What Happens In Georgia Today?

 

David Perdue is stuck in a neck and neck race with a decidedly mediocre Democratic challenger who doesn't stand for much of anything. The RealClearPolitics polling average shows Perdue losing to Jon Ossoff 47.0% to 46.0% and the most recent poll-- last week by Emerson-- shows Trump leading Biden by 1 point (49-48%) and Ossoff leading Perdue by one point (47-46%).

Yesterday, Perdue, Trump loyalist to the end, tweeted on the fake glories of the Trump economy, seeming to forget that Obama saved the economy from the shambles the Bush Regime left it in and Trump inherited the result, which and his GOP allies immediately started to undercut with tax breaks for the multimillionaires and billionaires and a deficit that was wasted on unproductive bullshit and that won't be repaid for generations.

Like Perdue, you've probably heard Trump gaslighting about how he built the strongest economy in history. That's a patent lie-- even if you allow Trump to define "the economy" as the stock market. As Axios reported yesterday, both Obama (66.1% increase) and Bill Clinton's (62.1% increase)-- and even George HW Bush's 45.9% increase-- out-performed Trump's 44.5% increase. (Trump did better than George W. Bush, who tanked the market and left it 15.8% in the red.)

Georgia is the only state in the country with two Senate races, the regularly-scheduled Perdue reelection face-off with Ossoff and a special jungle election to fill the rest of retired Senator Johnny Isakson's term. Brian Kemp appointed one of his top campaign donors, Kelly Loeffler to the seat, and she's being challenged by neo-fascist Trumpster-fire Doug Collins. Democrats Ralph Warnock and faux Democrat Joe Lieberman's son are also on the ballot. If someone gets one vote over 50% they will serve until January, 2023. No one will get over 50% though.

All of the recent polling shows Warnock in the lead-- Quinnipiac with 41% last week, to Collins' 22%, Loeffler's 20% and Lieberman's 5%. A more recent poll by Emerson shows Warnock leading the pack with 37%, followed by Collins with 25%, Loeffler with 23% and Lieberman with 6%.

The Nation published a piece by John Nichols Monday morning about Lieberman's son, The Democrat Who Could Prevent Democrats From Winning a Georgia Senate Seat. He asserts that Biden, Ossoff and Warnock could all win today. I guess that would be dependent on how one defines "could." And they could... but the likelihood is minuscule. Biden and Ossoff each has a reasonable chance. Getting 50% in the jungle primary-- with the 2 Republicans combined outpolling him and outpolling him and Lieberman combined-- seems a bit of a stretch, unfortunately.

Nichols makes the case that Lieberman's son is a sack of dog shit who's just doing this as an ego-trip. Maybe he's doing it because the GOP is paying him to; I haven idea but either explanation seems reasonable, given who raised him.

It had been assumed that Warnock, the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, would end up in a runoff with one of two prominent Republicans who are running in the crowded special election contest (and thus splitting the Republican vote): appointed Senator Kelly Loeffler and Representative Doug Collins. But polls now show Warnock running almost as well as Ossoff. A just-released Public Policy Polling survey has the pastor of the church that was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s spiritual home at 46 percent, 19 points ahead of Loeffler. But recent polls have also have shown Lieberman, the son of former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman, continuing to pull as much as 4 percent of the vote while another Democrat, former federal prosecutor Ed Tarver, has been attracting 1 percent or perhaps a bit more.

There are fears that because of Lieberman’s name recognition, he could pull enough votes to prevent Warnock from winning outright on November 3, thus forcing him into a runoff with Loeffler or Collins.

Nah.