I'll eat crow if I have to but I believe Abrams is going to eke this out. Y'all don't know how long she has had paid canvassers on the ground talking to people that the polls would never pick up. Not to mention the Democratic Party of Georgia's volunteer based field apparatus and the plethora of organizations down here organizing for her. We will see in 7 days.
Is that apparatus good enough to keep running another month if it has to during a runoff?
I would argue that Democrats might have the advantage in a runoff situation, given how insanely fired up the party is. It's not like 2008 where not only was GA more Republican-leaning, but Democrats basically climaxed with Obama and went to sleep afterwards. This time around, Trump is still in office, and a veritable avalanche of money and volunteers will descend on Georgia as if it is a final stand for the Democratic Party.
Hard disagree. The same thing was true with the GA-06 special -- Trump was in office, he was swimming in cash, and the base was incredibly energized.
I think Abrams is toast if she doesn't get to 50. If she doesn't, we'll see the same thing we've seen in all of the high-profile specials of the last 18 months (sans Alabama): intense national focus on the race plus the realization that it's a close race and not a shoe-in Republican win will force enough of the reluctant Republican voters to turn out to counteract the Democratic energy and keep the seat red.
The gerrymandering has nothing to do with my argument.
What I'm saying is that basically, anybody who would vote for Abrams in a runoff will already be voting for her in the general. However, given the fact it's a midterm with a Republican in the White House, there will be a whole lot of potential Kemp voters who won't vote next week, but could be activated to vote in a runoff. Basically, if Abrams doesn't hit 50% the first time, there isn't going to be some trove of undiscovered voters/untapped demographics which will push her over the top in a runoff, whereas there will be untapped Kemp voters. That's basically the same dynamic that played out in GA-06 last year.
I'm not saying that Abrams can't hit 50 the first time, I'm just saying she has to. I believe you when you described the extent of her registration/mobilization -- we're talking about someone who literally had a job of enrolling new voters. That's encouraging, I'm just nervous because with the runoff she has a higher bar to clear than other Ds next week.
