It’s only January 5, and the biggest election of 2021 is already upon us. Today’s runoff elections in Georgia between Jon Ossoff and Sen. David Perdue and Rev. Raphael Warnock and Sen. Kelly Loeffler will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate. If the Democratic challengers win both elections, Chuck Schumer, not Mitch McConnell, will preside over the confirmation of Joe Biden’s nominations and legislative agenda. If the Republicans win just one of two, power in Congress will be split and Biden’s ambitions will be stymied.
Much like Election Night in November, we should expect initial returns to skew Republican, as Election Day votes will outnumber the mail-in votes favored by Democrats in the early count. It could be more than a week before we have an official count, and with recounts possible, certified results could take much longer.
More than three million people voted early—the most ever in a Georgia runoff election, and an indication, perhaps, that there may not be much drop off from the five million total participants in November.
A detailed analysis of the early vote by Ryan Anderson, who works in marketing, but who has earned attention for his data-driven website, GeorgiaVotes.com, suggests the Democrats have built up an impressive lead in the early vote, ranging from 170,000 to 245,000, or six to eight percent. What’s more, precinct-level turnout looks better for the Democrats than countywide analysis alone would suggest
This jibes with the polls. The FiveThirtyEight estimate of the runoff elections has both Democrats, Ossoff and Warnock, holding narrow leads, but still a hair below the 50 percent needed to win.
Republican pollster and strategist Frank Luntz says “There is a greater divide in the Republican Party than there is in the Democratic Party,” and predicts “I think the next 48 hours are going to be among the worst for the GOP.”
That divide was on display on Monday night as Donald Trump held a rally in conservative northwest Georgia, ostensibly for Perdue and Loeffler. “I don’t do rallies for other people. I do them for me,”the president told the crowd, as he railed against Gov. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Republicans who doesn’t support his effort to remain in office despite losing the election.
Of course, to win, the Democrats need their votes to count, and that won’t happen for any mail ballots that arrive late. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s efforts to slow down mail delivery could impact thousands of voters. This could be why Politico reports that Biden advisers are “privately skeptical” about Ossoff and Warnock’s chances at victory. They’re also worried that Biden’s victory in Georgia was driven by anti-Trump sentiment that won’t be as powerful in the runoffs because the president isn’t on the ballot.
Yet, Biden’s team must be pleased to see how Trump, Perdue and Loeffler tied themselves together at the end of the runoff campaign, because they want Georgia voters to treat these elections like a referendum on Trump.
During Loeffler’s brief appearance on the rally stage, she emphasized that her loyalty to the president was not in question. She announced during the rally that she would join some of her Republican peers in contesting the Electoral College vote on Wednesday, eliciting loud cheers from the audience.
“This president fought for us. We are fighting for him. He put America first,” Loeffler said. “Georgia, we are the firewall to socialism.”
That kind of rhetoric may rally some Trump-only Republican voters to the polls, but it will diminish the number of anti-Trump Republicans who find Loeffler or Perdue acceptable.
Every analyst seems to agree that the elections will be close so if you’re in Georgia, make sure your voice is heard.
As of this writing, it looked like the only remaining votes to count were primarily in Blue counties in GA – mainly in the Atlanta metro area. Of those votes, most are in-person early votes, which seemed to really favor both Warnock and Ossoff. Warnock’s opponent would need to win 64% of the remaining votes in order to reclaim the lead. Ossoff barely trails Perdue. Ossoff only needs to win 51% of the remaining vote in order to take the lead. Given where those votes are and the types of votes they are – in-person early votes – he’s probably going to squeak past Perdue. So there is reason right now for cautious optimism. I’m glad I donated – especially to Abram’s organization – in order to make sure that new voters got registered, doors were knocked on, and people mailed in their ballots or showed up at the polls. Looks like turnout was down in a number of the counties that went for Trump in November quite a bit. I guess telling people that the ballots are rigged is not a winning strategy for keeping control of the Senate.
Perdue would now have to win 56% of the remaining vote in order to win. The remaining votes come from heavily Democratic counties, and in many cases heavily Black Democratic precincts within those counties. I may wake up surprised, but it is looking more and more like we have our trifecta after all. Work might actually get accomplished.
It’s done. Except for some shouting.
I am not sure Schumer is up to the task. But there are sufficient progressives, especially in the House, that can hold the leadership’s feet to the fire.
An aggressive agenda within the next 2 years.
I think the agenda needs to be the sweet sweet sugar of $2,000 stimulus checks that ALL the people (and even Wall Street) will love along with a REAL vaccination plan. In the background, voter protection efforts. And making Rs vote on record for popular things that will hurt them in 2022 (and fracture their party even more along the way). 6-12 months of that, and then start swinging for the fences. We won’t get filibuster reform, but we can have a functioning administration free from pointless and bogus “investigations” of Hunter Biden etc. And Pelosi and Schumer had better involve AOC and the others in the strategic plan from the beginning so that there’s a roadmap to increasingly aggressive items as time goes on (and as a recovery is firmly in place). If we lose in 2022 (and 2024) this country is done. And we need to work on climate change the whole time, perhaps re-branding the Green New Deal so that all the existing propaganda against it is diluted and progress can be made while the right wing noise machine has to re-tool. It’ll be a challenge, but it’s possible (especially if at his core, Manchin isn’t stupid or evil or venal).
It has turned out to be a little more than some shouting, lol
Insurrection for real in DC
It’s insane.
Yes it is and I still think this ass can do more damage. I won’t be surprised if he invokes the insurrection act on some made up story.
Having just finished a book* about the KKK in New England during the 1920s (“KKK stands for undying opposition to Koons, Kikes, and Katholics”, shouted one Grand Wizard at an 8,000 person rally in Rhode Island), it’s kind of amazing that Georgia, the home of Stone Mountain, 100 years later has elected a Black and a Jew to the Senate and helped elect a Catholic to the White House.
*Not a Catholic Nation by Mark Paul Richard. Worth reading.
Mike Pence ran the government last night, while Trump had his melt down.