US Elections 2020 - very self such moderated

[suchmoon]

The last part of the 2020 election has spilled over into 2021 - Senate runoffs in Georgia next Tuesday, January 5:

David Perdue (R) vs Jon Ossoff (D)
Kelly Loeffler (R) vs Raphael Warnock (D)

Early turnout is high, polls tilt towards Democrats, who would control the Senate if they win both seats. What should the Republicans do? Not sure, but one thing they shouldn't do is try to depress their own turnout but of course they are doing exactly that:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/532348-trump-claims-georgia-senate-runoff-is-both-illegal-and-invalid-in-new-years

President Trump on Friday evening tweeted that next week's Georgia Senate runoff elections are “both illegal and invalid,” even as he has been seeking to convince voters to throw their support behind the GOP senators seeking reelection.

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[TwitchySeal]

The last part of the 2020 election has spilled over into 2021 - Senate runoffs in Georgia next Tuesday, January 5:

David Perdue (R) vs Jon Ossoff (D)
Kelly Loeffler (R) vs Raphael Warnock (D)

Early turnout is high, polls tilt towards Democrats, who would control the Senate if they win both seats. What should the Republicans do? Not sure, but one thing they shouldn't do is try to depress their own turnout but of course they are doing exactly that:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/532348-trump-claims-georgia-senate-runoff-is-both-illegal-and-invalid-in-new-years

President Trump on Friday evening tweeted that next week's Georgia Senate runoff elections are “both illegal and invalid,” even as he has been seeking to convince voters to throw their support behind the GOP senators seeking reelection.

I don't know much about Ossoff but I listened to a pretty long interview with him recently and was super impressed, especially considering he's only 33.  Kind of reminds me of a more aggressive Pete Buttigieg.

[Gyfts]

The last part of the 2020 election has spilled over into 2021 - Senate runoffs in Georgia next Tuesday, January 5:

David Perdue (R) vs Jon Ossoff (D)
Kelly Loeffler (R) vs Raphael Warnock (D)

Early turnout is high, polls tilt towards Democrats, who would control the Senate if they win both seats. What should the Republicans do? Not sure, but one thing they shouldn't do is try to depress their own turnout but of course they are doing exactly that:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/532348-trump-claims-georgia-senate-runoff-is-both-illegal-and-invalid-in-new-years

President Trump on Friday evening tweeted that next week's Georgia Senate runoff elections are “both illegal and invalid,” even as he has been seeking to convince voters to throw their support behind the GOP senators seeking reelection.

I'm curious as to how accurate the polling will be considering how bad they were with some of the senate races in November.  Susan Collin's polling data was atrocious, don't think she was leading in a single poll yet she won the race by near double digits. It's all about who shows up on election day to vote.

That being said, I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say that both dem's are going to win and this will largely be Trump's fault. He's creating too much doubt on his election that will undoubtedly keep republicans home. Democrats are energized, and obviously hate Trump so they would love nothing more than to give Joe Biden full congressional control.

I didn't research much about the candidates because I don't care enough, but Kelly Loeffler sticks out as this elitist rich girl persona who probably couldn't recite a line from the constitution if she tried. I saw a 10 second clip from the debate with her and Warnock and she reminded me of a Republican Hillary Clinton, but significantly dumber with no understanding of government or conservatism. Rather shocked that she was the best candidate Republicans in GA came up with.

Poor candidates, no help from Trump, and a high number of mail in's mean this thing is probably a wrap.

[PrimeNumber7]

I'm curious as to how accurate the polling will be considering how bad they were with some of the senate races in November.  Susan Collin's polling data was atrocious, don't think she was leading in a single poll yet she won the race by near double digits. It's all about who shows up on election day to vote.

That being said, I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say that both dem's are going to win and this will largely be Trump's fault. He's creating too much doubt on his election that will undoubtedly keep republicans home. Democrats are energized, and obviously hate Trump so they would love nothing more than to give Joe Biden full congressional control.

If Democrats take the Senate, I would blame Congressman Collins' selfishness in staying in the race even though it was clear he wasn't going to win. If Collins had dropped out, Loeffler would have won handily.

I would agree that Trump's unwillingness to accept the election outcome and/or inability to clearly present a coherent message explaining how the results were illegitimate is going to harm both Perdue and Loffler at the ballot box.

Both Democrat candidates are radical, and Georgia is a red state, even if it went for Biden in November. Biden is moderate, and he outperformed both Democrat Senate candidates in November. I would assume the polling is incorrect, just as they were in November.

Not long after early voting started, there were 50,000 absentee ballots requested from people who did not vote in the general election, which is very suspicious. As of yesterday, about 115k people have cast ballots who did not vote in the general. Democrats tend to vote early and by mail, while Republicans tend to vote on election day in person.

Chuck Schumer has said while campaigning in GA, that he will change the world and America if Democrats win both Senate seats. I don't think the people of GA are comfortable with that.

[Gyfts]

What are the chances that one democrat wins and one Republican wins?

I get that people will go down to the polls and just vote down party lines, meaning in pairs of Republicans or in pairs of democrats, but I wonder if Warnock brings any intersectional advantage to the table that would drive people towards him and just him.

Just food for thought.

[TwitchySeal]

What are the chances that one democrat wins and one Republican wins?

I get that people will go down to the polls and just vote down party lines, meaning in pairs of Republicans or in pairs of democrats, but I wonder if Warnock brings any intersectional advantage to the table that would drive people towards him and just him.

Just food for thought.

Listened to a 538 podcast recently and they addressed this - it's more likely than you would think, mostly because of the "I don't vote for women or black guys" crowd. 

Side note: There's been a huge lack of polling due to the holidays and many pollsters not seeing any upside to going to Georgia in the current climate (pussys), but Warnock (d) is a pretty big favorite and the other race is basically a toss up - kind of a surprise for me, but again, very little data is available and there's nothing normal about tomorrow.

[PrimeNumber7]

What are the chances that one democrat wins and one Republican wins?

I get that people will go down to the polls and just vote down party lines, meaning in pairs of Republicans or in pairs of democrats, but I wonder if Warnock brings any intersectional advantage to the table that would drive people towards him and just him.

Just food for thought.

Both Democrat candidates have their own unique baggage that voters might not want to vote for (in addition to being extremists).

I think it is more likely that some voters will decide they are unwilling to vote for an anti semite or a wifebeater than uncontrollable features that TwitchySeal describes above.

IMO, it is most likely the GOP will sweep both Senate seats, but the next most likely outcome is a split. A Democrat sweep would result in the market/economy crashing on Wednessday.

[bryant.coleman]

Back in December I was expecting the GOP candidates to win the two senate election runoffs in Georgia, but the momentum seems to have shifted during the last couple of weeks. If the Democrats win both these seats, it is going to be disastrous for the GOP. It will mean that the senate remains tied on 50-50, and with Lisa Murkowski ready to jump to the Democrat side, it will soon become 49-51.

The turnout will matter a lot. Once the figures are available, I will be comparing the turnout from these counties, with respect to the turnout from the November elections: DeKalb, Fulton, Clayton and Rockdale. Other counties in the Metropolitan Atlanta region do have large sections of GOP voters, so it would be difficult to infer anything from the turnout.

 

[DaveF]

Talking out my ass here, but I think Perdue & Loeffler both hurt themselves with the stimulus game. With the going around with $600 / $2000 / no money they really managed to alienate a lot of voters. Ossoff / Warnock could say whatever they wanted, but in the end they could not vote so it was just talking points. Perdue & Loeffler could and did vote . But... 1st they were against any money, then slowly agreed to the $600 and then jumped on the $2k when Trump wanted it. And then they backed Mitch in his plan to bury the $2k.

So now everyone who had any feelings about it, is now annoyed with them.
Annoyed enough to stay home or vote against them? Tune in tomorrow for the next episode to find out.

-Dave

[suchmoon]

Tune in tomorrow for the next episode to find out.

Tune in next week more likely... I doubt this will be counted faster than the November election

[theymos]

Listened to a 538 podcast recently and they addressed this - it's more likely than you would think, mostly because of the "I don't vote for women or black guys" crowd. 

There will be a little effect from that, and one-of-each could happen, but I think that the average person is incorrectly reasoning about this in the opposite direction. I've seen a lot of people thinking basically, "Each candidate has about a 50% chance of winning, so the chance that the Democrats win both is 50%*50% = 25%." The results of both elections will be extremely highly correlated, though, so that line of thinking is totally wrong, and it's giving a whole lot of people the wrong intuition.

I have no idea who's going to win. If the Democrats win, it will be the Republicans' own fault in many different ways. I don't worry about it too much, since their control of both the Senate and the House will be too narrow to do anything too shocking, though I do think that it'd be much better for the Republicans to maintain control and for us to get 2+ years of total gridlock.

I have to say, the sheer idiocy of so many Republicans has been making me root for the Democrats a bit, even though from an ideological/utilitarian perspective I think gridlock is better than Republican control which is better than Democrat control. Any person or institution that is this incompetent, irrational, and unwilling to even privately believe uncomfortable truths deserves to fail utterly and be replaced by people who actually have working brains. (There's plenty of irrationality and living in bubbles on the Democratic side as well, and in humanity as a whole, but it's really gotten insane in the Republican party.)


Turning to the electoral vote counting tomorrow: Probably it will be basically like normal but with 2 hours of pointless and predictable extra speeches from both sides, with many Republicans basically just putting on a show to be able to say "hey, I tried." But I was thinking today about how it could possibly go off the rails:

First, there will be a large number of pro-Trump armed protesters there. I suppose I could imagine them storming the capital, overwhelming the fairly weak police forces in and around D.C., and Trump intentionally not using his resources to stop them, so that they are able to actually disrupt the vote count. This could last for a few days, maybe, before the government apparatus including the military work together to arrest Trump for treason or whatever. Trump would eventually totally fail, but it would be a huge shock to the American psyche.

Second, it seems to me that the law allows Republicans to filibuster the counting process. They could just endlessly submit objections, and if Pence goes along with it, then each objection results in 2 hours of debate. They could extend it all the way to Jan 20 if they want. Now, this would be extremely stupid, since there is no end-game. The whole process would grind on and on, with almost everyone across the country and in Congress growing to despise this process and Trump. Kind of like the impeachment, but in the opposite direction and much worse. It'd be a good thing to do if Republicans want to try getting Trump's approval down to 5%. And then on Jan 20, Pelosi would by law become President, so what have you gained? Maybe a competent President with tons of support among both the bureaucracy and the people could use the uncertainty surrounding this whole unprecedented succession issue to successfully stay in power, but Trump is nowhere near being able to pull that off. However, several Republicans seem to be thinking about nothing except what their base supporters will say on Twitter over the next 6 hours rather than doing any sort of sane planning, and if enough of them are like that, this mess could maybe occur. (I do think that Pence has to go along with it, though.)

But if enough Republicans are sane, they will try to get this over with as soon as possible, sticking their necks out as little as possible. Nobody should've committed themselves to signing onto these objections in the first place (just politically, not even thinking about ideology), but that ship has probably sailed.

(Note that the winners of the Georgia race will not be certified in time for it to have any impact here unless maybe if things do go way off the rails.)

[TwitchySeal]

Listened to a 538 podcast recently and they addressed this - it's more likely than you would think, mostly because of the "I don't vote for women or black guys" crowd. 

There will be a little effect from that, and one-of-each could happen, but I think that the average person is incorrectly reasoning about this in the opposite direction. I've seen a lot of people thinking basically, "Each candidate has about a 50% chance of winning, so the chance that the Democrats win both is 50%*50% = 25%." The results of both elections will be extremely highly correlated, though, so that line of thinking is totally wrong, and it's giving a whole lot of people the wrong intuition.

I think most people would assume that both seats would go to the same party almost certainly.  At least that's been my assumption.  If they're very tight races, it very well could be the anti black/female voters that make it a split decision. Although they're more likely to stay home I suppose.

[suchmoon]

Second, it seems to me that the law allows Republicans to filibuster the counting process. They could just endlessly submit objections, and if Pence goes along with it, then each objection results in 2 hours of debate. They could extend it all the way to Jan 20 if they want.

Isn't it 2 hours per state? I remember reading something about objections for each state being "disposed of" with a 2-hour debate and vote, which to me sounded like no matter how many objections there are it's all resolved at once. And they wouldn't object to red state votes, would they. Granted Pence could choose to interpret it differently and there is probably not much that could be done about it but I just don't see him being politically suicidal like that. He's probably eyeing 2024 too.

[theymos]

Isn't it 2 hours per state? I remember reading something about objections for each state being "disposed of" with a 2-hour debate and vote, which to me sounded like no matter how many objections there are it's all resolved at once. And they wouldn't object to red state votes, would they.

There was a nonpartisan expert on C-SPAN's Washington Journal recently who said that it's 2 hours per objection, and that there can be more than one objection per state. In the past, multiple objections were combined, but only via unanimous consent in the joint session. Reading the law myself, it doesn't seem crystal clear to me that 2 hours per objection isn't allowed or intended, though a ridiculous filibuster probably wasn't envisioned.

Granted Pence could choose to interpret it differently and there is probably not much that could be done about it but I just don't see him being politically suicidal like that. He's probably eyeing 2024 too.

I think so too; he seems to be of the "put on a good show and slowly ease into being able to put Trump's madness behind us" mindset. But he's difficult to read, and maybe he could somehow be pressured into it.

[Gyfts]

I like the NYT "needles" where they forecast the election chances in real time.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/05/us/elections/forecast-georgia-senate-runoff.html

Brings me back to Georgia on November 3rd though. They had Trump with a 70-80% chance to win and on the same night they flipped the odds in Joe Biden's favor. And of course, we all knew how close Georgia came in. Isn't always accurate but still something to pay attention to.

[suchmoon]

I like the NYT "needles" where they forecast the election chances in real time.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/05/us/elections/forecast-georgia-senate-runoff.html

Brings me back to Georgia on November 3rd though. They had Trump with a 70-80% chance to win and on the same night they flipped the odds in Joe Biden's favor. And of course, we all knew how close Georgia came in. Isn't always accurate but still something to pay attention to.

It depends on how they count it. In November I think they counted election day ballots first and mail-ins later so blue shift was more likely. And it heavily depends on which counties report first. NYT is trying to adjust for all these factors but I don't think they can do much this early on. When it's 50%+ counted then it might be worth looking at those needles.

Edit: I checked a couple dozen counties that reported nearly all of their votes and there seems to be a consistent shift towards Democrats compared to November results. It's not quite clear if it will be enough for them to win, particularly for Ossoff who was trailing Perdue in November and is about half a percentage point behind Warnock today.

Edit2: With 80% counted and remaining votes being mostly in metro Atlanta counties, it would take a major miracle for Republicans to win, even though they're narrowly leading at this point in time. It looks like Trump succeeded in his anti-election fight.

[Gyfts]

I like the NYT "needles" where they forecast the election chances in real time.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/05/us/elections/forecast-georgia-senate-runoff.html

Brings me back to Georgia on November 3rd though. They had Trump with a 70-80% chance to win and on the same night they flipped the odds in Joe Biden's favor. And of course, we all knew how close Georgia came in. Isn't always accurate but still something to pay attention to.

It depends on how they count it. In November I think they counted election day ballots first and mail-ins later so blue shift was more likely. And it heavily depends on which counties report first. NYT is trying to adjust for all these factors but I don't think they can do much this early on. When it's 50%+ counted then it might be worth looking at those needles.

Edit: I checked a couple dozen counties that reported nearly all of their votes and there seems to be a consistent shift towards Democrats compared to November results. It's not quite clear if it will be enough for them to win, particularly for Ossoff who was trailing Perdue in November and is about half a percentage point behind Warnock today.

Guess this election is over, already. Dem's take both seats. Democrats outperformed in almost all the counties that I looked at and Atlanta still hasn't reported which will, at minimum, split like 80/20 democrat. Looked all over the map and couldn't find any areas in which GOP were outperforming.

[bryant.coleman]

Guess this election is over, already. Dem's take both seats. Democrats outperformed in almost all the counties that I looked at and Atlanta still hasn't reported which will, at minimum, split like 80/20 democrat. Looked all over the map and couldn't find any areas in which GOP were outperforming.

According to the NYT election needle, Warnock is expected to win with a margin of +1.8%, while Ossoff may win with a margin of +0.9%. It looks as if the Republican turnout was quite low for this election, probably disappointed by the outcome of the November elections. So it means a 51-49 majority for Democrats in the select (if we add Murkowski in the Democrat column).

[PrimeNumber7]

Guess this election is over, already. Dem's take both seats. Democrats outperformed in almost all the counties that I looked at and Atlanta still hasn't reported which will, at minimum, split like 80/20 democrat. Looked all over the map and couldn't find any areas in which GOP were outperforming.

I wouldn’t count the chickens before the eggs hatch.

Republicans are underperforming in many rural countries, but not by a lot.

I think both races will come down to DeKalb county, which is apparently taking a long time to count ballots. Only about 40% of voting locations reporting.

I am surprised that Warnock is outperforming Ossoff considering that Warnock is apparently a wife beater.

[suchmoon]

DeKalb dropped in a big batch of results just now, pretty much in line with NYT estimates. There doesn't seem to be any reason to doubt the estimates of the remaining ~5% percent of the votes.