Political future of former GA House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams (D-Atlanta)

[Adam Griffin]

Ah yes, David Perdue is a moderate and reasonable Republican who will get plenty of ticket splitters in the metro.

Voters don't pay attention, they 'feel' - this much should be obvious by now. Even if Perdue does relatively poorly in select suburban counties, it'll almost certainly be due to demographic turnover (which may very well mask the level of defections occurring in those counties in such a contest).

But he still SEEMS like a reasonable establishment guy to Georgia voters, and that's what matters. He probably wouldn't make an ad where he points a gun at a teenager or calls himself a "politically incorrect conservative".

Yeah, pretty much: in GA, if you're not a Democrat and you don't act like Brian Kemp, you're basically passable for a 'moderate'. I suppose there's a chance that Perdue flops with this segment of voters (the most likely reason would be that he's gaffe-prone), but until/unless that happens, Donald Trump and Brian Kemp =/= David Perdue and Nathan Deal. Sorry, but I still don't trust suburban Georgia to do "the right thing" - while Abrams' performance there was reassuring, the runoff results certainly weren't.

[Del Tachi]

Quick, someone make a map comparing Trump% to Isakson% in 2016 to demonstrate the point that suburban Atlantans still love "moderate" Republicans.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Quick, someone make a map comparing Trump% to Isakson% in 2016 to demonstrate the point that suburban Atlantans still love "moderate" Republicans.

Barksdale was a weak challenger with no electoral history. Why are you referencing a data point from before Trump won to prove that suburban Atlantans are still with the GOP post-Trump’s presidency? Democrats flipped 16 seats in both chambers of the state legislature in Metro Atlanta, Karen Handel got tossed out on her ass, Rob Woodall scraped by with less than 400 votes, and the NOBODY running in GA-11 still won the reliably red Cobb portion of the district.

There is nothing- No evidence to suggest these people will vote for Perdue. He will do worse than Kemp in Metro Atlanta. Bookmark this.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

PittsburghSteel was a Clinton-Straight r downballot voter. Let that sink in.

[Del Tachi]

Quick, someone make a map comparing Trump% to Isakson% in 2016 to demonstrate the point that suburban Atlantans still love "moderate" Republicans.

Barksdale was a weak challenger with no electoral history. Why are you referencing a data point from before Trump won to prove that suburban Atlantans are still with the GOP post-Trump’s presidency? Democrats flipped 16 seats in both chambers of the state legislature in Metro Atlanta, Karen Handel got tossed out on her ass, Rob Woodall scraped by with less than 400 votes, and the NOBODY running in GA-11 still won the reliably red Cobb portion of the district.

There is nothing- No evidence to suggest these people will vote for Perdue. He will do worse than Kemp in Metro Atlanta. Bookmark this.

Just no, Perdue will run ahead of Trump in 2020.  Bookmark this.  Trump was unpopular in 2016 and did abysmally around Atlanta, yet Isakaon significantly outperformed him.  Perdue probably won’t overperform as much, but he doesn’t have to in order to win.

Do you really think 2018 is a good base year to use, given that it was a D+9 environment where a lot of Republicans (mostly of the more moderate, Perdue type) stayed home?  And let’s not forget, even given this stellar environment, Dems still didn’t win a single statewide office.  It’s not happening, especially not by retreading Abrams as the nominee and the continued rural trends towards the GOP.

[Yellowhammer]

Hopefully, she won't have one.

[Del Tachi]

Here's an interesting piece of local knowledge:  Keisha Lance Bottoms and Stacey Abrams do not get along, at all.  It's no secret that KLB was supportive of Stacey Evans during the Democratic Primary, and she never really cranked out her ATL machine for Abrams in the general election.  For that reason, Stacey Abrams becoming mayor of Atlanta would require her probably mobilizing anti-Bottoms/Reed Democrats, becoming somewhat more of a "Justice Dem" in the mold of Kwame Abernathy or Kwanzaa Hall, or somehow mobilizing the Buckhead vote?  Seems very unlikely.

LOL. Abrams would win an election for Mayor handily. Voters don't care or even know about these silly factional disputes at City Hall.

Also LOL at the notion that Abrams who received the most votes for any Georgia Democrat would need the help of someone who has only had to turn out 46,000 votes in an off year runoff.

Local politics is much more of an "insider's game" than running for statewide office given the smaller, more connected voting/fundraising pool + limited access to free/national media.  Anyone who wants to be mayor of Atlanta (or any other large city, for that matter) has to spend time cultivating relationships with the relevant citizen groups, big $$$ city contractors, and city employees to have a credible shot.  I don't think Abrams has any interest in that, and even if she did I think she'd face an uphill battle.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

PittsburghSteel was a Clinton-Straight r downballot voter. Let that sink in.

[ON Progressive]

As we know, the only Republicans who can POSSIBLY lose badly in the Atlanta suburbs are Kemp and Trump. Look at all the popularity of Generic R!

[Rookie Yinzer]

Quick, someone make a map comparing Trump% to Isakson% in 2016 to demonstrate the point that suburban Atlantans still love "moderate" Republicans.

Barksdale was a weak challenger with no electoral history. Why are you referencing a data point from before Trump won to prove that suburban Atlantans are still with the GOP post-Trump’s presidency? Democrats flipped 16 seats in both chambers of the state legislature in Metro Atlanta, Karen Handel got tossed out on her ass, Rob Woodall scraped by with less than 400 votes, and the NOBODY running in GA-11 still won the reliably red Cobb portion of the district.

There is nothing- No evidence to suggest these people will vote for Perdue. He will do worse than Kemp in Metro Atlanta. Bookmark this.

Just no, Perdue will run ahead of Trump in 2020.  Bookmark this.  Trump was unpopular in 2016 and did abysmally around Atlanta, yet Isakaon significantly outperformed him.  Perdue probably won’t overperform as much, but he doesn’t have to in order to win.

Do you really think 2018 is a good base year to use, given that it was a D+9 environment where a lot of Republicans (mostly of the more moderate, Perdue type) stayed home?  And let’s not forget, even given this stellar environment, Dems still didn’t win a single statewide office.  It’s not happening, especially not by retreading Abrams as the nominee and the continued rural trends towards the GOP.

Again, Isakson had a no-name challenger, the suburbs hadn’t soured on the GOP because Trump’s presidency was not a reality, and a lot of Democrats just left the ballot BLANK.

As far as 2018, “soft” Metro Republicans and white Independents didn’t stay home. They voted for Stacey Abrams. If she runs she will get 60 percent in Gwinnett and 55 percent in Cobb. I’m old enough to remember when Cobb and Gwinnett were supposedly toss-ups and then they voted for her by 9 and 15 points, now we are re-writing history that Kemp was historically unpopular. Even though he ran ahead of Karen Handel and Rob Woodall. There were legitimate defections from the GOP. And they will continue.

[ON Progressive]

The notion that David Perdue has any significant suburban appeal is absolutely ridiculous, and you can see it in comparing Romney's performance in the Atlanta burbs in 2012 to Perdue's performance in 2014.

County: 2012 results -- 2014 results (swing)

Gwinnett County: Romney +9.2 -- Perdue +10.4 (R+1.2)
Cobb County: Romney +12.4 -- Perdue +12.8 (R+0.4)
DeKalb County: Obama +56.6 -- Nunn +58.2 (D+1.6)
Douglas County: Obama +4 -- Nunn +5.7 (D+1.7)
Henry County: Romney +3.3 -- Nunn +0.7 (D+4)
Rockdale County: Obama +16.5 -- Nunn +19 (D+2.5)
Fulton County: Obama +29.7 -- Nunn +31.1 (D+1.4)
Clayton County: Obama +70 -- Nunn +69.1 (R+0.9)
Newton County: Obama +2 -- Nunn +2 (D+<0.1)
Cherokee County: Romney +57.5 -- Perdue +55.2 (D+2.3)
Forsyth County: Romney +62.7 -- Perdue +61.3 (D+1.4)

I could add a couple more, but you get the point by now: Perdue is absolutely not a candidate who is particularly strong in the Atlanta suburbs. He did worse than Romney in most of them in 2014, including being the first Republican to lose Henry County in a statewide race that wasn't an absolutely massive Democratic blowout since the 1980s.

Why am I supposed to believe Perdue is strong in these suburbs when he wasn't even particularly strong in 2014, especially when many of these places have had almost obscene Democratic swings since then?

[Adam Griffin]

I guess 1 in 8 voters having a negative opinion of Kemp but a positive opinion of Perdue in 2019 will have absolutely no impact on voting behavior then!

It also looks like there's some confusion between relative performance strength and absolute performance strength. It's very unlikely that there are any suburban ATL counties where Perdue will do as well in 2020 as he did in 2014, but that doesn't mean he won't overperform the baseline or win voters who cast ballots for Ds in 2016 and 2018. Pretty much any county in the metro that was D before 2018 is seeing its white population percentage drop by 1-2 points per year: of course these counties are moving to the Ds (and by the way, a less than insignificant % of this growth is coming via non-whites relocating to suburban ATL from other parts of the state, so treating it as 100% D growth is inaccurate; the Black Belt & SW GA are collapsing for a reason).

I'm also curious where people think all of this massive turnout increase for 2020 will come from: 2018-GA had turnout at 96% of the 2016 presidential. Unless you think the presidential election is going to have 175 million voters or something, there isn't much room to grow. Additionally, the overwhelming majority of growth in turnout in 2018 didn't come from true first-time voters: it came from first-time midterm voters (i.e. people who have reliably voted every 4 years, but not in midterms prior). Pretty much everybody who voted in 2018 was already baked into the electoral cake for 2020 anyway.

Due to a favorable climate and plenty of enthusiasm, GA Dems basically cashed in their electoral chips early. While the electorate tends to get older and whiter in midterms, this was offset (and then some, arguably) in 2018, basically giving us the 2020 electorate two years early: whether that be based on age, race or sheer number of votes. Run the same candidate among the same electorate against a less unpopular opponent and the polarization of the state dictates you won't generate a better performance without either some massive external forces affecting things or enough demographic turnover to cancel out the effects.

[ON Progressive]

I guess 1 in 8 voters having a negative opinion of Kemp but a positive opinion of Perdue in 2019 will have absolutely no impact on voting behavior then!

As we know, a single outlier poll over a year before the election is proof Perdue is an extremely popular unbeatable titan.

[Adam Griffin]

I guess 1 in 8 voters having a negative opinion of Kemp but a positive opinion of Perdue in 2019 will have absolutely no impact on voting behavior then!

As we know, a single outlier poll over a year before the election is proof Perdue is an extremely popular unbeatable titan.

Perdue has more or less enjoyed net favorables throughout his entire tenure as Senator (and with the exception of Deal's final year in office, they were very much parallel to Nathan's numbers), and Kemp consistently was underwater throughout the entire campaign.

We can either take at face value what years of sampling Georgians' thoughts shows us, or we can just "feel" what seems right here!

[Adam Griffin]

And for the record, I've never said that Perdue can't be beaten.

What I have said is that I don't think Abrams is the best challenger for him (which I could flesh out again over several paragraphs, but I'll spare everybody) given the likelihood that the 2020 statewide electorate will very likely mimic the 2018 electorate in size, gender and racial composition; that he has won many of the same integral voters before that were crucial to the performance for Democrats in 2018; and also that making assumptions about linear Democratic gains always being guaranteed (even after more than one cycle's worth of growth occurs within one cycle) is flawed (see: 2008).

[GeorgiaModerate]

I agree with Adam's analysis and others.  Abrams shouldn't run for Senate in 2020.

My thought: she could well be Joe Biden's running mate if he wins the Presidential nomination.

[LoneStarDem]

I agree with Adam's analysis and others.  Abrams shouldn't run for Senate in 2020.

My thought: she could well be Joe Biden's running mate if he wins the Presidential nomination.

Abrams needs to win HIGHER office (United States Senator or Governor) before she's considered VP material.

[Rookie Yinzer]

I agree with Adam's analysis and others.  Abrams shouldn't run for Senate in 2020.

My thought: she could well be Joe Biden's running mate if he wins the Presidential nomination.

Biden’s record is antithetical to everything Stacey Abrams stands for. I hope she is nowhere near a Biden ticket.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I agree with Adam's analysis and others.  Abrams shouldn't run for Senate in 2020.

My thought: she could well be Joe Biden's running mate if he wins the Presidential nomination.

Biden’s record is antithetical to everything Stacey Abrams stands for. I hope she is nowhere near a Biden ticket.

This is called "balancing the ticket".

[voice_of_resistance]

Abrams 2022 Governor with Barrow vs Isakson in Senate is the key.

[LoneStarDem]

Abrams 2022 Governor with Barrow vs Isakson in Senate is the key.

I thought Isakson was retiring in 2022 due to his age, health problems ?

[GeorgiaModerate]

Abrams 2022 Governor with Barrow vs Isakson in Senate is the key.

I thought Isakson was retiring in 2022 due to his age, health problems ?

Isakson said last year that he plans to run again, but it's widely speculated that he may change his mind for the reasons you mentioned.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Abrams 2022 Governor with Barrow vs Isakson in Senate is the key.

Barrow is not going to win a high profile primary in this state.

[GAProgressive]

Abrams 2022 Governor with Barrow vs Isakson in Senate is the key.

Barrow is not going to win a high profile primary in this state.

Hmmm.
I don't know about that. He and Stacey had a pretty solid working relationship during the primary and I can easily see him getting her endorsement.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I agree with Adam's analysis and others.  Abrams shouldn't run for Senate in 2020.

My thought: she could well be Joe Biden's running mate if he wins the Presidential nomination.

Guess I'm not the only one with that thought:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/435057-biden-advisers-mull-launch-announcement-naming-abrams-as-running-mate