fivethirtyeight--2020-12-30--What Democrats Can Learn From Nebraska’s Shift To The Right

Eight years ago , fresh off passing the Affordable Care Act , Democrats controlled the Senate .
And it was Ben Nelson , the two-term Democratic senator from Nebraska , who provided the final vote for President Obama ’ s signature health care bill .
But Nelson , who was hardly a reliable Democratic vote , decided not to run for office again , making him one of 18 Democratic senators who did not seek another term between 2010 and 2014 .
This proved a significant turning point in the Senate for Democrats , however , because half of these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In Nebraska , for instance , Democrats nominated Bob Kerrey , a former U.S. senator and Nebraska governor , who consistently had an approval rating upward of 70 percent when he governed the Cornhusker State .
But even though he was a high profile Democrat in the state , he lost by 16 percentage points to his opponent , a relatively unknown Republican state senator , Deb Fischer .
Kerrey did win the state ’ s two most populous counties , but not much else , which has now become an all too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ When that happened in 2012 , I said , ‘ Something ’ s changed , ’ ” said Chris Rodgers , a Douglas County commissioner .
Rodgers told me that Kerrey ’ s large margin of defeat made it clear that “ it ’ s just a whole lot harder ” for moderate and liberal candidates to win in Nebraska than it used to be .
In the three Senate races in Nebraska since 2012 , Democrats have lost by 30 points , on average ( or roughly double the margin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And in my new book “ Rural Rebellion : How Nebraska Became a Republican Stronghold , ” I unpack how this happened in Nebraska and why the state ’ s rightward shift underscores the difficulties Democrats face in gaining and maintaining a Senate majority — regardless of what happens in Georgia ’ s Senate runoff elections next Tuesday .
When I was born in David City , Nebraska , in 1989 , I entered a world where Nebraska straddled the middle of the political spectrum .
But since then , the state has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s hard to remember it was ever there .
Using DW-NOMINATE data from the congressional vote tallying website Voteview , we can see just how far Nebraska ’ s political representatives have drifted rightward in the last thirty years .
As you can see in the chart below , the average ideology score of Nebraska ’ s U.S. representatives and senators , as measured by DW-NOMINATE ’ s first dimension , shifted more than half a point between 1990 and 2020 .
Put in today ’ s terms , in 1990 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in ideology to outgoing Democratic Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama , a moderate ; whereas today she would more closely resemble Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn , who isn ’ t the most conservative Republican in Congress ( that ’ s Sen. Mike Lee ) , but still drifts pretty far to the right on the ideological spectrum .
As FiveThirtyEight contributor Lee Drutman wrote earlier this year , the Electoral College has always favored smaller states like Nebraska .
But it is only somewhat recently that these states have heavily favored Republicans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because it ’ s reflective of a broader , national trend in lower population states that has created an imbalance in the Senate .
We can see this in FiveThirtyEight ’ s urbanization index , which captures how urban or rural an area is by calculating the natural logarithm of the average number of people living within a five-mile radius of another resident .
Nebraska is less densely populated than the average state and is one of the 25 states ( all on the right side of the table ) that only accounts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ population , yet will provide 40 Republican senators and just eight Democratic senators ( and two independent senators who caucus with Democrats ) in the upcoming congressional session .
Simply put , this increasingly firm grip Republicans have over less populated states doesn ’ t bode well for Democrats trying to win back the Senate .
That ’ s because in many statewide elections , running up the margins in the cities isn ’ t enough to win .
For instance , even though Nebraska ’ s two most populous cities , Omaha @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and lean left compared to the rest of the state , Republican power remains entrenched in the state .
Take the 2018 reelection bids of Gov .
Pete Ricketts and Fischer , who both lost Douglas County and Lancaster County but still won their races by double-digit margins .
Similarly , Trump lost Nebraska ’ s two most populous counties in November , but he still won the state ’ s other 91 counties , putting him well on his way to winning about 60 percent of the state ’ s total vote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Nebraska because voter turnout is highest in rural areas , which also have a higher median age and strongly lean Republican .
So what ’ s driving Nebraska ’ s ( and other states ’ ) rightward shift ?
In part , it has to do with the nationalization of American politics .
Since the 1990s , Democratic voters have moved to the left on issues such as health care and immigration , while Republicans have become more likely to identify as conservative as their moderate candidates have dwindled .
And in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made it more difficult for local candidates to successfully create their own platforms .
For example , as governor and senator , Nelson often broke from his own party in an attempt to attract conservative voters , taking stances like advocating for a “ hard barrier ” to prevent illegal immigration or supporting various anti-abortion measures .
But the days of candidates creating their own platforms are largely over , and the share of registered Democratic voters in Nebraska has also dropped .
The effect of nationalization in Nebraska is evident in how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like immigration and education to better align with the national Republican Party ’ s agenda .
Take how far to the right Nebraskan politicians have moved on immigration .
In the late 1990s , former Republican Gov .
Mike Johanns opposed a raid on meatpacking plants in Nebraska by Immigration and Naturalization Services , and in 2003 , former Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel cosponsored the DREAM Act , which sought to provide a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who entered the U.S. as minors .
But Nebraska ’ s current governor , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prevent “ Dreamers ” from obtaining driver ’ s licenses , and the state attorney general has gone as far as to sue the federal government to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program .
This trend extends to lower levels of government , too , like the state legislature and city councils .
Republican state lawmakers have also tried to eliminate prenatal care and repeal in-state tuition for immigrants , while giving local police the power to question the immigration status of anyone they suspect of living in the country illegally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ordinances that formally ban undocumented immigrants from renting property .
All this is happening in a state that , until recently , settled a high number of refugees .
Meanwhile , on the education front , Republican lawmakers have leaned into national Republicans ’ growing aversion toward public education , trying to eliminate Nebraska ’ s democratically elected board of education , while perpetual tax cuts and exemptions have led to two-thirds of Nebraska ’ s school districts receiving no general financial assistance from the state , which has contributed to public schools @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inequitable [ state aid ] distribution in the nation , ” according to a nationwide study by the think tank , The Rural School and Community Trust .
This is all in a state where Republicans once implemented income and sales taxes to increase K-12 schools ’ funding , among a host of other progressive legislation .
But lest one think the effects of nationalization have completely remade states like Nebraska , many Nebraskans disagree with the GOP ’ s positions .
Through ballot initiatives , for instance , Nebraska voters have approved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and casino gambling , even though Republicans officials , who continue to cruise to statewide victories , have opposed these measures .
It might seem paradoxical that Nebraskans , especially those in rural areas , identify with and vote for Republicans despite the opposition of GOP officials on some popular issues .
But because local politics have become so nationalized , the Nebraska Republican Party ( and the state Democratic Party for that matter ) is apt to follow the national party ’ s lead , even if it puts them at odds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ask people to vote for things that might be in their own interest , and you explain the issue to them in one paragraph on the ballot , they will vote for the thing that is good for them , ” said Ari Kohen , a professor of political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln .
“ But you can ’ t ask them to give up their party affiliation.
” People are reluctant to switch parties , but they can be swayed to change their mind about a specific cause , particularly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a partisan context .
State Sen. Tony Vargas , a Democrat in Omaha , told me that he thought Medicaid expansion passed — even though Nelson encountered a brouhaha over a similar issue just eight years prior— because it wasn ’ t tied to a particular politician or party .
“ If our ballot said ‘ expanding Obamacare , ’ I feel like people would have voted against it , ” Vargas said .
“ Instead , we said ‘ expanding Medicaid and addressing the gap.
’ … It ’ s a lot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s much easier to attack the person.
” Nebraka ’ s ballot measure successes provide some hope for Democrats who feel handcuffed in passing legislation in conservative states .
But ballot measures aren ’ t a replacement for putting your preferred party in office .
And if Democrats are to ever regain a filibuster-proof coalition in the Senate , they ’ ll probably need to pick up more candidates like Nelson in low-density states .

Eight years ago, fresh off passing the Affordable Care Act, Democrats controlled the Senate. And it was Ben Nelson, the two-term Democratic senator from Nebraska, who provided the final vote for President Obama’s signature health care bill. But Nelson, who was hardly a reliable Democratic vote, decided not to run for office again, making him one of 18 Democratic senators who did not seek another term between 2010 and 2014. This proved a significant turning point in the Senate for Democrats, however, because half of these seats would be filled by Republicans.
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In Nebraska, for instance, Democrats nominated Bob Kerrey, a former U.S. senator and Nebraska governor, who consistently had an approval rating upward of 70 percent when he governed the Cornhusker State. But even though he was a high profile Democrat in the state, he lost by 16 percentage points to his opponent, a relatively unknown Republican state senator, Deb Fischer. Kerrey did win the state’s two most populous counties, but not much else, which has now become an all too familiar pattern for Democrats running in Nebraska.
“When that happened in 2012, I said, ‘Something’s changed,’” said Chris Rodgers, a Douglas County commissioner. Rodgers told me that Kerrey’s large margin of defeat made it clear that “it’s just a whole lot harder” for moderate and liberal candidates to win in Nebraska than it used to be.
[Why A Split Verdict In Georgia Isn’t That Crazy]
In the three Senate races in Nebraska since 2012, Democrats have lost by 30 points, on average (or roughly double the margin of Kerrey’s defeat). And in my new book “Rural Rebellion: How Nebraska Became a Republican Stronghold,” I unpack how this happened in Nebraska and why the state’s rightward shift underscores the difficulties Democrats face in gaining and maintaining a Senate majority — regardless of what happens in Georgia’s Senate runoff elections next Tuesday.
When I was born in David City, Nebraska, in 1989, I entered a world where Nebraska straddled the middle of the political spectrum. But since then, the state has drifted so far from the center it’s hard to remember it was ever there. Using DW-NOMINATE data from the congressional vote tallying website Voteview, we can see just how far Nebraska’s political representatives have drifted rightward in the last thirty years. As you can see in the chart below, the average ideology score of Nebraska’s U.S. representatives and senators, as measured by DW-NOMINATE’s first dimension, shifted more than half a point between 1990 and 2020. Put in today’s terms, in 1990, the average Nebraskan in Congress was similar in ideology to outgoing Democratic Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama, a moderate; whereas today she would more closely resemble Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who isn’t the most conservative Republican in Congress (that’s Sen. Mike Lee), but still drifts pretty far to the right on the ideological spectrum.
As FiveThirtyEight contributor Lee Drutman wrote earlier this year, the Electoral College has always favored smaller states like Nebraska. But it is only somewhat recently that these states have heavily favored Republicans.
Nebraska’s rightward shift matters because it’s reflective of a broader, national trend in lower population states that has created an imbalance in the Senate. We can see this in FiveThirtyEight’s urbanization index, which captures how urban or rural an area is by calculating the natural logarithm of the average number of people living within a five-mile radius of another resident. Nebraska is less densely populated than the average state and is one of the 25 states (all on the right side of the table) that only accounts for about a quarter of the U.S. population, yet will provide 40 Republican senators and just eight Democratic senators (and two independent senators who caucus with Democrats) in the upcoming congressional session.
How urban or rural is your state? FiveThirtyEight’s partisan lean and urbanization index for each state State Partisan Lean Urbanization Index State Partisan Lean Urbanization Index New York D+22 12.56 North Carolina R+5 10.32 New Jersey D+13 12.24 Missouri R+19 10.20 California D+24 12.19 Nebraska R+24 10.20 Massachusetts D+29 11.84 Tennessee R+28 10.20 Nevada R+1 11.77 Wisconsin R+1 10.19 Rhode Island D+26 11.72 Louisiana R+17 10.18 Maryland D+23 11.71 Kansas R+23 10.12 Illinois D+13 11.62 South Carolina R+17 10.11 Florida R+5 11.46 Oklahoma R+34 9.94 Connecticut D+11 11.41 New Hampshire R+2 9.92 Arizona R+9 11.30 New Mexico D+7 9.90 Texas R+17 11.17 Kentucky R+23 9.79 Colorado D+1 11.15 Alabama R+27 9.61 Pennsylvania R+1 11.15 Idaho R+35 9.59 Washington D+12 11.12 Iowa R+6 9.59 Hawaii D+36 11.09 Arkansas R+24 9.26 Delaware D+14 11.01 West Virginia R+30 9.11 Utah R+31 10.96 North Dakota R+33 9.05 Virginia EVEN 10.91 Maine D+5 9.04 Ohio R+7 10.88 Mississippi R+15 8.91 Michigan D+1 10.81 Vermont D+24 8.84 Oregon D+9 10.71 Alaska R+15 8.74 Georgia R+12 10.55 South Dakota R+31 8.73 Minnesota D+2 10.46 Montana R+18 8.47 Indiana R+18 10.41 Wyoming R+47 8.26 Partisan lean is the average difference between how a state votes and how the country votes overall, with 2016 presidential election results weighted at 50 percent, 2012 presidential election results weighted at 25 percent and results from elections for the state legislature weighted at 25 percent. Note that FiveThirtyEight’s current partisan leans do not yet incorporate the results of the 2018 election. FiveThirtyEight’s urbanization index is calculated as the natural logarithm of the average number of people living within a five-mile radius of a given resident. Source: American Community Survey
Simply put, this increasingly firm grip Republicans have over less populated states doesn’t bode well for Democrats trying to win back the Senate. That’s because in many statewide elections, running up the margins in the cities isn’t enough to win. For instance, even though Nebraska’s two most populous cities, Omaha and Lincoln, are gaining in population and lean left compared to the rest of the state, Republican power remains entrenched in the state. Take the 2018 reelection bids of Gov. Pete Ricketts and Fischer, who both lost Douglas County and Lancaster County but still won their races by double-digit margins. Similarly, Trump lost Nebraska’s two most populous counties in November, but he still won the state’s other 91 counties, putting him well on his way to winning about 60 percent of the state’s total vote. In fact, Republicans routinely win in Nebraska because voter turnout is highest in rural areas, which also have a higher median age and strongly lean Republican.
So what’s driving Nebraska’s (and other states’) rightward shift? In part, it has to do with the nationalization of American politics. Since the 1990s, Democratic voters have moved to the left on issues such as health care and immigration, while Republicans have become more likely to identify as conservative as their moderate candidates have dwindled. And in turn, this nationalization and polarization has made it more difficult for local candidates to successfully create their own platforms. For example, as governor and senator, Nelson often broke from his own party in an attempt to attract conservative voters, taking stances like advocating for a “hard barrier” to prevent illegal immigration or supporting various anti-abortion measures. But the days of candidates creating their own platforms are largely over, and the share of registered Democratic voters in Nebraska has also dropped.
[Why Many Pollsters Are Sitting Out The Georgia Runoffs]
The effect of nationalization in Nebraska is evident in how politicians have changed their approaches on issues like immigration and education to better align with the national Republican Party’s agenda. Take how far to the right Nebraskan politicians have moved on immigration. In the late 1990s, former Republican Gov. Mike Johanns opposed a raid on meatpacking plants in Nebraska by Immigration and Naturalization Services, and in 2003, former Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel cosponsored the DREAM Act, which sought to provide a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who entered the U.S. as minors. But Nebraska’s current governor, Pete Ricketts, has bitterly fought to prevent “Dreamers” from obtaining driver’s licenses, and the state attorney general has gone as far as to sue the federal government to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
This trend extends to lower levels of government, too, like the state legislature and city councils. Republican state lawmakers have also tried to eliminate prenatal care and repeal in-state tuition for immigrants, while giving local police the power to question the immigration status of anyone they suspect of living in the country illegally. A few towns have even passed ordinances that formally ban undocumented immigrants from renting property. All this is happening in a state that, until recently, settled a high number of refugees.
Meanwhile, on the education front, Republican lawmakers have leaned into national Republicans’ growing aversion toward public education, trying to eliminate Nebraska’s democratically elected board of education, while perpetual tax cuts and exemptions have led to two-thirds of Nebraska’s school districts receiving no general financial assistance from the state, which has contributed to public schools in rural Nebraska having “the most inequitable [state aid] distribution in the nation,” according to a nationwide study by the think tank, The Rural School and Community Trust. This is all in a state where Republicans once implemented income and sales taxes to increase K-12 schools’ funding, among a host of other progressive legislation.
But lest one think the effects of nationalization have completely remade states like Nebraska, many Nebraskans disagree with the GOP’s positions. Through ballot initiatives, for instance, Nebraska voters have approved a higher minimum wage, Medicaid expansion and casino gambling, even though Republicans officials, who continue to cruise to statewide victories, have opposed these measures.
It might seem paradoxical that Nebraskans, especially those in rural areas, identify with and vote for Republicans despite the opposition of GOP officials on some popular issues. But because local politics have become so nationalized, the Nebraska Republican Party (and the state Democratic Party for that matter) is apt to follow the national party’s lead, even if it puts them at odds with local voters.
“If you ask people to vote for things that might be in their own interest, and you explain the issue to them in one paragraph on the ballot, they will vote for the thing that is good for them,” said Ari Kohen, a professor of political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “But you can’t ask them to give up their party affiliation.”
People are reluctant to switch parties, but they can be swayed to change their mind about a specific cause, particularly when an issue is presented outside of a partisan context. State Sen. Tony Vargas, a Democrat in Omaha, told me that he thought Medicaid expansion passed — even though Nelson encountered a brouhaha over a similar issue just eight years prior— because it wasn’t tied to a particular politician or party. “If our ballot said ‘expanding Obamacare,’ I feel like people would have voted against it,” Vargas said. “Instead, we said ‘expanding Medicaid and addressing the gap.’ … It’s a lot harder to attack the issue. It’s much easier to attack the person.”
Nebraka’s ballot measure successes provide some hope for Democrats who feel handcuffed in passing legislation in conservative states. But ballot measures aren’t a replacement for putting your preferred party in office. And if Democrats are to ever regain a filibuster-proof coalition in the Senate, they’ll probably need to pick up more candidates like Nelson in low-density states.
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fivethirtyeight--2020-12-30--Why A Split Verdict In Georgia Isn’t That Crazy

Even with many prestigious pollsters sitting the Georgia runoffs out , there have been plenty of polls of the two U.S. Senate runoffs and they continue to show an exceptionally close race .
As of Tuesday afternoon , Democrat Raphael Warnock had a nominal lead of 0.5 percentage points over Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler in the special Senate election , while Republican Sen. David Perdue had an equally slim 0.4-point lead over Democrat Jon Ossoff in the regular Senate election .
We aren ’ t planning to make probabilistic forecasts in Georgia , but it ’ s safe to say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the runoffs would put each race at about 50:50 .
What about indicators apart from the polls ?
While we could go through the various “ fundamentals ” that our congressional model considers , such as fundraising , incumbency , and state partisanship , perhaps an easier jumping-off point is simply to start with the results on Nov. 3 , since it ’ s likely that the vast majority of voters will choose the same candidate again if they can .
We ’ ll then consider what factors may have changed between November @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or which candidate people pick .
In the regular election in November , Perdue won a 49.7 percent plurality of the vote compared to 47.9 percent for Ossoff — that is , a difference of about 2 points .
Most of the remaining votes went to the Libertarian candidate , Shane Hazel .
Who picks up that 2 percent could make a big difference , too , if the margins are razor-thin on Jan. 5 .
Ordinarily , you ’ d think that a Libertarian candidate ’ s votes would consist of mostly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toward the Republican candidate in a two-way race .
On the other hand , since Perdue is an incumbent , Hazel ’ s votes might be considered more of an “ anti-incumbent ” vote , which would then favor Ossoff .
The AP Votecast exit poll of Georgia voters — although its sample size of Hazel voters was small — found that Hazel drew support from 2 percent of moderate voters as compared to 1 percent of liberal voters and 1 percent of conservative voters , suggesting they might be more middle-of-the-road voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s worth keeping in mind that Perdue won more votes than Ossoff on Nov. 3 and also that Ossoff slightly underperformed Joe Biden .
The exit polls do not provide any particularly strong evidence about which sorts of voters backed Biden but not Ossoff — trust me , I ’ ve looked — although one intriguing clue is that Ossoff won the votes of 15 percent of voters who thought the economy was good or excellent as compared to 19 percent for Biden , a relatively wide gap .
Perhaps some Biden-Perdue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were relatively happy with the status quo and their personal circumstances but disapproved of President Trump ’ s personal conduct and voted for Biden for that reason .
Benchmarking the special election result is more complicated because of the presence of multiple Democratic and Republican candidates on the ballot in November .
One method I ’ ve seen elsewhere is to add up the vote totals for all Democratic and Republican candidates on the ballot .
If you do that , the Republicans won 47,808 more votes than Democrats in November , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ However , this is not necessarily ideal .
The research I did for our congressional model , based on an analysis of past elections with runoffs , found that while the “ total party ” vote that I described above is indeed a good metric for forecasting runoff results , the margin separating the top two candidates also has predictive power .
It ’ s relevant , in other words , that Warnock finished ahead of Loeffler by 7 points .
Based on the formula we use in our model , this implies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two-way race on Nov. 3 by about 1.5 points .
Does it really make sense , though , that Loeffler would have narrowly lost a two-way race on Election Day when Perdue would narrowly have won his ?
Well , maybe .
Perdue is an elected incumbent whereas Loeffler is not — she was appointed to her seat to replace now-retired Sen. Johnny Isakson — and elected incumbents generally perform stronger than appointed ones .
Furthermore , Loeffler , in an effort to outflank fellow Rep. Doug Collins , the other leading Republican @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as extremely conservative , running an ad that called her “ more conservative than Attila the Hun ” and bragging about her “ 100 percent Trump voting record.
” ( Loeffler had , indeed , voted with Trump 100 percent of the time until recently , although she broke ranks with him in voting to approve the National Defense Authorization Act . )
But while this may have been good messaging to finish ahead of Collins , it ’ s not necessarily the best way to win over suburban voters , who helped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s also possible that at least some voters were voting tactically in the special election .
A moderate voter who preferred Warnock to Collins but Collins to Loeffler might have chosen to use her vote for Collins on Nov. 3 , figuring based on pre-election polls that Warnock was nearly certain to advance to the runoff and didn ’ t need her vote .
Or — who knows ?
— some Democrats who assumed Warnock was a shoo-in to reach the runoff could have voted for whichever Republican they thought would be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ runoff .
I ’ m not saying there are necessarily large numbers of voters in these categories .
But there may be some of them .
And indeed , polls of the runoffs show Perdue outperforming Loeffler by about 1 point on average .
So a split verdict is possible — although probably only if both elections are extremely close — with the Loeffler race likely being the easier of the two for Democrats to win .
With those benchmarks — ambiguous though they are — established , the other big question is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ November .
We ’ ll break this into two categories : ( 1 ) What could cause a shift in turnout ; and ( 2 ) what could actually cause people to switch their votes .
How turnout could be different than in November I ’ m not going to go into too much detail here because it ’ s been covered extensively at FiveThirtyEight and elsewhere , but most people ’ s priors entering the runoff — including mine — were that Republicans were more likely to gain ground than lose it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the runoff .
That was for some relatively simple reasons .
First , Republicans have historically gained ground in Georgia runoffs .
Second , the opposition party usually has an enthusiasm advantage , and with Biden having been elected and Democrats having ( narrowly ) retained control of the U.S. House , Republicans are arguably the opposition party .
( Although this is a big assumption that we ’ ll scrutinize below . )
Third , Georgia — even after Biden ’ s win this year — is still slightly to the right @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keep in mind that Biden won the national popular vote by 4.5 points but Georgia by only 0.2 points ) so a neutral political environment there might favor Republicans .
At the very least , it ’ s not clear that any of these are rock-solid reasons to assume turnout will help Republicans .
Precedent about past runoffs is not necessarily that informative considering Georgia has changed a lot since most of those previous runoffs were conducted — particularly in affluent , more diverse suburban counties , which have moved strongly toward Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ retain more of their turnout in runoffs , and if they do so again , that could help Democrats rather than Republicans .
Next , although Republicans will become the opposition party on Jan. 20 , Trump isn ’ t behaving like a typical lame duck , to say the least .
Instead , he remains omnipresent , both with his bullshit claims about election fraud and with what ’ s been an active legislative period in which Trump has already vetoed one major bill and also threatened to veto a COVID-19 stimulus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there ’ s been plenty of debate over whether a meaningful number of Republican voters will actually follow through on calls to boycott the election , Trump ’ s refusal to concede could also have other , more subtle effects .
For instance , it could keep Democrats feeling anxious rather than savoring their victory — and anxiety is generally a good way to raise voter turnout .
Additionally , the fact that Democrats will control the White House for the next four years may not be as front of mind for independents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ divided government .
Finally , although Georgia might still lean red in a neutral political environment — if you want a more precise definition , think of that as an environment where neither candidate leads on the generic congressional ballot — it ’ s not clear that we ’ re in such an environment now .
Rather , it may be that we haven ’ t yet exited from the November environment , which though a bit disappointing for Democrats was nonetheless somewhat blue-leaning .
Unfortunately , there have hardly been any polls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s worth noting , though , that Trump ’ s approval rating has actually slipped a bit since the election .
On Nov. 3 , polls of registered and likely voters showed Trump at a -6.9 net approval rating ( 45.2 percent approve and 52.1 percent disapprove ) ; that had worsened to -9.2 as of Tuesday afternoon ( 43.3 percent approve and 52.5 percent disapprove ) .
While not a huge shift , this is the opposite of what typically happens in the lame-duck period .
Even unpopular presidents such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ improvement to their approval rating as they are preparing to leave office .
Democrats also have one ace in the hole when it comes to turnout .
Biden won in November even though the Black vote wasn ’ t especially high as a share of turnout in Georgia ; in fact , the share of Black voters declined slightly , relative to past elections .
( It ’ s important to keep in mind that Black turnout was still very high overall in November , but it was also very high — or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) So although there are many reasons to be cautious about early voting data , it ’ s at least intriguing that Black voter turnout represents a larger share of the electorate so far than it did at a comparable point in the November election : That certainly doesn ’ t mean that Democrats are guaranteed a turnout edge or anything like that ; Republicans could easily overcome any Democratic advantage from the early vote with a big turnout on Jan. 5 .
But I ’ d put it like this : If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and signals that might portend a Democratic victory for both seats , one of the items on that list would be growth in Black voter turnout in the early voting period .
It ’ s nowhere near a sufficient condition , but it might be a necessary one , and it seems to be falling into place for Democrats .
Another question is what happens to Republican turnout when Trump himself isn ’ t on the ballot .
Trump has campaigned on behalf of Loeffler and Perdue in Georgia , but his message @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unfocused ( though he ’ s scheduled to visit again next week ) .
Another reason to have started out believing that Republicans would gain ground in the runoffs is because voters typically have some preference for divided government — not necessarily when they ’ re asked about it in polls but based on how they behave in midterm elections .
On average , the president ’ s party suffers about a 5-point penalty at the midterms , according to research we ’ ve conducted for our congressional model .
And it can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ party also controls both branches of Congress , as in 2010 and 2018 .
Again , though , that assumes that voters will be thinking about who will control the government on Jan. 20 .
And they may not be doing that , given how active and atypical the lame-duck period has been with Trump refusing to concede .
The chaotic debate over the stimulus package for the past few weeks has also not been the best advertisement for divided government .
Another question then is : What happens to the handful of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans who were voting for Biden as a repudiation of Trump but are not necessarily on board with the Democratic Party ’ s agenda , they may be fairly thrilled with how the election went down in November and will vote for Perdue again to preserve divided government .
But if they were voting for Perdue because he was an incumbent — elected incumbents do retain some loyalty from voters , although less so than in previous eras — they could , in theory , vote for Ossoff now that they know control @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This is a data point I ’ d approach with a lot of caution , but it ’ s worth noting that the Edison Research exit poll of Georgia , which has been recalibrated to match the actual results in the state , found that a tiny 49-48 plurality of Georgia voters preferred Democratic control of Congress in the November electorate .
And in the special election , there ’ s also the question of what voters who voted for candidates other than Warnock or Loeffler — more than 40 percent of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Loeffler is that her positioning herself to the extreme right in the November election will turn some of them off .
Although Collins has a conservative voting record in Congress , his voters were actually somewhat more moderate than Loeffler ’ s in November .
If a handful of them drift over to Warnock , that could be a problem for Loeffler — likewise , if some of them simply sit out the runoff .
Loeffler ’ s ideological positioning for the runoff has been more opaque than for the November election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bragging about her 100 percent Trump voting record and — along with Perdue — signed a letter calling on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to resign as the state ’ s results were being finalized .
Meanwhile , Warnock made it through the November election relatively unscathed , since he had emerged as the clear Democratic front-runner by mid-September while Loeffler and Collins were training their fire on one another .
He has since , though , been subject to a series of attacks about past comments he made as a preacher @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In other words , Warnock is not likely to maintain the strong favorability ratings he had in November when he wasn ’ t subject to as much incoming fire .
On the other side of the coin , though , both Perdue and Loeffler have been subject to renewed scrutiny about stock trades they made while in office , although it ’ s not clear how much new information has been revealed since November .
For what it ’ s worth , this is one of those times when I changed my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ article .
I assumed I ’ d come out of it saying something like , “ Sure , polls show a toss-up and it ’ s anybody ’ s race , but we all know that the Republicans are slight favorites.
” As RealClearPolitics ’ s Sean Trende wrote last month , however , I ’ m not really so sure there ’ s a solid basis for that conclusion .
This is a fairly sui generis election and it ’ s not clear what “ fundamentals ” would apply , especially in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ duck but not at all acting like one , and his approval ratings are actually worse than they were on Nov. 3 .
Nor is this the strongest batch of candidates ; three of the four candidates ( all but Perdue ) have never won an election before .
If you default to the November results , those would imply that Perdue is the slight favorite , but I don ’ t think that ’ s true of Loeffler .
That doesn ’ t mean I think the Democrats are favored , either @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are as close to a toss-up as you can get , and at FiveThirtyEight we ’ d generally need a good reason to buck the polls .
While the question of whether polls have a built-in bias against Republicans — or for that matter , whether they have a short-term bias that applies during COVID-19 — is something we ’ ll need to sort out before the 2022 midterms , the polls were fairly accurate in Georgia in November and the pollsters who have ventured in to poll the runoffs are a fairly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ race is close enough that the possibility of a split verdict — most likely with Perdue winning but not Loeffler — may be higher than most people assume .

Even with many prestigious pollsters sitting the Georgia runoffs out, there have been plenty of polls of the two U.S. Senate runoffs and they continue to show an exceptionally close race. As of Tuesday afternoon, Democrat Raphael Warnock had a nominal lead of 0.5 percentage points over Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler in the special Senate election, while Republican Sen. David Perdue had an equally slim 0.4-point lead over Democrat Jon Ossoff in the regular Senate election. We aren’t planning to make probabilistic forecasts in Georgia, but it’s safe to say that a “polls-only” view of the runoffs would put each race at about 50:50.
Why many pollsters are sitting out the Georgia runoffs
What about indicators apart from the polls? While we could go through the various “fundamentals” that our congressional model considers, such as fundraising, incumbency, and state partisanship, perhaps an easier jumping-off point is simply to start with the results on Nov. 3, since it’s likely that the vast majority of voters will choose the same candidate again if they can. We’ll then consider what factors may have changed between November and how that could affect either turnout or which candidate people pick.
Benchmarking from the November results
In the regular election in November, Perdue won a 49.7 percent plurality of the vote compared to 47.9 percent for Ossoff — that is, a difference of about 2 points. Most of the remaining votes went to the Libertarian candidate, Shane Hazel.
[Related: Latest Polls Of The Georgia Senate Runoffs]
Who picks up that 2 percent could make a big difference, too, if the margins are razor-thin on Jan. 5. Ordinarily, you’d think that a Libertarian candidate’s votes would consist of mostly conservative voters who might be more inclined toward the Republican candidate in a two-way race. On the other hand, since Perdue is an incumbent, Hazel’s votes might be considered more of an “anti-incumbent” vote, which would then favor Ossoff. The AP Votecast exit poll of Georgia voters — although its sample size of Hazel voters was small — found that Hazel drew support from 2 percent of moderate voters as compared to 1 percent of liberal voters and 1 percent of conservative voters, suggesting they might be more middle-of-the-road voters instead.
In any event, it’s worth keeping in mind that Perdue won more votes than Ossoff on Nov. 3 and also that Ossoff slightly underperformed Joe Biden. The exit polls do not provide any particularly strong evidence about which sorts of voters backed Biden but not Ossoff — trust me, I’ve looked — although one intriguing clue is that Ossoff won the votes of 15 percent of voters who thought the economy was good or excellent as compared to 19 percent for Biden, a relatively wide gap. Perhaps some Biden-Perdue voters, then, were people who were relatively happy with the status quo and their personal circumstances but disapproved of President Trump’s personal conduct and voted for Biden for that reason.
Benchmarking the special election result is more complicated because of the presence of multiple Democratic and Republican candidates on the ballot in November. One method I’ve seen elsewhere is to add up the vote totals for all Democratic and Republican candidates on the ballot. If you do that, the Republicans won 47,808 more votes than Democrats in November, or a margin of around 1 point.
However, this is not necessarily ideal. The research I did for our congressional model, based on an analysis of past elections with runoffs, found that while the “total party” vote that I described above is indeed a good metric for forecasting runoff results, the margin separating the top two candidates also has predictive power. It’s relevant, in other words, that Warnock finished ahead of Loeffler by 7 points. Based on the formula we use in our model, this implies that Warnock would actually have won a two-way race on Nov. 3 by about 1.5 points.
Does it really make sense, though, that Loeffler would have narrowly lost a two-way race on Election Day when Perdue would narrowly have won his? Well, maybe. Perdue is an elected incumbent whereas Loeffler is not — she was appointed to her seat to replace now-retired Sen. Johnny Isakson — and elected incumbents generally perform stronger than appointed ones. Furthermore, Loeffler, in an effort to outflank fellow Rep. Doug Collins, the other leading Republican candidate in that race, positioned herself as extremely conservative, running an ad that called her “more conservative than Attila the Hun” and bragging about her “100 percent Trump voting record.” (Loeffler had, indeed, voted with Trump 100 percent of the time until recently, although she broke ranks with him in voting to approve the National Defense Authorization Act.) But while this may have been good messaging to finish ahead of Collins, it’s not necessarily the best way to win over suburban voters, who helped turn Trump out of office.
[Why Many Pollsters Are Sitting Out The Georgia Runoffs]
It’s also possible that at least some voters were voting tactically in the special election. A moderate voter who preferred Warnock to Collins but Collins to Loeffler might have chosen to use her vote for Collins on Nov. 3, figuring based on pre-election polls that Warnock was nearly certain to advance to the runoff and didn’t need her vote. Or — who knows? — some Democrats who assumed Warnock was a shoo-in to reach the runoff could have voted for whichever Republican they thought would be easier for Warnock to defeat in the runoff.
I’m not saying there are necessarily large numbers of voters in these categories. But there may be some of them. And indeed, polls of the runoffs show Perdue outperforming Loeffler by about 1 point on average. So a split verdict is possible — although probably only if both elections are extremely close — with the Loeffler race likely being the easier of the two for Democrats to win.
With those benchmarks — ambiguous though they are — established, the other big question is what could cause things to change from November. We’ll break this into two categories: (1) What could cause a shift in turnout; and (2) what could actually cause people to switch their votes.
How turnout could be different than in November
I’m not going to go into too much detail here because it’s been covered extensively at FiveThirtyEight and elsewhere, but most people’s priors entering the runoff — including mine — were that Republicans were more likely to gain ground than lose it as a result of turnout falling in the runoff.
That was for some relatively simple reasons. First, Republicans have historically gained ground in Georgia runoffs. Second, the opposition party usually has an enthusiasm advantage, and with Biden having been elected and Democrats having (narrowly) retained control of the U.S. House, Republicans are arguably the opposition party. (Although this is a big assumption that we’ll scrutinize below.) Third, Georgia — even after Biden’s win this year — is still slightly to the right of the U.S. as a whole (keep in mind that Biden won the national popular vote by 4.5 points but Georgia by only 0.2 points) so a neutral political environment there might favor Republicans.
[Related: What The Early Vote In Georgia Can — And Can’t — Tell Us]
At the very least, it’s not clear that any of these are rock-solid reasons to assume turnout will help Republicans. Precedent about past runoffs is not necessarily that informative considering Georgia has changed a lot since most of those previous runoffs were conducted — particularly in affluent, more diverse suburban counties, which have moved strongly toward Democrats. These sorts of suburban counties traditionally retain more of their turnout in runoffs, and if they do so again, that could help Democrats rather than Republicans.
Next, although Republicans will become the opposition party on Jan. 20, Trump isn’t behaving like a typical lame duck, to say the least. Instead, he remains omnipresent, both with his bullshit claims about election fraud and with what’s been an active legislative period in which Trump has already vetoed one major bill and also threatened to veto a COVID-19 stimulus package before backing down. And while there’s been plenty of debate over whether a meaningful number of Republican voters will actually follow through on calls to boycott the election, Trump’s refusal to concede could also have other, more subtle effects. For instance, it could keep Democrats feeling anxious rather than savoring their victory — and anxiety is generally a good way to raise voter turnout. Additionally, the fact that Democrats will control the White House for the next four years may not be as front of mind for independents who might otherwise be inclined to favor divided government.
What the COVID-19 vaccine means for political battles to come
Finally, although Georgia might still lean red in a neutral political environment — if you want a more precise definition, think of that as an environment where neither candidate leads on the generic congressional ballot — it’s not clear that we’re in such an environment now. Rather, it may be that we haven’t yet exited from the November environment, which though a bit disappointing for Democrats was nonetheless somewhat blue-leaning.
Unfortunately, there have hardly been any polls of the generic ballot since November. It’s worth noting, though, that Trump’s approval rating has actually slipped a bit since the election. On Nov. 3, polls of registered and likely voters showed Trump at a -6.9 net approval rating (45.2 percent approve and 52.1 percent disapprove); that had worsened to -9.2 as of Tuesday afternoon (43.3 percent approve and 52.5 percent disapprove). While not a huge shift, this is the opposite of what typically happens in the lame-duck period. Even unpopular presidents such as George W. Bush usually see some improvement to their approval rating as they are preparing to leave office.
Democrats also have one ace in the hole when it comes to turnout. Biden won in November even though the Black vote wasn’t especially high as a share of turnout in Georgia; in fact, the share of Black voters declined slightly, relative to past elections. (It’s important to keep in mind that Black turnout was still very high overall in November, but it was also very high — or even higher — for other groups.)
So although there are many reasons to be cautious about early voting data, it’s at least intriguing that Black voter turnout represents a larger share of the electorate so far than it did at a comparable point in the November election:
The Dem strength is mainly if not entirely due to a stronger Black turnout. This has always been the obvious way for Dems to improve their standing, given relatively weak Black turnout in Nov., and while there aren't any guarantees it sure seems like it's on track to materialize pic.twitter.com/3i2jupOIn3 — Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) December 29, 2020
That certainly doesn’t mean that Democrats are guaranteed a turnout edge or anything like that; Republicans could easily overcome any Democratic advantage from the early vote with a big turnout on Jan. 5. But I’d put it like this: If you had a list of several signs and signals that might portend a Democratic victory for both seats, one of the items on that list would be growth in Black voter turnout in the early voting period. It’s nowhere near a sufficient condition, but it might be a necessary one, and it seems to be falling into place for Democrats.
Another question is what happens to Republican turnout when Trump himself isn’t on the ballot. Trump has campaigned on behalf of Loeffler and Perdue in Georgia, but his message at a rally earlier this month was unfocused (though he’s scheduled to visit again next week).
Could voters switch sides from November?
Another reason to have started out believing that Republicans would gain ground in the runoffs is because voters typically have some preference for divided government — not necessarily when they’re asked about it in polls but based on how they behave in midterm elections. On average, the president’s party suffers about a 5-point penalty at the midterms, according to research we’ve conducted for our congressional model. And it can be larger when the president’s party also controls both branches of Congress, as in 2010 and 2018.
Again, though, that assumes that voters will be thinking about who will control the government on Jan. 20. And they may not be doing that, given how active and atypical the lame-duck period has been with Trump refusing to concede. The chaotic debate over the stimulus package for the past few weeks has also not been the best advertisement for divided government.
[Democrats And Republicans Should Argue More — Not Less]
Another question then is: What happens to the handful of Biden-Perdue voters? If they were moderate Republicans who were voting for Biden as a repudiation of Trump but are not necessarily on board with the Democratic Party’s agenda, they may be fairly thrilled with how the election went down in November and will vote for Perdue again to preserve divided government. But if they were voting for Perdue because he was an incumbent — elected incumbents do retain some loyalty from voters, although less so than in previous eras — they could, in theory, vote for Ossoff now that they know control of Congress is on the line. This is a data point I’d approach with a lot of caution, but it’s worth noting that the Edison Research exit poll of Georgia, which has been recalibrated to match the actual results in the state, found that a tiny 49-48 plurality of Georgia voters preferred Democratic control of Congress in the November electorate.
And in the special election, there’s also the question of what voters who voted for candidates other than Warnock or Loeffler — more than 40 percent of the electorate — will do. One risk for Loeffler is that her positioning herself to the extreme right in the November election will turn some of them off. Although Collins has a conservative voting record in Congress, his voters were actually somewhat more moderate than Loeffler’s in November. If a handful of them drift over to Warnock, that could be a problem for Loeffler — likewise, if some of them simply sit out the runoff. Loeffler’s ideological positioning for the runoff has been more opaque than for the November election, but she’s still been bragging about her 100 percent Trump voting record and — along with Perdue — signed a letter calling on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to resign as the state’s results were being finalized.
What do 1,200 books about Trump really tell us? | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
Meanwhile, Warnock made it through the November election relatively unscathed, since he had emerged as the clear Democratic front-runner by mid-September while Loeffler and Collins were training their fire on one another. He has since, though, been subject to a series of attacks about past comments he made as a preacher and a domestic dispute with his ex-wife. In other words, Warnock is not likely to maintain the strong favorability ratings he had in November when he wasn’t subject to as much incoming fire. On the other side of the coin, though, both Perdue and Loeffler have been subject to renewed scrutiny about stock trades they made while in office, although it’s not clear how much new information has been revealed since November.
For what it’s worth, this is one of those times when I changed my mind over the course of writing an article. I assumed I’d come out of it saying something like, “Sure, polls show a toss-up and it’s anybody’s race, but we all know that the Republicans are slight favorites.”
As RealClearPolitics’s Sean Trende wrote last month, however, I’m not really so sure there’s a solid basis for that conclusion. This is a fairly sui generis election and it’s not clear what “fundamentals” would apply, especially in a period where Trump is a lame duck but not at all acting like one, and his approval ratings are actually worse than they were on Nov. 3. Nor is this the strongest batch of candidates; three of the four candidates (all but Perdue) have never won an election before. If you default to the November results, those would imply that Perdue is the slight favorite, but I don’t think that’s true of Loeffler.
That doesn’t mean I think the Democrats are favored, either. But the polls show these races are as close to a toss-up as you can get, and at FiveThirtyEight we’d generally need a good reason to buck the polls. While the question of whether polls have a built-in bias against Republicans — or for that matter, whether they have a short-term bias that applies during COVID-19 — is something we’ll need to sort out before the 2022 midterms, the polls were fairly accurate in Georgia in November and the pollsters who have ventured in to poll the runoffs are a fairly Republican-leaning group. In fact, the race is close enough that the possibility of a split verdict — most likely with Perdue winning but not Loeffler — may be higher than most people assume.
Dr. Fauci on life post-vaccine and Biden’s approach to the pandemic | FiveThirtyEight


fivethirtyeight--2020-12-31--Will The Debate Over $2,000 Stimulus Checks Help Democrats In Georgia?

Congressional Democrats are pushing to give most Americans $ 2,000 stimulus checks , arguing that this is a fast and direct way to help millions of Americans as they struggle with the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic .
President Trump supports $ 2,000 payments , too , but most congressional Republicans don ’ t .
Because of that congressional GOP opposition , the $ 2,000 checks aren ’ t likely to become law .
But Democrats think they have a winning issue electorally ahead of next week ’ s U.S. Senate runoffs in Georgia .
Why many pollsters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opinion does appear to be on Democrats ’ side .
Seventy-eight percent of Americans said they supported these $ 2,000 stimulus checks , compared to 17 percent who opposed them , according to a poll conducted Dec. 22-28 by the left-leaning Data for Progress .
Similarly , a survey conducted by Business Insider and Survey Monkey on Dec. 21 found that 62 percent of Americans said that the $ 600 stimulus checks adopted in a recent bill is not enough ; 76 percent said the payments should be more than $ 1,000 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Isn ’ t That Crazy ] So Democrats are pushing the issue hard .
Georgia Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock have strongly embraced the $ 2,000 payment plan .
Their Republican opponents , Sens .
Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue , are also suggesting that they support the payments .
But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is creating procedural roadblocks to stop the $ 2,000 payments from passing the Senate , giving Ossoff and Warnock the opportunity to suggest that Loeffler and Perdue are impediments to the payments , since they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So this all seems good for the Democrats , right ?
Well , maybe .
Democrats are pushing a popular idea right before what look like very-close elections , and the Republican Party is blocking it .
The issue could well help Warnock and Ossoff in Georgia next week .
But we shouldn ’ t be so sure , for a few reasons … First , it ’ s not clear that voters care that much about policy when deciding who to vote for .
The most reliable predictor of how Americans will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican candidates , and Democratic-leaning voters back Democratic candidates .
Those partisan labels and identities , of course , contain ideological and policy overtones : The Republican Party , rhetorically at least , is warier of big , broad-based spending programs than the Democratic Party .
But those overtones don ’ t seem to drive vote choice .
There are plenty of examples of a party pushing unpopular ideas without its voters switching to the other party .
For instance , the GOP agenda in 2017 and 2018 , trying to repeal Obamacare @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fairly unpopular with Republican voters , but those voters still overwhelmingly backed GOP candidates in the 2018 midterms .
The Data for Progress polling suggests that 73 percent of Republicans nationally support the $ 2,000 payments , including 52 percent who strongly support them .
Based on those numbers , it ’ s almost certainly the case that a majority of Republicans in Georgia support the payments .
Indeed , a DFP poll of Georgia likely voters conducted Nov. 15-20 found that 63 percent of voters in the state said that they would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who favored a $ 1,200 payment to most Americans as part of a COVID-19 relief package .
That 63 percent number also suggests these payments are broadly popular and getting some backing from rank-and-file GOP voters .
But it ’ s very unlikely that many Republicans will back the Democratic candidates in Georgia because of this issue .
Yes , both elections appear to be close , so even a small shift in voting preferences matters .
But in such a close election , if either Ossoff and Warnock narrowly win , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Democrats ’ support of this stimulus payment and McConnell ’ s opposition , as opposed to factors like Democrats ’ strong get-out-the-vote operations in the state , the weaknesses of Loeffler and Perdue as candidates and the growing liberalism of Georgia .
[ Related : Why Georgia Isn ’ t Like The Other Battleground States ] What about swing voters/independents and other people who aren ’ t necessarily tied to one of the two parties ?
Well , the evidence suggests that these kinds of voters don ’ t necessarily have well-defined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pay that much attention to politics .
So perhaps this stimulus debate convinces them that Republicans in Washington need to be dethroned .
Alternatively , perhaps these voters aren ’ t as tuned into this stimulus debate as much as , say , Loeffler ’ s ads casting Warnock as a radical or Warnock ’ s ads portraying himself as a nice dog owner .
Second , voters may like Democratic economic ideas more than Democrats themselves .
Over the last several years , ballot initiatives to increase the minimum wage and to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where GOP state legislators and governors had blocked similar policies .
But Republicans are still winning elections in these areas .
This happened in Florida this year .
A proposal to gradually increase the minimum wage to $ 15 per hour by 2026 passed in the Sunshine State , with 61 percent of voters embracing it .
But Joe Biden , who strongly supports a $ 15 minimum wage , won only 48 percent of the vote in Florida , compared to 51 percent for Trump , who has been more circumspect about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are another illustration that partisanship overrides — or is simply independent from — voters ’ policy preferences , but there are other potential reasons for this disconnect .
Voters may support certain economically populist ideas but may be wary of too much economic populism if they elect a Democratic candidate .
Some voters may support Democrats ’ economic populism but not back the party because it is too progressive on issues like abortion rights or policing .
For example , in the 2016 election , Lee Drutman , a scholar at New America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voters who lean conservative on issues like immigration but who lean left on economic issues were more likely to back Trump than Hillary Clinton .
And lastly , many voters are simply not attuned to which party or candidate favors which policies .
When you bring this to Georgia , you could easily imagine some swing voters who support $ 2,000 payments to Americans but are even more supportive of backing the GOP Senate candidates and ensuring that Democrats in Washington don ’ t have control of the White House and both chambers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scrambled the politics on stimulus checks .
You could also imagine some voters are just confused about this issue .
If Trump strongly supports the $ 2,000 checks and Loeffler and Perdue are indicating support for them , too , it might not be totally clear to voters that the broader Republican Party still opposes the payments and is the roadblock to them being approved .
Particularly in this lame-duck period for Trump , McConnell is the most important Republican in Washington in terms of policy .
But Trump remains the defining figure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in an electoral context .
If Trump is declaring he supports the $ 2,000 payments , voters in Georgia might conclude that Republicans more broadly support them , even as McConnell is blocking the payments and Loeffler and Perdue are effectively helping him do so , as is the case here .
[ What The Early Vote In Georgia Can — And Can ’ t — Tell Us ] All that said , this debate about the direct payments coinciding with the Georgia election has shown how electoral politics and governance intersect in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clear if the debate over the stimulus payments will affect the election results , it is clear that the upcoming election has affected the stimulus debate .
Republicans were reportedly worried about opposing direct payments on the eve of the Georgia race , helping ensure that $ 600 for most Americans was put into the COVID-19 economic stimulus that Trump signed into law on Sunday .
Republicans are now worried about a potential electoral backlash in Georgia from opposing the $ 2,000 payments .
Those electoral concerns have resulted in Loeffler and Perdue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , breaking with McConnell and other Republicans to publicly support the payments .
( Of course , Loeffler and Perdue are likely to go along with McConnell ’ s strategies to make sure the $ 2,000 payments don ’ t become law . )
So Democrats may have figured out how to get more populist policies adopted : Push them around election time .
But even if Ossoff and Warnock win next week , the evidence that popular economic policies are automatically electoral boosts for Democrats will be somewhat weak .
What the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ come

Perry Bacon Jr. (perry.bacon@fivethirtyeight.com)

Will The Debate Over $2,000 Stimulus Checks Help Democrats In Georgia? The policy is broadly popular, but that doesn’t mean it will affect vote choice.
Congressional Democrats are pushing to give most Americans $2,000 stimulus checks, arguing that this is a fast and direct way to help millions of Americans as they struggle with the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. President Trump supports $2,000 payments, too, but most congressional Republicans don’t. Because of that congressional GOP opposition, the $2,000 checks aren’t likely to become law. But Democrats think they have a winning issue electorally ahead of next week’s U.S. Senate runoffs in Georgia.
Why many pollsters are sitting out the Georgia runoffs
Public opinion does appear to be on Democrats’ side. Seventy-eight percent of Americans said they supported these $2,000 stimulus checks, compared to 17 percent who opposed them, according to a poll conducted Dec. 22-28 by the left-leaning Data for Progress. Similarly, a survey conducted by Business Insider and Survey Monkey on Dec. 21 found that 62 percent of Americans said that the $600 stimulus checks adopted in a recent bill is not enough; 76 percent said the payments should be more than $1,000.
[Why A Split Verdict In Georgia Isn’t That Crazy]
So Democrats are pushing the issue hard. Georgia Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock have strongly embraced the $2,000 payment plan. Their Republican opponents, Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, are also suggesting that they support the payments. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is creating procedural roadblocks to stop the $2,000 payments from passing the Senate, giving Ossoff and Warnock the opportunity to suggest that Loeffler and Perdue are impediments to the payments, since they back McConnell continuing as majority leader.
So this all seems good for the Democrats, right? Well, maybe. Democrats are pushing a popular idea right before what look like very-close elections, and the Republican Party is blocking it. The issue could well help Warnock and Ossoff in Georgia next week. But we shouldn’t be so sure, for a few reasons …
First, it’s not clear that voters care that much about policy when deciding who to vote for.
The most reliable predictor of how Americans will vote is partisanship: Republican-leaning voters back Republican candidates, and Democratic-leaning voters back Democratic candidates. Those partisan labels and identities, of course, contain ideological and policy overtones: The Republican Party, rhetorically at least, is warier of big, broad-based spending programs than the Democratic Party. But those overtones don’t seem to drive vote choice. There are plenty of examples of a party pushing unpopular ideas without its voters switching to the other party. For instance, the GOP agenda in 2017 and 2018, trying to repeal Obamacare and cut taxes for corporations, was fairly unpopular with Republican voters, but those voters still overwhelmingly backed GOP candidates in the 2018 midterms.
The Data for Progress polling suggests that 73 percent of Republicans nationally support the $2,000 payments, including 52 percent who strongly support them. Based on those numbers, it’s almost certainly the case that a majority of Republicans in Georgia support the payments. Indeed, a DFP poll of Georgia likely voters conducted Nov. 15-20 found that 63 percent of voters in the state said that they would be more likely to support a candidate who favored a $1,200 payment to most Americans as part of a COVID-19 relief package. That 63 percent number also suggests these payments are broadly popular and getting some backing from rank-and-file GOP voters.
But it’s very unlikely that many Republicans will back the Democratic candidates in Georgia because of this issue. Yes, both elections appear to be close, so even a small shift in voting preferences matters. But in such a close election, if either Ossoff and Warnock narrowly win, I would be hesitant to ascribe that victory to Democrats’ support of this stimulus payment and McConnell’s opposition, as opposed to factors like Democrats’ strong get-out-the-vote operations in the state, the weaknesses of Loeffler and Perdue as candidates and the growing liberalism of Georgia.
[Related: Why Georgia Isn’t Like The Other Battleground States]
What about swing voters/independents and other people who aren’t necessarily tied to one of the two parties? Well, the evidence suggests that these kinds of voters don’t necessarily have well-defined policy preferences and also don’t pay that much attention to politics. So perhaps this stimulus debate convinces them that Republicans in Washington need to be dethroned. Alternatively, perhaps these voters aren’t as tuned into this stimulus debate as much as, say, Loeffler’s ads casting Warnock as a radical or Warnock’s ads portraying himself as a nice dog owner.
Second, voters may like Democratic economic ideas more than Democrats themselves.
Over the last several years, ballot initiatives to increase the minimum wage and to expand Medicaid have passed in conservative-leaning states where GOP state legislators and governors had blocked similar policies. But Republicans are still winning elections in these areas. This happened in Florida this year. A proposal to gradually increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2026 passed in the Sunshine State, with 61 percent of voters embracing it. But Joe Biden, who strongly supports a $15 minimum wage, won only 48 percent of the vote in Florida, compared to 51 percent for Trump, who has been more circumspect about minimum wage increases.
These voting patterns are another illustration that partisanship overrides — or is simply independent from — voters’ policy preferences, but there are other potential reasons for this disconnect. Voters may support certain economically populist ideas but may be wary of too much economic populism if they elect a Democratic candidate. Some voters may support Democrats’ economic populism but not back the party because it is too progressive on issues like abortion rights or policing. For example, in the 2016 election, Lee Drutman, a scholar at New America and a FiveThirtyEight contributor, found that voters who lean conservative on issues like immigration but who lean left on economic issues were more likely to back Trump than Hillary Clinton. And lastly, many voters are simply not attuned to which party or candidate favors which policies.
When you bring this to Georgia, you could easily imagine some swing voters who support $2,000 payments to Americans but are even more supportive of backing the GOP Senate candidates and ensuring that Democrats in Washington don’t have control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.
Finally, Trump has scrambled the politics on stimulus checks.
You could also imagine some voters are just confused about this issue. If Trump strongly supports the $2,000 checks and Loeffler and Perdue are indicating support for them, too, it might not be totally clear to voters that the broader Republican Party still opposes the payments and is the roadblock to them being approved. Particularly in this lame-duck period for Trump, McConnell is the most important Republican in Washington in terms of policy. But Trump remains the defining figure for the party to most voters and in an electoral context. If Trump is declaring he supports the $2,000 payments, voters in Georgia might conclude that Republicans more broadly support them, even as McConnell is blocking the payments and Loeffler and Perdue are effectively helping him do so, as is the case here.
[What The Early Vote In Georgia Can — And Can’t — Tell Us]
All that said, this debate about the direct payments coinciding with the Georgia election has shown how electoral politics and governance intersect in interesting ways. While it is not clear if the debate over the stimulus payments will affect the election results, it is clear that the upcoming election has affected the stimulus debate. Republicans were reportedly worried about opposing direct payments on the eve of the Georgia race, helping ensure that $600 for most Americans was put into the COVID-19 economic stimulus that Trump signed into law on Sunday. Republicans are now worried about a potential electoral backlash in Georgia from opposing the $2,000 payments. Those electoral concerns have resulted in Loeffler and Perdue, who usually take more conservative stands, breaking with McConnell and other Republicans to publicly support the payments. (Of course, Loeffler and Perdue are likely to go along with McConnell’s strategies to make sure the $2,000 payments don’t become law.)
So Democrats may have figured out how to get more populist policies adopted: Push them around election time. But even if Ossoff and Warnock win next week, the evidence that popular economic policies are automatically electoral boosts for Democrats will be somewhat weak.
What the COVID-19 vaccine means for political battles to come


fivethirtyeight--2020-01-31--Where Are All The Iowa Polls This Year?

Where Are All The Iowa Polls This Year?

Welcome to Pollapalooza , our weekly polling roundup .
The Iowa caucuses are just two days away , and FiveThirtyEight ’ s forecast shows a pretty wide-open race there : No candidate has more than a 36 percent chance of winning the most votes .
[ Our Latest Forecast : Who will win the Iowa caucuses ? ]
There ’ s still time for a few more Iowa polls to drop and shake up the race , but it would be somewhat anomalous : There have not been as many Iowa surveys this cycle as in past cycles , especially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polled time period — right before the caucuses .
In fact , if we look at the final month of polling in each nomination contest since 1980 in which Iowa was contested , the 2020 Democratic race has had fewer polls than any other cycle this millennium , with the exception of 2000 .
Back in the day , there weren ’ t that many pollsters who surveyed the Iowa caucuses .
In the 1980 and 1984 cycles , the Des Moines Register did almost all the public polling there , and there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before the caucuses .
But over time , other pollsters have started to measure voting preferences among caucusgoers .
The number of surveys started to balloon in the late 2000s , when more than 20 polls were conducted of both the Democratic and Republican caucuses in the final month before the 2008 contest .
This rate of polling largely remained stable through the last cycle , when between 23 and 25 polls were completed in the 31 days prior to the caucuses .
This time around , however , the number of polls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely end up at or below the number of polls conducted during the last month of the 2004 Democratic race .
Why the sudden drop-off ?
One possible explanation is that the impeachment of President Trump has competed for valuable polling resources ( this certainly seemed to be the case in December ) .
But beyond other stories pulling attention , polling firms are facing a whole lot of challenges these days .
Response rates for polls conducted by live phone calls have continued to fall and more people are relying entirely on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to manually call cell numbers rather than use auto-dialing technology to reach landlines .
Combined , these challenges make traditional polling more expensive .
And while online polls are filling in some of the gaps , they ’ re still something of a new frontier and are also more likely to herd — a phenomenon in which pollsters produce results that mirror the results from other firms , particularly toward the end of a race — which reduces their value .
Additionally , getting a good sample of likely caucusgoers isn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be lower than primary turnout because it ’ s a more time-consuming process .
This means it ’ s even costlier to poll in Iowa because you have to dial a bunch more numbers to contact enough likely caucusgoers .
Perhaps due in part to increased costs , some major pollsters — Fox News , Marist — haven ’ t polled Iowa once this cycle , while other outlets that used to release their own polls have joined together to sponsor them , such as CNN and the Des Moines Register .
[ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The 2020 Democratic Primary ? ]
In fact , it ’ s entirely possible that the only surveys we ’ ll get in the final run-up to Monday ’ s caucuses are the vaunted Iowa Poll , conducted by Selzer & Co. on behalf of CNN , the Des Moines Register and Mediacom , and a final survey from Emerson College .
As it stands , the most recent Iowa polls we have were in the field through Tuesday , so if there have been late shifts in voter preferences in the latter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weekend , it may be tough to detect them in advance .
Those sorts of late swings in voter choices have certainly happened before — if there ’ s one thing we know about Iowa , it ’ s more of a surprise when there isn ’ t a surprise or two .
• A new study from the Pew Research Center found that Democrats and Republicans have very different views when it comes to which media sources they trust for political news .
When given a list of 30 news sources , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trust than distrust 22 of them while Republicans only said they trusted seven of the news sources ( Republicans equally trusted and distrusted three other sources ) .
In fact , the only listed news organization that a majority of Republicans trusted was Fox News , whereas a majority of Democrats trusted a number of media outlets , including CNN , NBC News , ABC News , CBS News and PBS .
• It might not feel like it , but the presidential primary field will indeed winnow in the next few months @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voters to see how candidates dropping out might affect the Democratic nomination race .
For example , if Warren dropped out , Sanders would gain 5 points in national support while Biden would gain only a couple points .
But if Warren were to drop out and endorse Biden , Morning Consult found the former vice president would gain 9 points .
( Sanders would also gain 9 points from a Warren endorsement . )
The pollster also took a look at the hypothetical effects of Biden , Sanders , Buttigieg and former @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , concluding that only an early exit and endorsement by Biden could dramatically shake up the race .
• While climate change is often portrayed as a partisan issue , a new survey by Public Agenda/USA TODAY/Ipsos found aspects of climate change on which majorities of Democrats and Republicans can agree .
For instance , 72 percent of Americans support “ reducing the effects of global climate change , ” a majority that includes 86 percent of Democrats , 78 percent of independents and 55 percent of Republicans .
Majorities of Democrats , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy ideas , like modernizing the country ’ s electrical grid , creating stronger efficiency standards for buildings and government investment in technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere .
• The latest national poll from Quinnipiac University found that Americans have mixed views on how the impeachment charges against Trump compare to those leveled against former presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton .
Fifty-one percent said that the charges against Trump are more serious than those made against Clinton , while 29 percent said they were less serious .
But relative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 24 percent said the charges against Trump are more serious while 40 percent said they are less serious .
• A plurality of Democratic primary voters said they want more candidates on the debate stage , according to a new YouGov survey .
In total , 44 percent said that “ all announced ” Democratic contenders should be able to debate while 40 percent said that the number of participants should be limited .
This marked a shift from YouGov ’ s December poll , in which just 33 percent of respondents wanted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wanted the number of participants limited .
• New polling from Gallup found that among married or cohabitating heterosexual couples , women are more likely to handle many common household tasks than men .
A majority of respondents said that , in their households , women were more likely to make decisions about furniture and decorations , do the laundry , clean the house and prepare meals .
Pluralities said that women were also more likely to care for children on a daily basis , go grocery shopping , wash dishes and pay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hand , were more likely to take care of cars and the yardwork , respondents said .
• The race is on for the GOP nomination in Alabama ’ s U.S. Senate race .
A new internal poll from former Attorney General Jeff Sessions found him leading the field with 43 percent , although he ’ s still 7 points shy of winning the nomination ( based on Alabama ’ s primary election rules , which require a majority to win ) .
That means a runoff could be in the cards , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ close with only 1 point separating Rep. Bradley Byrne ( 22 percent ) and former Auburn University football head coach Tommy Tuberville ( 21 percent ) .
But whoever wins the Republican nomination will likely have a pretty large advantage against Democratic Sen. Doug Jones , as Trump won Alabama by 28 points in 2016 .
According to FiveThirtyEight ’ s presidential approval tracker , 42.9 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president , while 52.7 percent disapprove ( a net approval rating of -9.8 points ) .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent approved and 53.8 percent disapproved ( for a net approval rating of -11.8 points ) .
One month ago , Trump had an approval rating of 42.6 percent and a disapproval rating of 53.0 percent , for a net approval rating of -10.4 points .
In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot , Democrats currently lead by 5.7 percentage points ( 46.9 percent to 41.2 percent ) .
A week ago , Democrats led Republicans by 5.5 points ( 46.8 percent to 41.3 percent ) .
At this time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 6.5 points ( 47.4 percent to 40.9 percent ) .

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
Poll(s) of the week
The Iowa caucuses are just two days away, and FiveThirtyEight’s forecast shows a pretty wide-open race there: No candidate has more than a 36 percent chance of winning the most votes.
[Our Latest Forecast: Who will win the Iowa caucuses?]
There’s still time for a few more Iowa polls to drop and shake up the race, but it would be somewhat anomalous: There have not been as many Iowa surveys this cycle as in past cycles, especially in what is historically the most frequently polled time period — right before the caucuses. In fact, if we look at the final month of polling in each nomination contest since 1980 in which Iowa was contested, the 2020 Democratic race has had fewer polls than any other cycle this millennium, with the exception of 2000.
This cycle’s had fewer Iowa polls leading up to the caucuses Number of surveys of Iowa conducted in the final month before contested caucuses, 1980 to 2020 Cycle Party Caucus date Number of Iowa polls in month before caucuses 2020 D Feb. 3* 11 – 2016 R Feb. 1 25 – 2016 D Feb. 1 23 – 2012 R Jan. 3 27 – 2008 D Jan. 3 23 – 2008 R Jan. 3 22 – 2004 D Jan. 19 15 – 2000 D Jan. 24 6 – 2000 R Jan. 24 6 – 1996 R Feb. 12 6 – 1992 D Feb. 10 2 – 1988 D Feb. 8 10 – 1988 R Feb. 8 7 – 1984 D Feb. 20 1 – 1980 D Jan. 21 1 – 1980 R Jan. 21 1 – *Data for 2020 through 6 p.m. on Jan. 30. Figures include tracking polls but do not include polls from pollsters banned by FiveThirtyEight. Source: Polls
Back in the day, there weren’t that many pollsters who surveyed the Iowa caucuses. In the 1980 and 1984 cycles, the Des Moines Register did almost all the public polling there, and there wasn’t very much of it before the caucuses. But over time, other pollsters have started to measure voting preferences among caucusgoers. The number of surveys started to balloon in the late 2000s, when more than 20 polls were conducted of both the Democratic and Republican caucuses in the final month before the 2008 contest. This rate of polling largely remained stable through the last cycle, when between 23 and 25 polls were completed in the 31 days prior to the caucuses. This time around, however, the number of polls has dropped to 11, and will likely end up at or below the number of polls conducted during the last month of the 2004 Democratic race.
Why the sudden drop-off? One possible explanation is that the impeachment of President Trump has competed for valuable polling resources (this certainly seemed to be the case in December). But beyond other stories pulling attention, polling firms are facing a whole lot of challenges these days. Response rates for polls conducted by live phone calls have continued to fall and more people are relying entirely on cell phones, which means pollsters often have to manually call cell numbers rather than use auto-dialing technology to reach landlines. Combined, these challenges make traditional polling more expensive. And while online polls are filling in some of the gaps, they’re still something of a new frontier and are also more likely to herd — a phenomenon in which pollsters produce results that mirror the results from other firms, particularly toward the end of a race — which reduces their value.
Additionally, getting a good sample of likely caucusgoers isn’t easy: Caucus turnout tends to be lower than primary turnout because it’s a more time-consuming process. This means it’s even costlier to poll in Iowa because you have to dial a bunch more numbers to contact enough likely caucusgoers. Perhaps due in part to increased costs, some major pollsters — Fox News, Marist — haven’t polled Iowa once this cycle, while other outlets that used to release their own polls have joined together to sponsor them, such as CNN and the Des Moines Register.
[Our Latest Forecast: Who Will Win The 2020 Democratic Primary?]
In fact, it’s entirely possible that the only surveys we’ll get in the final run-up to Monday’s caucuses are the vaunted Iowa Poll, conducted by Selzer & Co. on behalf of CNN, the Des Moines Register and Mediacom, and a final survey from Emerson College. As it stands, the most recent Iowa polls we have were in the field through Tuesday, so if there have been late shifts in voter preferences in the latter half of this week and into the weekend, it may be tough to detect them in advance. Those sorts of late swings in voter choices have certainly happened before — if there’s one thing we know about Iowa, it’s more of a surprise when there isn’t a surprise or two.
Other polling bites
Trump approval
According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 42.9 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 52.7 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -9.8 points). At this time last week, 42.0 percent approved and 53.8 percent disapproved (for a net approval rating of -11.8 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 42.6 percent and a disapproval rating of 53.0 percent, for a net approval rating of -10.4 points.
Generic ballot
In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 5.7 percentage points (46.9 percent to 41.2 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 5.5 points (46.8 percent to 41.3 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 6.5 points (47.4 percent to 40.9 percent).
What is the difference between a primary and a caucus?


fivethirtyeight--2020-01-31--Stacey Abrams Thinks She’ll Be President By 2040

Back in November , right before Thanksgiving , I traveled to Georgia to talk with Stacey Abrams as part of FiveThirtyEight ’ s “ When Women Run ” project .
The 46-year-old former minority leader of the Georgia House made waves in 2018 during her bid to become the nation ’ s first black woman governor .
Abrams lost the election by 1.4 percentage points , but rather famously refused to concede defeat ( while acknowledging she would not be recognized as the official winner ) , saying that her opponent , Brian Kemp , the white Republican secretary of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suppression campaign aimed predominantly against black voters .
Since 2018 , Abrams has focused her efforts on Fair Fight , a group she formed to promote fair elections , but she ’ s often brought up in the news as a potential presidential running mate .
We sat down at a restaurant near her office to talk about that speculation — and her own presidential ambitions , which she admitted to openly — and what it ’ s been like for her to be a single black woman in politics .
In the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against another woman named Stacey — Stacey Evans , who is white — and she said it soon became clear that some of the media coverage of the race would be colored not just by gender , but race too .
I asked Abrams if she ever tired of people asking whether the country is ready for a black woman to hold executive office — of any kind .
“ When something new is on the horizon , we are usually both equally curious and afraid , ” Abrams said .
I asked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a potential vice presidential pick as a way to ‘ balance out ’ a white nominee at the top of the ticket .
“ I accept that I exist in the political zeitgeist in a very specific way , ” she said .
And what about President Abrams ?
Abrams isn ’ t shy talking about her presidential ambitions .
When I asked her if she thought the country would elect her in the next 20 years she simply said , “ Yes , I do.
” You can watch the full @ @ @ @ @ @ @ women in politics ?
Explore our oral history project , “ When Women Run .
”

Back in November, right before Thanksgiving, I traveled to Georgia to talk with Stacey Abrams as part of FiveThirtyEight’s “When Women Run” project. The 46-year-old former minority leader of the Georgia House made waves in 2018 during her bid to become the nation’s first black woman governor. Abrams lost the election by 1.4 percentage points, but rather famously refused to concede defeat (while acknowledging she would not be recognized as the official winner), saying that her opponent, Brian Kemp, the white Republican secretary of state, had waged a concerted voter suppression campaign aimed predominantly against black voters. Since 2018, Abrams has focused her efforts on Fair Fight, a group she formed to promote fair elections, but she’s often brought up in the news as a potential presidential running mate. We sat down at a restaurant near her office to talk about that speculation — and her own presidential ambitions, which she admitted to openly — and what it’s been like for her to be a single black woman in politics.
“A feud between Beyoncé and Taylor Swift”
In the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary, Abrams ran against another woman named Stacey — Stacey Evans, who is white — and she said it soon became clear that some of the media coverage of the race would be colored not just by gender, but race too.
Stacey Abrams on the mediaâs coverage of her 2018 run
Electability
I asked Abrams if she ever tired of people asking whether the country is ready for a black woman to hold executive office — of any kind. “When something new is on the horizon, we are usually both equally curious and afraid,” Abrams said.
Stacey Abrams on whether she’s electable
Vice President Abrams?
I asked Abrams how it feels to be discussed as a potential vice presidential pick as a way to ‘balance out’ a white nominee at the top of the ticket. “I accept that I exist in the political zeitgeist in a very specific way,” she said.
Stacey Abrams on being a potential VP pick
And what about President Abrams?
Abrams isn’t shy talking about her presidential ambitions. When I asked her if she thought the country would elect her in the next 20 years she simply said, “Yes, I do.”
Stacey Abrams Thinks She Will Be President One Day
You can watch the full interview below.
Stacey Abrams thinks sheâll be president by 2040
Want more coverage of women in politics? Explore our oral history project, “When Women Run.”