A Note to National Reporters Covering Georgia's Runoffs
It is sometimes easy to get trapped in narratives that national conventional wisdom echoes. Unfortunately, that sometimes means you miss local angles on elections that actually are meaningful.
One of those angles is being missed by national reporters as they focus on the tag team efforts between Loeffer-Perdue versus Warnock-Ossoff: Contrary to conventional wisdom, there are a lot of signs that voters are not voting straight party.
Consider, if you will, this brilliant precinct by precinct analysis by my friend Jake Walker. As Jake notes, Perdue outperformed Donald Trump with black voters and Jon Ossoff underperformed Joe Biden.
If you are a national reporter, you are going to miss this angle.
In south Georgia, black precincts that went for Biden also went for Perdue or narrowed significantly before swinging back to the Democrats in the Loeffler-Warnock 21 way race. Why?
Farmers.
A few years ago, Hurricane Michael devastated south Georgia and Agriculture Secretary and former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue swung into action with his cousin Senator David Perdue. As suicide rates started climbing in the farm community, the two men worked overtime securing disaster relief and other aid to the farm community.
The result is that black farmers in South Georgia have been voting Perdue disproportionate to the black vote in the rest of the state.
In the north metro Atlanta area, white voters do not care for Ossoff and in south Georgia, they are joined by black farmers.
In a close election, as this is expected to be, stuff like that matters.
This is why there is a growing belief here in Georgia the day before the election that Perdue has probably won and the Loeffler-Warnock race is too close to call.
This also explains why Jon Ossoff is now playing attack dog for Warnock. Ossoff would not be diverting from Perdue if he thought he could win because the race would otherwise be really close. But he can help Warnock who now has the highest negatives of any of the candidates.
Ossoff can’t save himself, but maybe he can help Warnock. That Ossoff is having to play attack dog in his tag team with Warnock also reinforces the idea that Warnock’s unfavorable rating has skyrocketed.
It really does appear that Perdue has enough black and Hispanic voters voting for him over farming and agriculture issues that Ossoff probably cannot pull it off. The real race and focus is now on Warnock and Loeffler.
The races are both tight, but if you follow the money and attacks around the state and notice what the black farming community in South Georgia is doing, the Republicans probably keep the Senate.
I really hope that you are right Erick!!
Once the dust settles, get that article written on why an R would challenge an incumbent R "knowing" it will trigger a runoff...this isn't the first time and won't be the last, but I'd love it if someone would sit down with Collins and say..."did you really have to do that?"