A week from today, there will be two runoff elections in Georgia for its two Senate seats. One, the race between Senator David Perdue and Jon Ossoff will be for a full six-year term. The other, the race between Senator Kelly Loeffler and Reverend Raphael Warnock is for the last two years of former Senator John Isakson’s term.
Georgia, like many southern states, requires a primary run-off if no candidate wins a majority in the primary. However, Georgia is part of a very small set of states that requires a run-off if no candidate wins a majority in the general election (except for the selection of presidential electors). It also, like some other states (again mostly in the south), uses a so-called jungle primary for special elections in which all candidates from all parties run on the same ballot in the general election rather than having party primaries to pick candidates for the special election. Back in November, the Libertarian candidate did just well enough in the Perdue-Ossoff race to prevent anybody from getting a majority, and there were enough candidates running in both parties that nobody got over 35% of the vote with Warnock and Loeffler advancing to the runoff.
As the fact that it is primarily found in the South should indicate, runoff elections have a somewhat racist history in the U.S. While not the only reason for wanting a runoff, keeping power for the white political and economic establishment against reformers who might support an increased role for minorities (among other things) was a motivating factor.
Aside from its dubious history in American politics, the runoff has one key impact: the need for voters to show up a second time. There is a valid pro-democracy argument for ranked-choice or instant run-off voting — namely that there is something wrong with a candidate winning with 30% of the vote when the majority would prefer anybody but that candidate. But the traditional run-off does not protect the views of the majority in the initial election. Instead, traditional run-offs are often about who can get people back to the polls for the run-off. Back in 1992, you had around 2.2 million voting in the general election, but only 1.2 million in the run-off.
Given that the general election showed that the two parties are closely balanced with Republicans having maybe a 1% advantage, it is most likely that the results on January 5 will come down to turnout. As of the writing of this post, there have been around 2.1 million early votes/mail-in votes already cast in Georgia. There are still a couple of days left for people to cast in-person votes and mail-in votes can still be received up through January 5. Of course, as with the general election, if you have not mailed-in your vote yet, you probably should go to an early voting center instead. So we may end up with close to 3 million early/mail-in votes. By contrast, there were 4 million early/mail-in votes for the general election. (There were also 1 million in-person votes on election day. Realistically, particularly if the weather turns bad, there will probably be something less than 1 million in-person votes on January 5). In other words, the winning candidate will probably get fewer votes that Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Jon Ossoff, or David Perdue got on November 3.
But, based on the votes so far, we are probably going to have relatively high turnout for a run-off. But it still matter who shows up. And the hidden issue is whether any of the chaos that is the end of the era (error) of Trump will impact the result.
Right now, I am seeing three to five things that could motivate/depress turnout or swing just enough voters to make a difference. The first big thing is the defense authorization act. The Senate should be voting on whether to override the president’s veto. And Perdue and Loeffler are in a lose-lose situation. If they don’t vote, they aren’t doing their job. If the vote to override the veto, they are voting against Trump and potentially losing some of his supporters. If they vote to sustain the veto, they are voting against the military which is a key voting bloc in Georgia.
The second thing is the additional relief money. If Perdue and Loeffler are lucky, McConnell spikes the bill and never lets it come to a vote. That way Perdue and Loeffler can continue to ignore it. If it somehow does come to a vote, Perdue and Loeffler will again be in the position of either voting against Trump or voting for something that will potentially upset some traditional conservative voters who are against government spending and deficits.
The third thing is the fringe part of the Trump movement that has bought into the election fraud conspiracy theory and thinks that the Republican establishment in Georgia is part of it. I don’t think that this group is large, but if the election comes down to turnout, anything that results in a key segment boycotting the election could make a difference.
The fourth thing is what voters think about the Senate’s role in a Biden presidency. It is easy to both overstate and understate the significance of these two seats. On the one hand, just getting to fifty votes in the Senate is not enough to make major changes. Especially with some of the Senators in the Democratic caucus, the votes will not be there to pass any measure without some Republican support. But, having the nominal majority will mean that, for the most part, Biden will be able to fill positions in the government and nominate judges. It will also mean control of the agenda in the Senate. Committees will be holding hearings on Democratic bills and investigating matters of importance to Democrats. Bills that pass the House will have a chance to be heard on the floor of the Senate rather than being held by committee chairs or Mitch McConnell. And, if they can get to the floor, we can try to get enough Republican votes to pass some of these measures even if we do not get all of the provisions that we want. Fifty votes is control of the agenda, but it is not actually full control of the Senate. This election, however, is being played as being about control of the Senate. I think that probably hurts us a little in Georgia as we are still the minority party in Georgia. While Trump may be too much for just enough swing voters to have given us the state at the presidential election, that does not necessarily filter down to wanting the Republican stereotype of the Democratic agenda to be enacted.
Finally, there are the candidates themselves. While the number of people who are actually swing voters may be declining, there are still some swing voters left. In most elections, swing voters split close enough to even to not make a difference. But in a close race, just a tiny shift among swing voters can make a difference. Do Warnock’s dog ads make him seem normal enough for suburban white voters? How does the attempt to make Warnock’s sermons seem scary play with suburban white voters? (And why was it wrong to attack Justice Barrett for her religious views but acceptable to attack Reverend Warnock’s religious views?) What do voters think about the insider trading of Perdue and Loeffler? If somehow the turnout numbers heavily favor one side or the other, these questions might not matter. But, if the demographics of the runoff resemble the demographics of the general, these questions might make the difference.
By January 9 (if not sooner), we should have our answers. And those answers will tell us if Senator Turtle gets to block everything in the Senate for the next two years or if the battle will be a bill by bill struggle to get to 60.
