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

[Oryxslayer]

My guess is that he retires in early 2021, allowing his successor some incumbency before the 2022 election

Or you can retire earlier so you can still appoint Deal while people remember who he was.

[Oryxslayer]

Says his Parkinson has advanced. Two senate seats up for election in the Peach state now.

EDIT:

So we get two Georgia elections in 2020?

Kemp makes an appointment. Special election in 2020 for the remaining 2 years, like AZ.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/staceyabrams/status/1166732743562137603

[Oryxslayer]

Here are the gaps in votes in double-barrel Senate seats since 1980:

- Minnesota 2018: 150,000 voted both Klobuchar (D) and Housley (R), gap of 13.5 points

- South Carolina 2014 : 20,000 voted Scott (R) and Hutto (D), gap of 9.5 points

- Oklahoma 2014: 2,000 voted Inhofe (R) and Connie Johnson (D), gap of 0.6 points

- New-York 2010: 100,000 voted Schumer (D) and DioGuardi (R), gap of 6.2 points

- Mississippi 2008: 83,000 voted Cochrane (R) and Musgrove (D), gap of 12.8 points

- Wyoming 2008: 6,000 voted Enzi (R) and Nick Carter (D), gap of 4.4 points

- Kansas 1996: 77,000 voted Roberts (R) and Docking (D), gap of 17 points

- Tennessee 1994: 52,000 voted Thompson (R) and Sasser (D), gap of 5.5 points

- California 1992: 555,000 voted split between Feinstein (D) and Herschensohn (R), gap of 11.4 points


So the gap for governor in Georgia (50k or 1.4 points) was overcome in every double-barrel Senate save one since 1980.
There's a chance.

I think the more interesting statistic is that we have never quite had a double-barrel in a state as close to the national median as GA 2020. Maybe CA in 92 or Minnesota in 28, but both ended up falling by the side of history. When there is a serious divination in the totals, it's often because of candidate quality and one party investing heavily in one race. Like:

CA 92: CA was a close state back then, but as we all know, the 90s were the turning point in Californian political history.
TN 94: Gore put this state on the map for Clinton, but a normally reddish state won't elect a Dem senator in the 94 wave.
KS 96: One of the most reliably GOP states in the nation, and your presidential candidate is from there. No.
WY 08: Red state.
MS 08: Red state, but running a Dem gov is a candidate improvement.
NY 10: Blue state.
OK 14: Red state.
SC 14: Red state .
MN 18: theoretically could have been closer, but the blue wave pushed the state off the playing field. Also, klobuchar is an electoral machine.

IF 2020 is a close election like expected, GA will be sitting there on the margins...

[Oryxslayer]

Loeffer will spend 20 Million of her personal cash in 2020, at minimum...

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/Politics1com/status/1219722294341226496

I'm sure #CobbCountyWineMoms will love a Black preacher as Democratic nominee

They'll have Ossoff on the other side to satisfy those desires. Because double headers rarely diverge in outcomes, it has been the Democrats goal (on paper) to get a Atlanta White on one side and a African American on the other, to try and juice energy among both constituencies.

[Oryxslayer]

Interesting AJC piece on HB 757 presently in the GA legislature. This bill would set the filing deadline for GA specials to be concurrent with regular elections in March. It would also allow for party primaries for the runoff seat. This would decrease the chance of it going to a runoff, but still could depending on minors. The democrats obviously want to avoid that runoff. The article notes though that the bill it is being considered by more than the Dems, an alliance of Collins's legislative allies also desire HB 757. For them, getting a GOP primary where Collins can run head to head with Loeffer is step one to Senator Collins. So, there is a potential pact in the works between Collins's allys and the more radical wing of the GA GOP and the Democrats against Kemp's Executive branch and it's GOP allies.

[Oryxslayer]

It seems that there is movement in Georgia legislature to make this a normal general election with partisan primaries, etc, instead of a November jungle primary.

https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/democratic-bid-alter-the-georgia-melee-for-senate-seat/p9hbVzZnekxZYeBVo5l3LJ/

Yes. Both sides want this for different reasons. I want Warnock as the sole D on the ballot. I would be livid if interlopers like Lieberman who has never done anything for GA Dems ed up this race.

Yes, like I described above, dems want just Warnock and Collins's GOP allies want a primary where they can replace Loeffer. So there is a crossbench alliance. It's Kemp and his Republican Allies who want to keep the current lineup.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/NilesGApol/status/1221954060754071554

This therefore means HB 757 is likely to be a go, and we're getting normal primaries for both seats.

[Oryxslayer]

However, I'm not so sure about his chances in the general. Georgia is still a Republican state (on balance, and in terms of actual partisan control of the government/congressional delegation), but it is now competitive, and I can't imagine Collins having any real appeal with moderate suburban voters. However, I do believe that if Perdue and Trump are carrying Georgia, then Collins will win as well.

This race (almost certainly) will go to a runoff between the top 2 finishers, regardless of party, in January. The jungle primary coincides with the November/general election. I don't think this necessarily changes much, if anything, about your analysis, which I agree with, other than the mechanics, plus the increased likelihood, I would think, that the Republican would win the January runoff, because of the way turnout works in Georgia.

There likely won't be a jungle primary

Yes, HB757 sets up normal primaries for GA specials, and if Collins is getting in than the bill is likely passing along D+Collins's GOP allies lines. There are articles about this one the previous page. Now, we still could go to a runoff if indies ruin everything, but that is less than likely.

[Oryxslayer]

It's looking like the jungle primary will stay.

We'll see. This is a battle that transcends party lines and this is part one of Kemp's GOP allies trying to stop the bill from reaching his desk. Collins wouldn't be entering if he didn't have votes counted ahead of time to at least have a reasonable shot at it.

[Oryxslayer]

Increasingly this is looking like a lockout in the jungle primary.
Collins 30
Loeff 20
Warnock 19
Lieberman 18

Will Matt Lieberman drop out as the deadline approaches, or will he fill his father's small shoes and undermine the Dems again?

Where does the other 13% of the electorate go? I don't think Loeffler makes the runoff, even 20% may be overrating her as she's a terrible politician

Yeah, it seems like the undecideds are mainly minority voters who would only start paying attention when we get closer to the election. This put Loeffer in an even worse position - she is losing to Warnocks present ~20% in the most recent poll I saw for instance.

[Oryxslayer]

I haven’t been following this race and have only ever seen people online talk about Warnock as the Democratic candidate. If he’s so popular, why isn’t he beating this Lieberman guy? If this Lieberman guy is so much closer to making the runoff than Warnock, why isn’t the party coalescing around him?

Probably because Warnock is only now dipping into his cash, whereas Leib has alreadybeen on the air for a while.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1290763813495734273?s=20

[Oryxslayer]

Warnock appears in the DNC's tribute to John Lewis. It appears that he has decided to use the conventions as his 'start' date, since it might start directing donors towards his campaign. There were probably better moments in the past month, but this one was plannable in advance. He should have followed the 'best laid plans of mice and men' proverb, but at least Warnock is making himself known now.

[Oryxslayer]

I personally find it weird to bring up Attila since America, especially the present generation of Conservatives, love to compare America to Rome and fetishize that side of history.

[Oryxslayer]

Anyway, the polls today consistently had Warnock in the lead. Guess that's what happens when you finally campaign and rack up the parties endorsements. Also explains why Loeffer and Collins have been at each others throats, rather than messing with the previous third-place candidate.

[Oryxslayer]

A Warnock vs Loeffler runoff would be the 2020 equivalent of Jones vs Moore.

Probably more like Kander vs Blunt tbh, though with Warnock winning because Georgia is much less Republican than Missouri is. Warnock will not overperform by Jones vs Moore levels.

I wasn't referring to the context of the states themselves. I meant more that it's a relatively unexceptional Democratic candidate vs someone that encapsulates the absolute worst of the Republican Party. 

The recent favorability ratings seem to counter that. If anything, Warnock seems like the perfect candidate for this moment in time in GA.

The big question though is how much of his favorability score is thanks to the trajectory of the race. Remember Warnock was unknown by the electorate two months ago. His quick movement from third to a dominating first place has strategically insulated his campaign from the type of negative ad bombardment that all the competitive candidates are throwing at each other. Now of course this all does matter, there is now less time to define the candidate in a runoff situation and Warnock has 'free' air time to build a message now, but some of his approvers may be voters who just haven't 'met' Warnock as a partisan candidate.

[Oryxslayer]

I'm very curious to see the county map for this race. It's gonna be weird. Right now, I have Warnock winning the counties in red (Abrams '18, Fayette, the expanded black belt, and a few smaller metros.) That said, I have absolutely no idea how the blue counties are going to go except for some vague sense Collins will overperform in his Northeast Georgia district and Loeffler might do best in the rest of the Atlanta exurbs. South Georgia is a big question mark so far as I'm concerned. What are your thoughts?

The best analogy right now is the 2019 Louisiana Governors race. Warnock is somewhere between 40 and 50 percent, and his Republican opposition is dueling in the 20s. This absolutely means that Warnock will carry a ton of Republican counties in the first round on pluralities thanks to favorable vote splits. Now I'm not sure where Warnock will see more plurality victories, but he will get it. One point of view suggests that the northern subrubs and exurbs are moving towards the Dems so there are enough Blue voters to see Warnock sneak through on 38% pluralities. The other line of thought sees all the 40% AA counties that vote red in the south of the state and expects them to flip because of vote splits.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/12/us/elections/results-louisiana-governor-primary-election.html