Close but Warnock still wins Wednesday
I booked +22k votes for Warnock on Wednesday’s early vote which is a closer margin (and %) than prior days but still a big win. Have Warnock +216k total. He won EV in the first round at +255k so he is getting close (with two days left) to matching his raw vote margin on what’s likely to be a final turnout number of just under 1.9mm, which would be more than 20% lower than the first round.
The EV is now at 33% black (vs 30% expected based on counts) and +10% D-R (vs 2% expected). In the general, EV finished at 29% black and D-R finished at +1%.
So what’s driving it? Well one way to skin the cat is to look at the 11 county ARC region and the rest of the state. Nearly identical raw turnout in those two regions relative to the early vote period. 45% overall and in ARC and 46% in the other 148 counties. But when you look at partisanship you see some interesting numbers.
In both the 11 and 148 counties, Democrats are turning out big numbers relative to the general election early vote - 54% in the ARC and interestingly enough 55% in the rest of the state. And believe it or not, it’s rural Dem turnout that’s driving that, not the smaller metros like Chatham or Bibb. Dems in Rabun and Towns Counties in NE Ga have voted 66% of their number. Similar numbers in ruby red Appling and Brantley Counties in SE Georgia. Good # in Richmond (Augusta) of 60%, but kind of bleh numbers in Chatham (Savannah) of 44%, Bibb (Macon) of 40%, Dougherty (Albany) of 47%. Of course, the Republican numbers are even more atrocious in those counties so not much to panic about there.
Could it be that the rare Democrats who live in Republican dominated counties are hearing endlessly from neighbors supporting a candidate that they find particularly distasteful and so are turbo charged to turn out to cancel out those votes? I think that’s a good possibility.
Now, let’s look at Republican turnout. In the 148 other counties it is 45% - essentially matching the overall turnout (non partisan turnout is way lower than both D/R). This is a 10 point disparity (remember Dems have returned 55% of their total in these counties). OK, so that’s ok if you’re a Republican. These places mostly didn’t have early vote over the weekend so they are catching up. You can spin that, maybe not into a win but into “not a disaster” territory.
Now let’s look at the 11 county ARC. The home of the Kemp-Warnock voter. The counties that were responsible on net for about 95% of the Republican primary vote difference between Kemp (running in a contested race against a former Senator) and Walker (running in a beauty pageant against a clown car of Republican jokers). Remember that Kemp actually got MORE votes in his contested race than Walker got in his coronation. And almost all of that difference came from the 11 county region.
So, in the ARC, Dems are also returning 54% of their strength from EV. Republicans are way, way, way down at 40%. Well below their rural turnout and creating a huge turnout differential. In fact, while Warnock lost the 148 counties by 18% in round one’s early vote and I predict right now he’d only lose by 12% (pretty respectable 6% swing on the margin), in the 11 county ARC he won by 37% and I would predict as of now that he’d win this time by 49% - a big 12% swing.
So there you have it. When the D/R return rates in places like Cobb are 54/43, or in Cherokee are 46/33 or in Forsyth are 57/45, it just becomes hard for Republicans to win because their base of support is still ultimately the Atlanta suburbs. As they’ve abandoned that base with candidates like Donald Trump, Kelly Loeffler and Karen Handel, they’ve lost. When they remember to cater to that group (like Brian Kemp did in the Gov race) they can still win.
Which category of candidate would you put Herschel Walker in? Enough said!