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Where do things stand in Georgia as we head into Election Day? First the TLDR version - through historic levels of turnout for a runoff election, with African-American voters leading the way, Dems can win both seats. But it will take one more day of high Dem turnout. Thread:
First, turnout by party. Using modeled partisanship, Dems improved upon their general election early vote share by 2.8 pts. In terms of raw votes, the Dem margin in modeled party is approx. 206k votes better than the general election (when Perdue ran 88k votes ahead of Ossoff).
How have Dems built an advantage in the early vote? Historic turnout from African-American voters. They increased their share of the early vote by 2.9 pts relative to the general election. White college voters increase by 0.1 pts. Meanwhile, white non-college turnout has lagged.
Of the 115k surge voters in GA (didn't vote in the general, early voted in the runoff), 40% are African American. Few groups have endured more severe voter suppression than Black voters in Georgia. Why? Winning in Nov. didn't erase that suppression but proved their votes matter.
It's important to note here that, while AAPI and Latino turnout is lagging incrementally behind their huge early vote shares from the general, they are still outperforming their turnout shares from every previous election in GA. Dems will need more of them to come out on Eday.
From a perspective of age, youth turnout has been up and down. It lags general election vote shares, but that's deceiving. African American, AAPI, and white college educated youth shares are up, while white non-college turnout lags badly. The younger Dem voters are showing up.
The bottom line is that Republicans find themselves in a deeper hole, headed into Election Day, than they dug for themselves in the general election. There are a few possible explanations. Only one explanation will give the GOP hope.
First, the GOP hasn't proven they can turn their voters out without Trump on the ballot. They lagged in turnout in the midterms and got swamped. That could be one reason GOP turnout hasn't kept up with Dems in the early vote.
Second, the GOP base could be depressed by the post-election hysterics from Trump. They've been told, repeatedly, that the GOP establishment isn't doing enough to save their President. A President who called this election "illegal and invalid". That's not great motivation.
Finally, the GOP has to hope that the reason they've trailed Dems so badly in the early vote is that more of their voters are simply shifting from early-in-person voting to Election Day voting. That's possible.
I'll stop here. These are going to be close elections, and the actions of Georgia voters tomorrow will be decisive.
