This is it, folks. The last official race of the 2020 election season, and arguably one of the most important set of races. Voters in Georgia will be deciding which party controls the United States Senate in two runoff elections today, Jan. 5. Incumbent Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are facing off against Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, and the Democrats must win both races in order to win the Senate majority.
The 117th Congress was just sworn in two days ago on Jan. 3, with the Democrats maintaining control of the House of Representatives and (tentatively) with the Republicans controlling the Senate since, until the outcome of these runoffs are known, will be the majority party as they have more senators. Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), who is in today’s runoff, has lost his seat as his term expired on Jan. 3. Whether or not he returns to Congress will be determined by the outcome of these runoffs. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), an appointed senator, will retain her seat until the results of her runoff election, a special election, is known.
David Perdue’s Class II Senate seat, which had a regular election held on Nov. 3, is in a runoff because according to Georgia election law, should a candidate fail to win an outright majority of the vote-share on Election Day (Perdue only got 49.7 percent of the vote), the race must proceed into a runoff election, with only the top two vote-getters on the ballot. The candidate with the second-most votes is Democrat Jon Ossoff, an investigative journalist and who ran for, but lost, a congressional special election for the sixth district in 2017, got 47.8 percent of the vote in November, and will be on the ballot alongside Perdue. Perdue will be trying to retain his now-vacated Senate seat. Perdue has seen a number of scandals recently, most notably regarding insider trading in 2020. Whether or not this will affect his campaign remains to be seen.
Kelly Loeffler was appointed to her Senate seat by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) after former Sen. Johnny Isakson (R) resigned for health reasons. She is one of the wealthiest senators, and her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, is the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. She also has an insider trading scandal, and has positioned herself as a strong Trump loyalist, frequently touting her “100 percent Trump voting record.” (Political analysis website FiveThirtyEight, though, only gives her a 92.3 percent Trump voting record.)
In the November election, she, along with about 20 other candidates, faced off in a jungle primary. (Under Georgia election law, special elections do not have partisan primary elections. Instead, all candidates with interest in running regardless of their party appear on the same ballot, and if no candidate gets over 50 percent of the vote, the top two vote-getters proceed into a runoff election.) Loeffler got 25.9 percent of the vote in the jungle primary, compared to her eventual competition, Democrat Raphael Warnock, who got 32.9 percent of the vote.
Reverend Raphael Warnock, a Black man, is a senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. Despite being an evangelical Christian, he holds many progressive positions, such as pushing to expand Medicaid and being pro-choice regarding abortion and supportive of gay marriage.
Despite Perdue being more moderate than Loeffler, both hold staunchly conservative positions, such as being anti-choice regarding abortion, and both support President Trump’s claims about election fraud and support a GOP plan to vote to object to the certification of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, despite the plan being all but certain to fail. In a state which barely voted for President-Elect Joe Biden (he won by just 12,779 votes or 0.25 percent), though, this strategy of being loyal to Trump may not work, since the state rejected Trump. Both Perdue and Loeffler need more than just the Trump base to win.
Also, I would like to point out that the refusal to accept Joe Biden as the president brings about some problems for Perdue and Loeffler. Typically, one of the most powerful messages a candidate can use is to say they can act as a “check” against the president, an explanation as to why Republicans did so, so well in the 2010 and 2014 midterms despite voters backing Obama in 2012, and why Democrats were able to win so many seats in red districts in the 2018 midterms. However, if they do not accept Biden as the next president, they are unable to use this messaging. Instead, they have turned to say that Ossoff and Warnock are part of the “radical left” and would make America a socialist country if elected. Had the President not continued to push his baseless election-rigging conspiracy theories, Perdue and Loeffler would have had a much better message to push to voters.
As it currently stands, there are 50 Republican and 48 Democratic senators in Congress. For the Democrats to win the Senate majority, they must win both of the runoff seats in order to get to 50 seats, where Vice President Kamala Harris, the President of the Senate, will break the tie and give the majority to the Democrats. For the Republicans to maintain control in the Senate (and thus a branch of the government), they must win at least one seat.
The fact that these two races proceeded into a runoff is a clear indicator of just how close these two races are going to be. Typically, the GOP benefits from low turnout in runoff elections, but the nationalization of the two races coupled with the emphasis on the importance of these two races has helped to significantly drive up turnout, with the runoff already completely shattering, by far, previous records for turnout in a Georgia runoff election.
Prior to poll opening on Jan. 5, the U.S. Elections Project and Georgia Votes are reporting that 3,041,581 ballots have already been cast, which is equivalent to 39.3 percent turnout. This is slightly lower than the 3,936,215 ballots that were cast early in the November general election but is to be expected. This is because even though turnout in this runoff matched the numbers in November for most days, the holiday season around Christmas and New Years’ caused a reduction in the number of ballots cast.
Demographics, though, have really helped the Democrats in this election. As seen, Black voters constitute almost 31 percent of the vote share, which is an increase of 2.2 percent compared to the November general. Since Black voters break heavily for the Democratic Party, this is good news for the Democrats. The increase in the Black vote comes at the expense of White voters, whose vote share reduced from 56.5 percent in the general to 55.7 percent now, a small but significant difference in a race this close. Young voters and females, which typically lean Democrat, are also voting in large numbers.
Age-group voting is also quite interesting. Among the age groups with the highest turnout, the Baby Boomer group (56 to 65 and the 66 and up groups) have the highest turnout so far. The Baby Boomer group is typically the most conservative-leaning group, and they only constitute just over half of the vote-share. This means that the Democrats, which typically win early votes by large margins, are most probably ahead by quite a large margin, potentially enough to overcome the six-point rightward shift we saw on Election Day in November.
With demographics looking good for the Democrats, another good sign for the Democrats are their lead in the runoff polls. Despite polls being fairly inaccurate nationally in November, the FiveThirtyEight polling average, which had Biden leading by 1.2 percent in Georgia, was just less than one percent off the actual margin, well within the margin of error and a sign of accuracy in this state. In both runoff elections, Democrats lead: Ossoff by 1.8 percent, and Warnock by 2.1 percent. That is more than enough wiggle-room to overcome a similar shift and still win, if polls were as wrong as they were in the general election.
Also, the fact that undecided voters constitute a smaller percentage of the vote-share in the two aforementioned averages compared to the general election (where in the Biden-Trump race, there were 4.1 percent of undecideds, but in the two runoffs, there are only 3.5 and 3.4 percent of undecided voters respectively) is a good sign for the Democrats since undecided voters typically break for the GOP in reddish states like Georgia.
In most of the recent polls, both Democrats have been leading. Note that FiveThirtyEight adjusts polling averages based on how “wrong” pollsters typically were in the general election. SurveyUSA’s poll, a highly-rated A-grade pollster, which got the presidential election in Georgia within 1.5 points in November, is showing a strong lead for both Democrats, a good sign for them. National Research Inc.’s poll, a fairly highly-rated pollster, conducted a poll for a Republican super PAC (Political Action Committee), and even it showed Democrats leading by one point in both races (FiveThirtyEight then adjusted these numbers).
Even Trafalgar Group, a poorly-rated C- Republican partisan pollster which severely overestimates Republicans (they rated Trump, incorrectly, as the winners in their pre-election polls in a number of states), showed significant leads for the Democrats in their polls. Granted, a bad pollster is a bad pollster after all, and just because they strafe from their average does not mean we should trust them anymore. In addition, it could be a scare tactic to scare Republicans into voting more, but if the poll is correct, it could be a major positive for the Democrats.
Even the betting markets, which overestimated Republicans in Arizona and notably, Georgia, is betting that both Democrats will win the runoffs for the first time. This probably has, in part, to do with the recently-leaked tape of President Trump’s call with Georgia’s Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensperger asking him to “find” enough votes so he wins the state, describing certifying the general election for Biden as a “criminal offense.”
Voters in Georgia will definitely not appreciate this call, and it could have serious implications on this race. It is possible many Republican voters, who took Trump’s comments to heart and believe that the election was rigged (this is a debunked claim) may sit out this runoff, believing (falsely) that their vote wouldn’t count. Considering Joe Biden did win Georgia, the plurality of voters will probably not appreciate the president’s comments disregarding their votes. With Perdue slightly overperforming Trump’s margin in the state, even if just a small percentage of Biden-Perdue voters decided to vote for both Democrats in this runoff based on the recent developments, the GOP could be in trouble.
Also, Kelly Loeffler’s rhetoric as being a strong, true Trump loyalist may not play well with her in a state that voted for Joe Biden, since it is clear that the Trump strategy did not win in Georgia. Most voters who rejected Trump would probably not want a female version of Trump in the Senate, which explains why Loeffler has always trailed Perdue and also explains why a large percentage of the Republican vote in November went to the other main Republican in the race, Rep. Doug Collins.
Back to the betting markets, both races are, for the first time, showing a Democratic lead. A bet for Ossoff is at 52 cents a share, and a bet for Warnock is at 63 cents a share. Considering (typically) most people spend thousands of dollars on bets, most do put aside their political beliefs and bet on the candidate that they actually believe will win, which is one reason why we also look at the betting odds on PredictIt, the largest political betting website. For example, much as a person may want a Democrat to win in Wyoming, it won’t happen, so if a person was betting for that state, they would most likely bet Republican.
The fact that Ossoff is leading is quite significant as it is the first time ever (except for one day on Oct. 30) that he lead on the betting odds. It means that people are starting to see things fall away from the Republican Party, and are betting for the Democrats. Considering the betting odds’ rightward tilt, this could be another good sign for the Democrats.
Another thing to look at is Donald Trump’s nationwide popularity. His approval rating currently sits at 42.6 percent, a two percent decrease since Election Day, while his disapproval rating sits at 53.2 percent, a 0.8 percent increase since Election Day. Considering how closely Trump has tied himself with the two Republican candidates, even a small drop in nationwide approval could contribute to a decrease in votes for Perdue and Loeffler, which could be significant in a race this close.
The final thing to look at is fundraising. Obviously, fundraising does not directly correspond to winning in elections. Democratic challengers in many Senate races in 2020, most notably Jamie Harrison in South Carolina and Amy McGrath in Kentucky, raised (and spent) hundreds of millions of dollars, yet still lost by double-digits. From mid-October to mid-December, Ossoff hauled in $106.8 million and Warnock hauled in $103.4 million. That’s far more than the $68.1 million raised by Perdue and $64.0 million raised by Loeffler. The amount raised by Ossoff and Warnock is far more than any Senate candidate ever raised in a quarter, and it’s only two months!
Though spending by PACs shows that pro-Republican groups have spent $181 million on television ads compared to $63 million spent by pro-Democratic groups, because under law television stations are required to charge candidates the lowest rates, Democrats, despite spending less, have more coverage. Do note, though, fundraising is not the best indicator of how well a candidate does in an election.
It seems the stars have aligned themselves for the Democrats to carry the two elections. They needed Trump’s approval rating to drop. It did. They needed the polls to show them leading. They did. They needed betting markets to go for them. They did. They needed minorities to turn out in full force with the early vote. It happened. The Democrats now even have a scandal, which emerged just two days ahead of the election. It seems, despite this race being a tossup, the Democrats could just be slightly favored to win this race.
With the weather in Georgia looking good, albeit slightly cool, turnout is likely to be quite high today. It remains to be seen whether or not the Democrats’ leads in early voting will allow them to maintain a red wave of votes on Election Day, and just how much everything else factored into allowing them to take the victory.
Expect votes to take a few days to be counted, just like in the general election. And keep in mind that Republicans will typically do better in the first few reports after poll closing. Democrats typically catch up later as mail-in and early votes are counted.
This election will prove whether or not Georgia is a true battleground, or if November’s flip was just a fluke. It will also determine to what extent the Biden administration will be able to accomplish its agenda. A Republican Senate will likely block most of the Biden agenda just for political reasons. A trifecta will allow the Democrats to legislate (more) effectively, though it isn’t a guarantee since there is a large divide between, say, progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and conservative Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)
So much is at stake this election. If you’re a registered Peach State voter and still haven’t voted, today is your last chance to go out and vote. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern. Remember, in a race this close, every vote matters. Your vote could just be the deciding vote that hands one party the victory.
We’ll be back with an update after polls close and votes are being tallied up.
For more on the 2020 (to 2021) elections, check out our 2020 election coverage page. You can also see our previous post on the Georgia runoff elections.
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