to care, including the Republicans who passed the law and didn't seem to think it was an egregious abuse of power. It's just indirect enough for people to not care. Also, for as blatant as something can be, it needs to actually happen first before people get upset. I think if African Americans went to vote in November and were almost all turned back for some reason, it would spark outrage. But as it stands now, black voters know Republicans are trying to stop them from voting, and lots of activists have been ringing this bell for a while. It's become normalized.

I've pretty much accepted that people are never going to give a crap about this so long as the restrictions are semi-subtle changes that don't instantly block a massive number of otherwise-reliable voters from voting - including white voters.

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Anyway, I feel like there is a pretty good chance this decision and others like it get overturned. It's not like they are just closing one or two. This is almost all of them, and in a state with a history of black voter suppression, what's actually going on seems clear cut.

[Virginiá]

I could also see the state leg revolting like they did in NC without Deal there to tamper them down some

Maybe I don't give them enough credit, but I have hard time imagining that won't happen - at least in regards to redistricting. One of the first things they are going to want to do is get a constitutional amendment on 2020's ballot to take the Governor's veto power over maps away. Although afaik Republicans are just shy of a supermajority needed to do that, but leaning on some self-centered Democratic lawmakers is always possible with such few extra votes needed.

[Virginiá]

I suppose there technically could be, but this doesn't pass the smell test - not by a mile.

For instance:

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This seems like a brazen act of voter suppression in a state with a history of voter suppression, directed by a person with a history of voter suppression, who just happens to be involved in a competitive gubernatorial election.

Who in their right mind would ask for almost all of a county's polling places to be shut down for disability access violations? Where are people supposed to vote? And how in the world is the logical answer to a small portion of disabled voters having a hard(er) time voting to instead make sure the vast majority of other voters can't vote either? Even groups whose mission is to make sure disabled people can vote don't advocate shutting them down.

If this was legitimate concern for disabled voters, they would have strived to bring the sites up to code or to find new buildings to use. Instead, he pushed for them to be closed down and said he wasn't hired to find other buildings.

Also, seems like we'll be seeing this tactic abused elsewhere:

https://thinkprogress.org/ada-voter-suppression-cd7031080bfd/

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/xenocryptsite/status/1032631231937236992

My question then is how far will these people have to drive to vote? And why are they just closing them all down with seemingly no effort to bring them up to code?

Obviously the partisan angle is touchy for me but I generally dislike any efforts to keep anyone from voting, whether it be Democrats or Republicans. I think it's distasteful and an affront to our democracy. Also, I've seen it mentioned in a few articles, but Randolph county isn't the only county that this guy went to recommending polling site closures. How many others were shut down, and where?

Anyway, regardless of why this happened, proceeding with this plan would look really bad. They would be wise to abandon it and find a way to keep an equivalent (give or take) number of sites open.

[Virginiá]

I'm surprised that there hasn't been more polls on Kemp vs. Abrams.

There should be polls daily from now on til Nov. 6

I wonder if Abrams' appeal to Atlanta suburban voters could cause Barry Loudermilk to lose. (Vinings area)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Loudermilk

Abrams' suburban appeal could cost: Loudermilk, Handel, Woodall, and Austin Scott their jobs this election day.

That would be a boom to GA Democrats.

Anyway, none of the House incumbents are going to lose.

You don't think Handel and Woodall can't lose? You've canvassed for the Abrams gubernatorial campaign, isn't her campaign translating success to other Georgia Democrats?

Seriously mate, you've spent too long on Atlas to make a non-trolling post on the idea that Loudermilk or Scott could actually lose. And grouping it with Handel and Woodall is a bit disingenuous because GA-06 and GA-07 were considerably closer than the others, and GA-06 had a high turnout special election showing that the 2016 trends were sticking. Therefor, it is only reasonable to assume that ~R+15 districts are not going to budge absent maybe another 1974 or 1934.

Cut it out.

[Virginiá]

Interestingly enough bronz, threads you've made in the past under what you would consider just innocent speculation are very similar to the kinds of threads other users would make under blatant (eg: admitted) trolling personas, like the previous rash of "rate this [safe blue/red county]" threads. So you'll have to forgive us if much of your posting history comes off as trolling.

[Virginiá]

Personally, I'm inclined to think that winning a presidential race let the wind out of the Democrats ever-expanding electoral balloon, and it was enough to reduce their margin in a runoff, and in a state that wasn't yet "ripe" for Democrats.

Compare that to a midterm under a deeply polarizing and deeply offensive president, where a runoff would simply be another consequential election with the same fired-up base held under the same polarizing president.

I dunno if they'd have an advantage, but they'd certainly have a good shot at a runoff, imo.

[Virginiá]

You can also take it from the candidate herself on national tv.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozNvM45yKWw

I too have pause with this approach, for exactly the well-described reasons Griff gave.

Also re: Enten's analysis of likely increased Democratic vote in the runoff, I guess he makes some points. However, as Griffin points out, it's contrary to history, both older and recent. Also, while Democratic activists will focus nationally on helping her for the runoff, the same can be said of national GOP activists (and money) then focusing on helping Kemp.

On the other hand, there is something to the fact Democratic exuberance and turnout has been off the charts for special elections this cycle. So perhaps that would apply ahistorically to a 2018 southern gubernatorial runoff? That idea further fits in with Abrams' strategy for a turnout based, rather than persuasion based campaign, as runoffs are entirely about the former.

So maybe I'm getting too 4-D chess here, but could it be Abrams isn't focusing so much on possibly pulling an upset ED majority win, but rather on simply ensuring Kemp doesn't get a majority himself, and thereafter using the turnout machine she's heavily investing in to get most of those assiduously ID'd and targeted low propensity ED voters to the polls for the runoff?

It is pretty amazing how consistently strong the Democrat over-performance in special elections has been. I don't think it was like that in previous cycles, although this could be in part due to increased polarization but also the unique nature of Trump's presidency and the fire it is lighting under the left's collective butts.

However, and while I'm not 100% on the stats, I think Georgia was not a particularly bright spot for Democrats in special elections. They did well in a legislative election or two, but others showed no remarkable trends. And we all know what went down in GA-06 - Ossoff held the line with 2016 numbers more or less, but that was obviously not enough. Georgia just isn't swingy enough to match Midwest performances, so I'm not entirely sure how this Gov race will play out. I do know that it's tough to balance all of this, and I'm not confident in saying that one way is better than another. I will say that it usually takes a massive investment and herculean efforts to actually bring out hoards of new voters - something many base campaigns tend to fall short of, so at the very least its nice to see that she is going all-in.

[Virginiá]

Judge says no paper ballots for this year

Was a long shot anyway. Even though Virginia managed to do it, it's probably too late for GA to considering they dragged their feet in court.

FWIW the judge didn't completely blow it off, so GA should be upgrading before the 2020 election.

[Virginiá]

I feel like the "cannibalizing the election day vote" thing is a total myth in the first place, honestly.

How come? It totally makes sense why it would happen. In 2016, the Clinton campaign had us pushing people to do early voting hard (at least in my area), so I know for sure I got a lot of first-time early voters to go, or at least so they said. It stands to reason that people who may have voted on election day vote early once or twice, and then they start to build a habit of it. This becomes compounded when a campaign's strategy is built around pushing early voting.

[Virginiá]

I feel like the "cannibalizing the election day vote" thing is a total myth in the first place, honestly.

How come? It totally makes sense why it would happen. In 2016, the Clinton campaign had us pushing people to do early voting hard (at least in my area), so I know for sure I got a lot of first-time early voters to go, or at least so they said. It stands to reason that people who may have voted on election day vote early once or twice, and then they start to build a habit of it. This becomes compounded when a campaign's strategy is built around pushing early voting.

I don't buy that it's a thing that has an impact on election results because pretty much all early voters are/were either:
a) going to vote on election day anyway if it weren't for early voting, which means they're not harming the candidate because they would've voted for said candidate
b) unable to vote on election day, but if they could, they would've vote for the candidate. This means they're actually helping the candidate by voting early
c) wouldn't be voting at all if it weren't for early voting, which means the candidate is being helped.

Ohh, my apologies. I didn't know you were debating its effect on elections. I thought you meant the idea in general. I should have read the post you quoted above.

Yes, I agree. The only reason this phrase is relevant is for us election geeks who are desperately trying to theorize what will happen via early returns. If a flood of people votes early and thus doesn't on election day, it's irrelevant, because they still voted either way. Like you said, it actually helps the candidate anyway. They can better target non-voters in the final stretch if they have an idea of who has already voted early.

[Virginiá]

Joe Biden will campaign with Abrams in Atlanta next Thursday.

She needs Barack and Michelle, honestly.

I wish Obama would just camp out on the border of GA/FL and spend the next 5 weeks doing nothing but campaigning and fundraising for Abrams and Gillum. Them winning would be a pretty big deal. First Democratic governors in literally a generation (although GA only if you consider a generation around 15 years).

[Virginiá]

How does the absentee push work? Do you mail/deliver absentee request forms to voters who tend to be unreliable in midterms, and they fill it out and send it to the state, who then sends them a ballot when its time? If so, do you guys provide free postage and stuff too?

[Virginiá]

How does the absentee push work? Do you mail/deliver absentee request forms to voters who tend to be unreliable in midterms, and they fill it out and send it to the state, who then sends them a ballot when its time? If so, do you guys provide free postage and stuff too?

Yes. Her campaign sent out over 1 million absentee applications with the postage prepaid. They are working in conjunction with the state party to canvass voters and ask if they have received it and if they intend on voting by mail. Once the applicant turns it in and receives their ballot, the Abrams campaign can track them and continue to canvass them until they mail their ballot in or they go vote early in person. If they still haven’t gotten their ballot in by November 2 and didn’t early vote, they will be canvassed during the GOTV period (Saturday-Election Day).

Interesting! Thanks. That is some good work you are doing up there

[Virginiá]

If the Abrams campaign doesn't contact me by October 15, I will select Brian Kemp on my absentee ballot

Don't make me come up there with my pepper spray

[Virginiá]

I mean, yeah, she has a lot of out-of-state donations, but a fairly decent chunk of small donors too, so she could also make the argument that Kemp's relative lack of small donors means he's being bought off by special interests. The argument can go both ways.

Although I will admit that I do remember Ossoff getting criticism over out of state donations from voter interviews. I'm not sure how big of a deal it was, but it does seem like, to the extent that voters care about any of this, they care more about out of state donors than "special interests."

Anyway, not really convinced any of this will matter much in the end.

[Virginiá]

If this works and Abrams wins, I wonder how long it will take (or if) Republicans to restrict VBM. If there is anything I've noticed from surprise wins in states where Republicans have power, it's that they tend to hold a grudge and also try to use their legislative power to "fix" the "problem." North Carolina is an excellent example of that. They made Supreme Court elections partisan and literally cancelled judicial primaries for 2018 just because they lost one race for the court in 2016, and became convinced it was because just enough people thought the Democrat was actually a Republican. Republicans in Arizona moved to make ballot collection harder for Democratic groups that rely on it when VBM became more and more popular. Don't even ask what Walker did in Wisconsin - arguably a smorgasbord of fine-tuning election laws to restrict urban and college turnout.

[Virginiá]

Does early voting usually skew that non white?

Nope. This was discussed more 3-6 pages back (or so).

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=299211.msg6437692#msg6437692

At this point, it was significantly more white in 2014.

[Virginiá]

Just curious, but what county seats are up in Gwinnett? Just part or all of the county commission?

That particular body seems ripe for some gains.

[Virginiá]

Deal and Perdue (lol @ Mr Racial Gaffe Master standing a chance there now) won Gwinnett by 8 in ‘14. Isakson won it by not quite 4 in ‘16 while Clinton won it by about 6. Could Abrams get it to over 5? Especially with her Latino / Asian outreach? Either way, I see Isakson being the last R to win there for a long time. Especially with Kemp, Trump , and Perdue being on the ticket over the next cycle.

Unless her performance in rural GA as a whole is unprecedentedly strong, she'll likely need to win Gwinnett by double-digits (or damn near it) to have a chance at winning a majority.

See my benchmarks:

Margin by County
Swing by County

Could you add these to the main post? Other users and myself may be looking for them when the day of reckoning is upon us.

[Virginiá]

thanks my doods!

[Virginiá]

Yeah, I actually saw her ad. I was shocked lol.

That's a bold move.

What ad was it?

[Virginiá]

Griff, was there any flooding there? There are still weeks to go before the election, so if it didn't do any major damage, it shouldn't hurt turnout too much, although those people might end up voting later than usual. It's also a good thing Abrams is doing a huge VBM push too I suppose, since returning a ballot in the mail is generally much easier than casting a vote in-person.

Hope everyone dodged a bullet tho

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/1050863473301819398

The lengths the Georgia GOP will go to suppress voting by Democrats is really quite stunning. Is there any other state party this aggressive with purging and using law enforcement to investigate and pin bogus charges on activists? The only one that really comes to mind is North Carolina, and they mostly just aggressively legislate new loopholes to abuse vs the kind of tom-foolery Kemp & friends has been up to since 2010 and especially this cycle.

[Virginiá]

In my opinion, Abrams should have used her segment on Morning Joe to explain to those 53,000 voters that effectively nothing has changed, and that all they need to do is show their photo IDs when they go vote (as they would have to do anyway). Instead, she spent that time talking about how bad both Kemp and the situation were.

IIRC, they have the list of people, so they can always send them mailers explaining the situation and maybe even call some of them too. That would probably be worth the money.

Maybe they can even use the situation to goad them into voting by reminding them how much the other party doesn't want them to vote.