Response to Georgia's Runoff Election of 2021
by Anthony Arnold, Francine Dash
and Alexander Krohannon
Response from Anthony Arnold
I’ve had thoughts about three angles since it started to become clear that Democrats were likely going to pick up both seats in Georgia:
The first is that this means that Democrats have to deliver. Promises were made. And even when explicit promises weren’t made, Democrats have been comfortable promising an aggressive and transformative agenda. So now, is the time to ‘put up or shut up’.
Voters held up their end of the bargain, and now it’s time for the politicians to do the same. No, I don’t expect them to deliver everything. Politics is too complicated for that. But, there’s absolutely a reasonable expectation that they will try, and in some cases succeed.
The second is what this means for the Republicans. Over the last four years there’s been a narrative that President Trump is a force of nature. Where’s the proof for that? He won a big upset in 2016, it’s true. But, his party has been losing ever since.
Special elections. Midterms. Reelection. Georgia runoffs. A general brain drain from the party as intellectuals and establishment politicians have left. Is that all Trump’s fault?
Nope.
But, he’s been the President, the de facto leader of the party, and the person who’s brought this year's long reckoning down on their heads. Wherever Republicans go from here, they should remember that Trumpism is not nearly as powerful as they believe.
And lastly, the power of local surrogates and bold campaigning shows itself, again. I’m a broken record on this one, but there really isn’t a great reason for parties not to spend some money, find good surrogates, and dedicate themselves to truly challenging their opposition everywhere.
They have the money, and I’m pretty sure the talent is already out here. It’s not good enough to claim that a seat is ‘unwinnable’, or that they need to ‘focus resources’. Open the tap, let that money flow, and get out there and fight for every seat! Campaign on bold ideas!
It’s been a wild election season, with more twists and turns than a Shonda Rhimes show. So yeah, it’s fitting that here, at the end, 2020 has delivered one heckuva finale.
Response from Francine Dash
If a revolution begins with the vote, then certainly a revolution has begun. Once solidly a red state, Georgia has been pushed over into the blue column, due to the efforts of Stacey Abrams and others increasing their ground game and increasing voter turnout.
Because of those efforts, we are not sitting in the midst of a historic moment with the first black senator in the state of Georgia with Raphael Warnock; and the youngest senator with Jon Ossoff. This also changed the landscape in the Senate for Republicans, who were counting on a clean sweep of the remaining senate seats, and the presumption of continuous power in that chamber.
So what does this mean long-term?
I personally think it means two things: America wants the divisiveness to end and they want Republicans and Democrats to work together for the greater good of all of us; and Trump is a liability to the changing Republican party and perhaps even to our modern democracy.
It could be argued that the tradition of Georgia remaining red would have in fact been the case, if the rhetoric espoused by Trump and his allies around the ‘just-in-case-we-lose-the-White-House’ narrative wasn’t so pervasive and widespread. Even before the first votes were cast, some believed that Trump was reading the tea leaves and seeing that if he won, it would be very close or too close to call; and that in fact, there was a good change he would lose. With this in mind, the spin began.
‘If we lose, it will be because this election is rigged’ and ‘we won’t leave the White House without a fight’ resonated with the fringes, causing some to wonder, if the election is truly rigged as the President says, then why should I vote at all?
So here we are, at the precipice of what is sure to be an unprecedented turn from one president to the next, plus two more senate seats; and the undoubted tensions that will follow.
Response from Alexander Krohannon
What we saw in Georgia yesterday was a bit of an enthusiasm gap. Across the state, voters from every county voted significantly less in this runoff election than they did in the presidential election in November, about 62%.
However, this lack of enthusiasm wasn’t evenly distributed across the state.
Counties that went for Trump in 2020, averaged 57% the number of voters, while counties that went for Biden averaged 63%. While only a 6% difference between them, the distributions are statistically significantly different (p-value = 7.2 e^-5), indicating a significant enthusiasm gap between former Trump voters and former Biden voters.
There are a variety of possible reasons for: the results of the Presidential election, Trump’s mixed messages about the importance of this election, the Republican lead election boycott campaign, and the candidate’s aggressive rhetoric and positions, or some combination of the above. Regardless, both of these Senator results, as well as the Presidential result, will continue to make Georgia a must watch state-going forward.