Georgia Republicans privately wonder if anti-Trump suburbanites will help them in the Senate runoffs

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

One of the reasons frequently offered for why Senate Republicans are humoring President Trump's baseless election fraud claims and refusal to concede his loss to President-elect Joe Biden is that they need his voters to turn out for twin Jan. 5 special Senate elections in Georgia. And in fact, the two GOP incumbents in the races, Sen. David Perdue (R) and Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R), are strongly embracing Trump's election conspiracy theories, going so far as to attack Georgia's Republican secretary of state.

But privately, Loeffler and Perdue say Trump is a double-edged sword, The Washington Post reports, citing a Nov. 10 phone call with donors and GOP operative Karl Rove, who is raising money for the joint election effort. Perdue said he and Loeffler need to turn out the Trump-GOP base again but also win over "people that may have voted for Biden but now may come back and vote for us because there was an anti-Trump vote in Georgia," the Post recounts. "And we think some of those people, particularly in the suburbs, may come back to us. And I'm hopeful of that."

In fact, Biden won Georgia thanks to huge gains in the Atlanta suburbs that offset a decline in the Black share of the electorate, Nate Cohn explains at The New York Times, noting that while Black turnout was up, it was overtaken by a larger spike in non-Black votes.

Link to tweet

?s=20

All four runoff candidates — Perdue, Loeffler, and Democrats Jon Ossoff and Rev. Rafael Warnock — "are seeking to nationalize the contests and focus their messaging on the impact that victories could have for each side," notably which party controls the Senate, the Post reports. "Perdue's delicate approach — standing with Trump, but also privately acknowledging that the president's time in power could be waning and that he carries possible political liabilities" — contrasted Ossoff's strategy, evident in a Biden-embracing ad he released Tuesday.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/georgia-republicans-privately-wonder-anti-125726975.html

[fearnobush]

1. All this talk of voter fraud and repugs attacking each other in Georga

Stand to drive down their own base Voter turnout .

[Glorfindel]

2. Well, one ray of hope concerning Loeffler, anyway

Georgia does NOT like female politicians. There has never been a female governor, lieutenant governor, or US senator elected in Georgia (Loeffler was appointed).

[PutGramaOnThePhone]

3. Interesting...

point. This gives me something to maybe hang a little hope on. I so much want Democratic victory in Georgia to neuter McTurtle. I don’t have high hopes though, given the chance of suburbanites being ok with going Republican for the Senate.

[moonscape]

4. Hopefully Abrams will break this streak n/t

[crickets]

7. Stacey Abrams only lost to Kemp because he cheated, in a race he controlled as SoS.

In a fair race, she would have won. Keisha Lance Bottoms is well liked overall as mayor of Atlanta. You make a good point, though. It's not that we don't elect women at all, it's that so far we haven't done so for the highest offices. I'd love to see that change, but not with Kelly Loeffler.

In Loeffler's case, I wish more people would point out that, unlike Warnock, she's not a native Georgian and has only lived in the state a comparatively short time. She would not be where she is if she hadn't been appointed. There are plenty of reasons other than her sex for Georgians to be wary of her given her husband is chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, and she was among those in Congress involved in COVID related insider trading charges. The reasons why charges were dropped against everyone but Sen. Richard Burr are suspect.

Frankly, I think if you are married to the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, your potential conflicts of interest should disqualify you before you even get out of the gate. Maybe that's just me.

I know Warnock is a principled man and not one to engage in mudslinging - and good for him - but if he could point out a few salient facts, that might go a long way.

[Cha]

5. KR, Rt, TY!

[klook]

6. What's really interesting is the increased Democratic turnout in several rural counties.

The Atlanta suburbs get a lot of credit in the press, but the maps in the NY Times piece referenced in the linked Tweet show a dramatic Blue shift from 2016-2020.

Cohn et al. point out that overall Black turnout as a percentage of the vote declined this time around, and sure, that's true, if only because the number of White voters from both major parties was dramatically higher as well (and there are more White voters than African-American or Latinx voters in Georgia). But if you look at the county-by-county results, there are several rural or semi-rural counties where Trump still won, but he won by less. A few hundred votes here, and a few hundred votes there, and pretty soon -- in an election this close -- those little counties suddenly are no longer inconsequential. And it's Black voters in those areas who made the difference, I'm almost certain.

The map published by USA Today (scroll to bottom of page to How counties shifted from 2016) shows 2016-to-2020 differences in every county in the United States. Lee County, in southwest Georgia, for example, voted for Biden at a rate over 8% higher than for Clinton. Catoosa County, in northwest Georgia, went for Biden at a more than 4% higher clip.

I think the statewide GOTV efforts by Stacey Abrams and others are responsible for these modest gains in counties with lower populations than the heavy hitters in metro Atlanta, and they deserve credit for contributing to Biden's 14,000-vote lead in Georgia.

[peggysue2]

8. I agree. Abrams is a phenom in Georgia.

She took a 400,000 vote suppression deficit and turned it into a 800,000 voter plus.

We have a lot of really good people working in Georgia, so I'm cautiously optimistic that we have a real shot in the January runoffs. Doesn't mean it will be a walk in the park. Republicans are desperate to save the Senate. But all this division within GOP ranks works to our advantage. A few hundred votes here and a few hundred there, all adds up in the end as you rightly said.

Have my fingers and toes crossed!