All Eyes on Georgia

Usually in tight presidential elections, the focus is on Florida.  More polls are taken there, more rallies are held there, more money is spent on advertisements there.  Rich with electoral votes and a highly split electorate, Florida can make or break the top race.  But Florida is shifting from purple to blue.  This is in part because the 2018 referendum added a Florida state constitutional amendment that restored voting rights to ex-felons.  This added 1.5 million people to the voter rolls, most of them Democratic.  [I was fortunate to be with a collection of communitarians in Tampa in 2018 working on this referendum.]

But 2020 is not a usual year, as you have no doubt noticed.  This year all eyes are going to be on Georgia, because it is quite likely to surprise most of the nation with an expensive senate race and may delay knowledge of which party controls the Senate until  2021.

They are going nuts in Georgia

If you are tracking the election closely, you know two of Biden’s top VP choices are from Georgia (more than any other state except California), Stacey Abrams and Keisha Bottoms.  If there were fairness in the world, it would go to Abrams, who was literally robbed of the Governorship of this state by Brian Kemp. Kemp as the Georgia secretary of state  purged the election roles of 670K voters, in 2017 mostly POC  and then won the election by 50K votes and became governor.  Abrams did not concede her “loss” and went on to start Fair Fight 2020 which works to stop voter suppression, just like this.

Georgia Powerhouses could be Vice President- Abrams and Bottoms

But sadly, apparently the Biden campaign has not been returning Abrams calls.

If you are a deep election geek (as i am becoming these days) you know that there are actually two Senate seats available in Georgia in this upcoming election. One seat is up for a regularly-scheduled election, while the other is up for special election due to a resignation.  Thus the term of the Senator who fills this special election seat will only be 2 years long, but it might just determine which party controls the US Senate.

But what you likely have not heard is that the special Georgia election is really a “top two primary” which unless one of the candidates acquires over 50% of the votes (which is quite unlikely given the crowded field)  it will spark a 2 candidate runoff election in  January of 2021 which might hold control of the US Senate in the balance.

A trip to the political future

Let me tell you a story, based on probabilities and guessing.

It is the day after the election, Nov 4th 2020 and most of the election results are in.  Biden has won both the popular vote and the electoral college by a comforting 65 points beyond the 270 needed.  It is unclear whether Trump will respect the win and at this point he has not yet conceded.  Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Joni Ernst were all able to hold onto their incumbencies for the Republicans, by tight margins.  Political novice Tommy Tuberville forced out Democratic incumbent Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama to raise the bar for flipping the Senate to 4 seats.

The Democrats did well in Colorado and North Carolina wrestling seats from incumbents.  And former Montana Governor Steve Bullock took the Republican seat from Steve Daines.  Georgia repeated its primary fiasco  and incumbent David Purdue eeked out a 1% victory over Democrat Ossoff, in an election mired in too few polling stations and the deeply suspicious purging of the voting roles of over 100K voters, mostly in the Atlanta metro region and thus disproportionately POC voters.

Savannah primaries 2020

And as it looks today (Nov 4th) the Democrats have picked up 3 Republican seat in the Senate, bringing the final tally to 49 Democratic Senators and 50 Republicans.  The 100th seat and the determination of which party controls the Senate is on the shoulders of the Georgia special election, which is actually a top two primary also known as a Nonpartican blanket Primary.  In this free for all fight, with candidates going after members of their own party as well as the opposing one, Rev Raphael Warnock lost to incumbent Republican Kelly Loeffler by 2 points, despite Loefflers insider trading scandal.

But Loeffler’s narrow lead does not matter.  What matters is that Loeffler and Warnock were the top two vote getters and thus will runoff against each other on January 5th 2021, which is two days after the new Senate is scheduled to be sworn in.

Challenger Rev Warnock versus unelected incumbent Loeffler

In this likely fantasy, the result of this critical tie breaking race will not be known for 2 months. after the general election  These two candidates, who most people have never heard (incumbent Loeffler was appointed just 5 months ago to finish the incomplete term of Johnny Isakson), will become the center of attention in a race which determines if Mitch McConnell can maintain legislative gridlock for two more years.

I am happy to be working on the Flip 2020 Campaign which is organizing covid compliant canvasses, that might even go to Georgia.  If you want to get involved, leave a comment below or email the Flip 2020 project.