vox--2020-11-30--9 questions about the Georgia Senate runoffs you were too embarrassed to ask

9 questions about the Georgia Senate runoffs you were too embarrassed to ask Share All sharing options for : 9 questions about the Georgia Senate runoffs you were too embarrassed to ask Georgia voters will determine which party controls the US Senate on January 5 , and thus decide the fate of President-elect Joe Biden ’ s agenda .
There are not one but two runoff Senate elections in Georgia early next year .
They have similar dynamics , with Democratic challengers going up against Republican incumbents .
One race features a matchup between Sen. David Perdue ( R ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other involves Sen. Kelly Loeffler ( R ) and Democrat Rev .
Raphael Warnock .
Absentee ballots were mailed to voters who requested them starting on November 18 , while in-person early voting starts on December 14 and continues until Election Day on January 5 .
At first glance , Democrats appear to be the underdogs .
Georgia is historically Republican , and Democrats haven ’ t had a good track record in past Senate runoffs , losing the most recent one in 2008 .
At the same time , Democrats insist several @ @ @ @ @ @ @ party ’ s presidential nominee won the state for the first time in almost 30 years , they have two candidates , and the fate of the Senate hangs in the balance .
Enthusiasm against President Trump ultimately aided Biden in the presidential election , and Democrats are clearly hoping for a repeat on that front .
But the big unknown factor is how Trump ’ s continued refusal to concede will play into all of this .
“ Trump is not on the ballot , but are we in a post-Trump era @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up ?
” a Democratic pollster told Vox .
“ That is the big question.
” Georgia ’ s runoff system is unusual in American politics , and the dynamics this year are also unusual .
The results of these races will potentially have an outsize influence on the next four years .
We ’ ve broken down the essential questions here .
There ’ s a huge amount at stake for both Republicans and Democrats in Georgia .
The state will decide which party controls the US Senate — and , by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or unified government in Washington , DC .
“ Democrats are going to be very excited in Georgia but also nationally , ” University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock recently told Vox .
“ Ossoff and Warnock , any kind of resource or help they need , they ’ re going to get.
” Republicans are equally energized to keep the Senate in GOP hands so they can have a definitive say in the agenda of President-elect Biden .
The ambitiousness of Biden ’ s agenda as president hangs in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ select Cabinet members and judicial nominees — all of whom are confirmed by the Senate .
The only problem : Many Republicans can not publicly admit that Biden has officially won without angering Trump .
Being hamstrung hampers their argument on this front .
“ We ’ re assuming that we ’ re going to be standing out here alone , ” Perdue said on a recent private donor call obtained by the Washington Post .
“ And that means that we have to get the vote out , no matter what the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recount in two states and some lawsuits , and others .
Kelly and I can ’ t wait for that.
” To be clear , winning both seats won ’ t give Democrats license to pass a raft of leftist legislation .
Democrats ’ best-case scenario right now is a 50-50 split Senate with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as a tie-breaking vote for a simple majority .
But Democrats still have a number of conservative members in their caucus like Sens .
Joe Manchin ( WV ) and Kyrsten Sinema ( AZ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ambition and prioritize bipartisan cooperation with Republicans .
They ’ ll also likely have to deal with the Senate filibuster , needing 60 votes to pass major bills .
Certainly , the biggest thing at stake for Biden and Democrats is whether Senate Majority Mitch McConnell remains in his current role .
McConnell has the power to hold up virtually any appointment of Biden ’ s — whether it ’ s to the judiciary or his Cabinet — making the real stakes more about whether the federal government can function .
Hopes of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long shot with McConnell in charge .
Last year , the majority leader vowed to be the “ grim reaper ” for Democratic legislation in the House , and he famously stonewalled President Barack Obama ’ s judicial and Cabinet picks as minority leader in 2009 and 2010 , until then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blew up the Senate filibuster .
McConnell and Biden have a long history together in the Senate , and McConnell is so far keeping his powder dry on how he intends to work with ( or against ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Georgia .
But McConnell is a savvy operator , and he could be the biggest roadblock to even incremental progress if he keeps control of the Senate .
2 ) Why does Georgia have runoffs ?
Unlike the winner-takes-all system most states use , Georgia operates a bit differently .
If a candidate doesn ’ t hit the 50 percent threshold needed to win outright , they and their opponent both head to a runoff election .
Georgia is one of 10 states with a system of runoff elections .
These states are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also uses runoffs .
It ’ s not necessarily a coincidence that Southern states use runoffs , which are a relic of one-party dominance , and a means to suppress Black votes , historians recently told Vox ’ s Jerusalem Demsas .
As Demsas detailed in a recent explainer , Georgia ’ s runoff system effectively started in 1962 .
It was helmed by then-state Rep. Denmark Groover , a “ staunch segregationist ” who had lost one of his elections in the ’ 50s due to the strength of the Black vote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Interior Department report explained : In the 1990s , the US Department of Justice even sued to overturn the state ’ s runoff system , alleging it had “ a demonstrably chilling effect on the ability of blacks to become candidates for public office ” and calling the requirement “ an electoral steroid for white candidates.
” Some political scientists have said it ’ s tough to know for certain if runoffs have had the intended effect of suppressing the political power of Black voters and candidates .
Even so , this system @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In the first race , there ’ s a matchup between Republican Sen. David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff .
Perdue was first elected to the Senate in 2014 and is the former CEO of companies including Reebok and Dollar General .
He ’ s also the cousin of former Georgia Gov .
Sonny Perdue ( the current US secretary of agriculture ) .
Perdue is a strong Trump ally , and was an early Senate endorser of the president ’ s 2016 campaign .
In a 2016 op-ed , Perdue wrote that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which he characterized as outsider businessmen underestimated by establishment Republicans .
“ Through my own experience , I probably understand the Trump phenomenon and the new reality of this electorate better than most , ” Perdue wrote .
He ’ s running against Jon Ossoff , an investigative journalist who ran for Congress in Georgia ’ s Sixth Congressional District in 2017 , narrowly losing to Republican Karen Handel in a runoff .
In 2018 , Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath flipped the district — which in an earlier iteration belonged to former @ @ @ @ @ @ @ held the district again in 2020 , while Democrats also picked up the neighboring Seventh Congressional District .
Even though Ossoff narrowly lost in 2017 , many Democrats in the Atlanta metro area credit his campaign with galvanizing and organizing a cohort of white suburban women , in particular .
“ It was almost like it turned on a light in the state where you could see you weren ’ t the only Democrat , ” state Sen. Jen Jordan , a Democrat , told Vox .
“ Jon runs for this congressional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sudden you see these women in the Atlanta suburbs coming out in droves to support him and work for him.
” In the other race , Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler faces Democrat Rev .
Raphael Warnock .
A former CEO of Bakkt and co-owner of Georgia ’ s WNBA team , Loeffler is less of a known entity than Perdue in Georgia politics ; she was appointed by Georgia Gov .
Brian Kemp in 2019 to replace retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson .
Loeffler was appointed largely to stem the bleeding of suburban women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ logic being that a Republican woman candidate would appeal to these women .
But her 2020 race was in large part defined her tacking hard to the right , in large part due to a primary challenge from Rep. Doug Collins , a Trump loyalist .
Loeffler sought and won the endorsement of Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene , who espouses the baseless conspiracy theory QAnon .
Warnock is the senior pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church , where Martin Luther King Jr. preached in the 1960s .
Like his Republican competitor , Warnock @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He ’ s a prominent figure in Atlanta ’ s Black community , and delivered the eulogy for Rayshard Brooks , who was fatally shot by Atlanta police this summer .
Even though these are distinct races , the Democratic and Republican campaigns are running in a unified way .
Ossoff and Warnock have appeared together for joint events , and Perdue ’ s campaign has spent time attacking Warnock in recent press releases , calling Ossoff Warnock ’ s “ running mate.
” Perdue and Loeffler are running a similar strategy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Perdue said on the call obtained by the Post .
4 ) Who is likely to win in each race ?
If conventional wisdom is to be believed , Perdue and Loeffler are the likely favorites to win .
Georgia leans Republican , and its voters haven ’ t sent a Democrat to the Senate in 20 years .
Even though Biden narrowly won Georgia in the presidential election , this isn ’ t necessarily a good indication of Democratic strength in the Senate races .
The data we have shows that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about 780 votes .
Ossoff , on the other hand , ran close to 100,000 votes short of Biden .
( It ’ s tough to make the same comparison with Loeffler and Warnock because they were running in a field of 20 candidates . )
These numbers mean that Biden ’ s strength at the top of the ticket didn ’ t necessarily translate to down-ballot races .
It helped force a runoff , but there ’ s no guarantee Democrats will do well the second time around .
“ In pre-Trump-era @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Democrat is going to win , ” a Democratic pollster told Vox .
“ I don ’ t care how quickly the state is moving with a growing [ bloc of ] white college-educated voters .
You need to have anti-Trump enthusiasm at the same levels as we saw throughout his presidency.
” It ’ s an open question for Democrats whether the same number of voters who wanted Trump out will come back to the polls on January 5 — or if they will stay home , now satisfied with getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If more of these Biden voters stay home , or ultimately decide to vote for Perdue and Loeffler , it ’ s likely over for the Democratic candidates .
But if Trump is still unwilling to concede the election , and Perdue and Loeffler back him , that could energize these voters again .
Recent polls show a tight race .
A November 17 InsiderAdvantage/Fox 5 Atlanta Poll found both races essentially tied , with Warnock one point ahead of Loeffler , 49 to 48 percent , and Ossoff and Perdue tied at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Republican firm found Loeffler and Warnock statistically tied , and Perdue with a small advantage over Warnock — 50 to 46 percent .
Of course , there ’ s a big caveat about not putting too much stock in polls , after many 2020 Senate race polls were off .
Polls in Georgia proved to be more accurate than many other states , but the numbers should be considered a snapshot in time and will likely change .
Bottom line : While Democrats are still considered the underdogs , they have a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
5 ) Are there actually voters who will vote for both a Democrat and a Republican in this runoff ?
While there were likely a small number of split-ticket voters in Georgia ’ s November election who cast a ballot for Biden and Republican candidates down the ballot , this may not necessarily translate to success for Democrats in the Senate races .
Biden running so far ahead of Ossoff and Perdue running slightly ahead of Trump suggests that some moderate Republicans may have checked the box for Biden at the top @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down-ballot as well .
“ I don ’ t think voters appreciate the amount of ticket-splitting that went on , ” Buzz Brockway , a Republican and former Georgia state House member , said .
“ There was a section of voters who couldn ’ t bring themselves to vote for Trump but voted for Republicans the rest of the ticket.
” It ’ s important to distinguish between ticket-splitting during the presidential election and ticket-splitting during the Senate runoff race , where ticket splitters would vote for one Democratic candidate as well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happen , but two runoff races mean Republicans and Democrats are ostensibly campaigning as a team .
Ticket-splitting in this year ’ s presidential election was more about Trump than anything else .
It helps explain Trump ’ s loss combined with Republicans simultaneously having a better year than expected .
A lot of these voters live in suburban areas and identify as moderate .
They typically have higher incomes , and they dislike Trump , according to a recent nationwide analysis by Navigator Survey .
While these voters played a role in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ probably will settle on either voting straight Democrat or straight Republican in the runoffs .
Remember , a runoff election is primarily about base mobilization .
6 ) Georgia seems historically Republican .
Why is the state competitive for Democrats this year , and what do they need to do to win ?
Fresh off a massive win by flipping Georgia in a presidential election for the first time since 1992 , Democrats could face a steeper climb with the Senate race .
“ The [ Atlanta ] suburbs are the key to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tricky thing for runoffs is it ’ s more about motivation than persuasion , ” Georgia Democratic operative Stefan Turkheimer told Vox .
In other words , turning out the base matters more in runoff elections than trying to persuade swing voters .
Democrats are trying to thread a tough needle .
They need both high Black turnout and suburban white voters to back their candidates .
Recent New York Times data shows that the relative proportion of Black turnout actually fell slightly in the 2020 presidential election compared to 2016 ( though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was much lower than the 2012 election .
The data also showed that affluent , older , and college-educated white suburban voters , primarily in the Atlanta suburbs , propelled Biden to his narrow win in the state .
But these white suburbanites may need more persuasion to vote for Democrats — unless Trump continues to refuse to concede his election .
Now that these white suburbanites have successfully ousted Trump , it ’ s far less certain they ’ ll vote for two Democratic Senate candidates .
Black voters still make up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Party , but the biggest question mark is hovering around these more moderate whites .
Is Biden the extent of their Democratic voting ?
“ I think they ’ re the wild card for this Senate race , ” Georgia Republican consultant Brian Robinson told Vox .
“ How many of them voted for Perdue and Loeffler ?
How many of them voted straight-ticket Democrat ?
” We know that Perdue ran slightly ahead of Trump in 2020 , but some Democrats think that you need to look at the bigger picture in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ governor ’ s race between current Gov .
Brian Kemp ( R ) and Democrat Stacey Abrams .
“ I ’ m not saying these suburban women are staying with us forever , but they ’ ve stayed with us for two cycles , with two very different candidates , ” veteran Democratic pollster John Anzalone told Vox .
“ I ’ m not sure I ’ m buying the ‘ Romney Republican ’ now that they ’ ve almost become reasonable Democrats.
” Much like the 2020 election , it could all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What is Trump ’ s role in this race ?
The GOP ’ s message that keeping Georgia is the only thing standing in the way of unified Democratic control of the US Senate could get complicated by Trump .
Trump is unhappy about losing the presidency in general — but seems particularly aggrieved about the results in Georgia .
The president is still refusing to concede the election to Biden , and has spent the past couple of weeks fighting very publicly with Republican Georgia state officials , including Gov .
Kemp @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump recently called Raffensperger “ an enemy of the people ” and said he was “ ashamed ” that he endorsed Kemp in his 2018 governor ’ s race .
Raffensperger has remained steadfast as a Georgia recount takes place , even as Loeffler and Perdue signed a letter calling on him to resign as they try to curry favor with Trump .
Loeffler and Perdue ’ s calculation here is clear : They can ’ t afford to alienate Trump or his base in the state .
Even though Democrats surpassed turnout @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — driven by the fact that Trump himself was on the ballot .
“ He ’ s still critically important , ” said Brockway , the former Republican state representative .
“ Trump , sort of like Barack Obama , brought people into the political process .
Their first exposure to politics is Trump , and they don ’ t necessarily view themselves as longtime loyal Republicans .
They ’ re Trump Republicans , and when their guy gets rejected , that ’ s hard to take.
” That infighting taking top billing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worried that Trump ’ s continued baseless claims about a rigged election and fixed voting machines in the state could cause his supporters to stay home .
Even as he recently encouraged his supporters to vote for Perdue and Loeffler in the January runoffs , Trump continued to claim baseless voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election .
Republicans have another fear too .
Remembering that Trump motivated Democrats and independent-minded voters to come out in droves in November , the fact that the president is still refusing to concede to Biden could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ circumstances .
Of course , we don ’ t know if Trump will keep this up all the way until January — but he ’ s showing no signs of accepting defeat in the shorter term .
“ When there are warring factions within the Republican Party casting blame saying that we should not concede , with the president taking to Twitter and calling people out ... all that does , I think , is fire the Democratic base up , ” said Jason Downey , a Republican and the vice chair of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 8 ) What other issues are driving the race ?
The defining issue of the Georgia runoffs is control of the US Senate .
These races have just two outcomes : divided government in Washington split between a Democratic White House and US House , and a Republican-controlled Senate ; and unified Democratic control in Washington .
With the incoming Biden administration , the stakes are high .
Both sides in Georgia are framing the race around these outcomes .
Republicans are attacking Ossoff and Warnock as “ radical ” and “ socialist.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
GOP mailers frame the Georgia race being “ America ’ s last line of defense from a socialist takeover.
” Republicans have especially been playing up comments Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has made about flipping Georgia , where he said , “ Now we take Georgia , then we change America !
” Georgia voters will determine which party controls the US Senate on January 5 , and thus decide the fate of President-elect Joe Biden ’ s agenda “ Anybody would agree that Chuck Schumer is a savvy political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his audience in New York and he handed Georgia Republicans a huge gift with that clip , ” Robinson said .
He added he believes Republicans and independents are “ scared of a Democratic Senate joining Pelosi and Biden .
Fear will motivate much more strongly than any other emotion in the runoff.
” Democrats have also emphasized the stakes of Georgia , but they ’ ve been framing the races more around a commonsense agenda to pass more Covid-19 relief , economic stimulus , and a jobs bill — legislation that is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if Republicans keep the Senate .
Democrats argue that winning Georgia will give them a shot at governing and passing basic bills .
Even if Democrats win 50 seats in the Senate , they will have to forge bipartisan compromise on big bills .
There certainly will be no Medicare-for-all or Green New Deal passed even if Democrats manage to flip Georgia .
Ossoff and Warnock also have spent a lot of time talking about their Republican opponents ’ financial past , particularly stock trades the two made after they received classified briefings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in office .
Perdue sold stocks in a casino company and invested in the pharmaceutical company Pfizer , while Loeffler ’ s financial advisers sold stock in a company called Intercontinental Exchange , which operates global exchanges for financial and commodity markets and saw its stock drop during the pandemic .
Both have denied the allegations of wrongdoing , and say that the trades were made by outside advisers , without their knowledge .
The stock trading issue hasn ’ t gone away , particularly for Perdue .
The Daily Beast ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a company that manufactured Navy submarine parts called BWX Technologies right around the time he became head of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower .
Perdue ’ s office told the Daily Beast that Perdue ’ s stock investments are managed by outside financial advisers and done without his prior approval .
Over the summer , Ossoff told Vox that if he ’ s elected , anti-corruption reforms — including a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United , a corporate PAC ban , and a ban on stock trading by sitting senators — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Senate .
That focus on anti-corruption is not a coincidence .
9 ) Is it really possible to move to Georgia and cast a ballot there before their deadline ?
If it ’ s before the December 7 registration deadline , then technically yes .
But those who want to move to a state just to vote in an election need to be comfortable with the idea of staying there for a while .
The deadline to register as a voter ahead of the runoffs is December 7 , and Georgia law allows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the state to register .
However , the secretary of state ’ s office has been very clear that moving to the state with the sole purpose of voting and then moving away could carry a felony sentence .
Georgia state law requires that those who register be “ a resident of this state and of the county or municipality in which he or she seeks to vote.
” The law adds that “ the residence of any person shall be held to be in that place in which such person ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intention of removing therefrom.
” In a recent press release , the Georgia secretary of state ’ s office confirmed that “ this would include individuals who move to Georgia solely for the sake of casting a ballot in an election with no intention of remaining in the state.
” False registration — or registering to vote knowing they don ’ t qualify in Georgia — is a state felony and carries a pretty stiff punishment : between one and 10 years in prison , and/or up to a $ 100,000 fine .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ already planning a move to Georgia or just got a job in the state and would like to vote there in the January election , it ’ s totally legal to do so .
But if you ’ re registered and live elsewhere and are planning to vote and leave immediately after , it ’ s legally dubious .

9 questions about the Georgia Senate runoffs you were too embarrassed to ask
Share All sharing options for: 9 questions about the Georgia Senate runoffs you were too embarrassed to ask
Georgia voters will determine which party controls the US Senate on January 5, and thus decide the fate of President-elect Joe Biden’s agenda.
There are not one but two runoff Senate elections in Georgia early next year. They have similar dynamics, with Democratic challengers going up against Republican incumbents. One race features a matchup between Sen. David Perdue (R) and Democrat Jon Ossoff, and the other involves Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) and Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock.
Absentee ballots were mailed to voters who requested them starting on November 18, while in-person early voting starts on December 14 and continues until Election Day on January 5.
At first glance, Democrats appear to be the underdogs. Georgia is historically Republican, and Democrats haven’t had a good track record in past Senate runoffs, losing the most recent one in 2008. At the same time, Democrats insist several things are different this year: Their party’s presidential nominee won the state for the first time in almost 30 years, they have two candidates, and the fate of the Senate hangs in the balance.
Enthusiasm against President Trump ultimately aided Biden in the presidential election, and Democrats are clearly hoping for a repeat on that front. But the big unknown factor is how Trump’s continued refusal to concede will play into all of this.
“Trump is not on the ballot, but are we in a post-Trump era where our people are motivated to show up?” a Democratic pollster told Vox. “That is the big question.”
Georgia’s runoff system is unusual in American politics, and the dynamics this year are also unusual. The results of these races will potentially have an outsize influence on the next four years.
We’ve broken down the essential questions here.
1) What’s at stake here?
There’s a huge amount at stake for both Republicans and Democrats in Georgia. The state will decide which party controls the US Senate — and, by extension, whether there will be divided or unified government in Washington, DC.
“Democrats are going to be very excited in Georgia but also nationally,” University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock recently told Vox. “Ossoff and Warnock, any kind of resource or help they need, they’re going to get.”
Republicans are equally energized to keep the Senate in GOP hands so they can have a definitive say in the agenda of President-elect Biden. The ambitiousness of Biden’s agenda as president hangs in the balance, as does his ability to select Cabinet members and judicial nominees — all of whom are confirmed by the Senate. The only problem: Many Republicans cannot publicly admit that Biden has officially won without angering Trump. Being hamstrung hampers their argument on this front.
“We’re assuming that we’re going to be standing out here alone,” Perdue said on a recent private donor call obtained by the Washington Post. “And that means that we have to get the vote out, no matter what the outcome of that adjudication is on the recount in two states and some lawsuits, and others. Kelly and I can’t wait for that.”
To be clear, winning both seats won’t give Democrats license to pass a raft of leftist legislation. Democrats’ best-case scenario right now is a 50-50 split Senate with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as a tie-breaking vote for a simple majority.
But Democrats still have a number of conservative members in their caucus like Sens. Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), who will likely temper their ambition and prioritize bipartisan cooperation with Republicans. They’ll also likely have to deal with the Senate filibuster, needing 60 votes to pass major bills.
Certainly, the biggest thing at stake for Biden and Democrats is whether Senate Majority Mitch McConnell remains in his current role. McConnell has the power to hold up virtually any appointment of Biden’s — whether it’s to the judiciary or his Cabinet — making the real stakes more about whether the federal government can function.
Hopes of bipartisan legislation might be something of a long shot with McConnell in charge. Last year, the majority leader vowed to be the “grim reaper” for Democratic legislation in the House, and he famously stonewalled President Barack Obama’s judicial and Cabinet picks as minority leader in 2009 and 2010, until then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blew up the Senate filibuster.
McConnell and Biden have a long history together in the Senate, and McConnell is so far keeping his powder dry on how he intends to work with (or against) Biden, depending on the outcome in Georgia. But McConnell is a savvy operator, and he could be the biggest roadblock to even incremental progress if he keeps control of the Senate.
2) Why does Georgia have runoffs?
Unlike the winner-takes-all system most states use, Georgia operates a bit differently. If a candidate doesn’t hit the 50 percent threshold needed to win outright, they and their opponent both head to a runoff election.
Georgia is one of 10 states with a system of runoff elections. These states are primarily in the South, although Vermont also uses runoffs. It’s not necessarily a coincidence that Southern states use runoffs, which are a relic of one-party dominance, and a means to suppress Black votes, historians recently told Vox’s Jerusalem Demsas.
As Demsas detailed in a recent explainer, Georgia’s runoff system effectively started in 1962. It was helmed by then-state Rep. Denmark Groover, a “staunch segregationist” who had lost one of his elections in the ’50s due to the strength of the Black vote in his district. As a 2007 Interior Department report explained:
Groover soon devised a way to challenge growing black political strength. Elected to the House again in 1962, he led the fight to enact a majority vote, runoff rule for all county and state contests in both primary and general elections. Until 1963, plurality voting was widely used in Georgia county elections...
In the 1990s, the US Department of Justice even sued to overturn the state’s runoff system, alleging it had “a demonstrably chilling effect on the ability of blacks to become candidates for public office” and calling the requirement “an electoral steroid for white candidates.” Some political scientists have said it’s tough to know for certain if runoffs have had the intended effect of suppressing the political power of Black voters and candidates.
Even so, this system has persisted in Georgia for decades.
3) Who is running?
In the first race, there’s a matchup between Republican Sen. David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff. Perdue was first elected to the Senate in 2014 and is the former CEO of companies including Reebok and Dollar General. He’s also the cousin of former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue (the current US secretary of agriculture).
Perdue is a strong Trump ally, and was an early Senate endorser of the president’s 2016 campaign. In a 2016 op-ed, Perdue wrote that he and Trump had a similar backstory, which he characterized as outsider businessmen underestimated by establishment Republicans. “Through my own experience, I probably understand the Trump phenomenon and the new reality of this electorate better than most,” Perdue wrote.
He’s running against Jon Ossoff, an investigative journalist who ran for Congress in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District in 2017, narrowly losing to Republican Karen Handel in a runoff. In 2018, Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath flipped the district — which in an earlier iteration belonged to former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. McBath held the district again in 2020, while Democrats also picked up the neighboring Seventh Congressional District. Even though Ossoff narrowly lost in 2017, many Democrats in the Atlanta metro area credit his campaign with galvanizing and organizing a cohort of white suburban women, in particular.
“It was almost like it turned on a light in the state where you could see you weren’t the only Democrat,” state Sen. Jen Jordan, a Democrat, told Vox. “Jon runs for this congressional [seat] and all of a sudden you see these women in the Atlanta suburbs coming out in droves to support him and work for him.”
In the other race, Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler faces Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock. A former CEO of Bakkt and co-owner of Georgia’s WNBA team, Loeffler is less of a known entity than Perdue in Georgia politics; she was appointed by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in 2019 to replace retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson.
Loeffler was appointed largely to stem the bleeding of suburban women from the Georgia Republican party, the logic being that a Republican woman candidate would appeal to these women. But her 2020 race was in large part defined her tacking hard to the right, in large part due to a primary challenge from Rep. Doug Collins, a Trump loyalist. Loeffler sought and won the endorsement of Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene, who espouses the baseless conspiracy theory QAnon.
Warnock is the senior pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. preached in the 1960s. Like his Republican competitor, Warnock is also relatively new to politics. He’s a prominent figure in Atlanta’s Black community, and delivered the eulogy for Rayshard Brooks, who was fatally shot by Atlanta police this summer.
Even though these are distinct races, the Democratic and Republican campaigns are running in a unified way. Ossoff and Warnock have appeared together for joint events, and Perdue’s campaign has spent time attacking Warnock in recent press releases, calling Ossoff Warnock’s “running mate.”
Perdue and Loeffler are running a similar strategy, having “fully integrated our teams,” Perdue said on the call obtained by the Post.
4) Who is likely to win in each race?
If conventional wisdom is to be believed, Perdue and Loeffler are the likely favorites to win. Georgia leans Republican, and its voters haven’t sent a Democrat to the Senate in 20 years.
Even though Biden narrowly won Georgia in the presidential election, this isn’t necessarily a good indication of Democratic strength in the Senate races. The data we have shows that Perdue ran slightly ahead of Trump by about 780 votes. Ossoff, on the other hand, ran close to 100,000 votes short of Biden. (It’s tough to make the same comparison with Loeffler and Warnock because they were running in a field of 20 candidates.)
These numbers mean that Biden’s strength at the top of the ticket didn’t necessarily translate to down-ballot races. It helped force a runoff, but there’s no guarantee Democrats will do well the second time around.
“In pre-Trump-era runoffs, there’s no way a Democrat is going to win,” a Democratic pollster told Vox. “I don’t care how quickly the state is moving with a growing [bloc of] white college-educated voters. You need to have anti-Trump enthusiasm at the same levels as we saw throughout his presidency.”
It’s an open question for Democrats whether the same number of voters who wanted Trump out will come back to the polls on January 5 — or if they will stay home, now satisfied with getting Trump out of the White House. If more of these Biden voters stay home, or ultimately decide to vote for Perdue and Loeffler, it’s likely over for the Democratic candidates. But if Trump is still unwilling to concede the election, and Perdue and Loeffler back him, that could energize these voters again.
Recent polls show a tight race. A November 17 InsiderAdvantage/Fox 5 Atlanta Poll found both races essentially tied, with Warnock one point ahead of Loeffler, 49 to 48 percent, and Ossoff and Perdue tied at 49 percent. Another recent poll by a Republican firm found Loeffler and Warnock statistically tied, and Perdue with a small advantage over Warnock — 50 to 46 percent.
Of course, there’s a caveat about not putting too much stock in polls. Many 2020 Senate race polls were off, underestimating Republicans’ advantage. Polls in Georgia proved to be more accurate than many other states, but the numbers should be considered a snapshot in time and will likely change.
Bottom line: While Democrats are still considered the underdogs, they have a chance in a state growing more competitive.
5) Are there actually voters who will vote for both a Democrat and a Republican in this runoff?
While there were likely a small number of split-ticket voters in Georgia’s November election who cast a ballot for Biden and Republican candidates down the ballot, this may not necessarily translate to success for Democrats in the Senate races.
Biden running so far ahead of Ossoff and Perdue running slightly ahead of Trump suggests that some moderate Republicans may have checked the box for Biden at the top of the ticket before voting for Republicans down-ballot as well.
“I don’t think voters appreciate the amount of ticket-splitting that went on,” Buzz Brockway, a Republican and former Georgia state House member, said. “There was a section of voters who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Trump but voted for Republicans the rest of the ticket.”
It’s important to distinguish between ticket-splitting during the presidential election and ticket-splitting during the Senate runoff race, where ticket splitters would vote for one Democratic candidate as well as one Republican. It certainly could happen, but two runoff races mean Republicans and Democrats are ostensibly campaigning as a team.
Ticket-splitting in this year’s presidential election was more about Trump than anything else. It helps explain Trump’s loss combined with Republicans simultaneously having a better year than expected. A lot of these voters live in suburban areas and identify as moderate. They typically have higher incomes, and they dislike Trump, according to a recent nationwide analysis by Navigator Survey.
Analysis of voters who say they voted for Biden, but a Republican down ballot, via @NavigatorSurvey
- R+21 in identification
- 55% moderate
- 55% suburban
- 65% income >50k
- 71% very unfav to DJT
And
- relatively progressive on key policy debates pic.twitter.com/shzqWVBTlr — Will Jordan (@williamjordann) November 19, 2020
While these voters played a role in Georgia’s presidential race, they probably will settle on either voting straight Democrat or straight Republican in the runoffs. Remember, a runoff election is primarily about base mobilization.
6) Georgia seems historically Republican. Why is the state competitive for Democrats this year, and what do they need to do to win?
Fresh off a massive win by flipping Georgia in a presidential election for the first time since 1992, Democrats could face a steeper climb with the Senate race.
“The [Atlanta] suburbs are the key to how this plays out, but the tricky thing for runoffs is it’s more about motivation than persuasion,” Georgia Democratic operative Stefan Turkheimer told Vox. In other words, turning out the base matters more in runoff elections than trying to persuade swing voters.
Democrats are trying to thread a tough needle. They need both high Black turnout and suburban white voters to back their candidates. Recent New York Times data shows that the relative proportion of Black turnout actually fell slightly in the 2020 presidential election compared to 2016 (though the raw numbers were up) and was much lower than the 2012 election. The data also showed that affluent, older, and college-educated white suburban voters, primarily in the Atlanta suburbs, propelled Biden to his narrow win in the state.
But these white suburbanites may need more persuasion to vote for Democrats — unless Trump continues to refuse to concede his election.
Now that these white suburbanites have successfully ousted Trump, it’s far less certain they’ll vote for two Democratic Senate candidates. Black voters still make up the core base of the Georgia Democratic Party, but the biggest question mark is hovering around these more moderate whites. Is Biden the extent of their Democratic voting?
“I think they’re the wild card for this Senate race,” Georgia Republican consultant Brian Robinson told Vox. “How many of them voted for Perdue and Loeffler? How many of them voted straight-ticket Democrat?”
We know that Perdue ran slightly ahead of Trump in 2020, but some Democrats think that you need to look at the bigger picture in Georgia, like the incredibly close 2018 governor’s race between current Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and Democrat Stacey Abrams.
“I’m not saying these suburban women are staying with us forever, but they’ve stayed with us for two cycles, with two very different candidates,” veteran Democratic pollster John Anzalone told Vox. “I’m not sure I’m buying the ‘Romney Republican’ now that they’ve almost become reasonable Democrats.”
Much like the 2020 election, it could all come down to Trump.
7) What is Trump’s role in this race?
The GOP’s message that keeping Georgia is the only thing standing in the way of unified Democratic control of the US Senate could get complicated by Trump.
Trump is unhappy about losing the presidency in general — but seems particularly aggrieved about the results in Georgia. The president is still refusing to concede the election to Biden, and has spent the past couple of weeks fighting very publicly with Republican Georgia state officials, including Gov. Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Trump recently called Raffensperger “an enemy of the people” and said he was “ashamed” that he endorsed Kemp in his 2018 governor’s race.
Raffensperger has remained steadfast as a Georgia recount takes place, even as Loeffler and Perdue signed a letter calling on him to resign as they try to curry favor with Trump. Loeffler and Perdue’s calculation here is clear: They can’t afford to alienate Trump or his base in the state. Even though Democrats surpassed turnout expectations in 2020, so did Republicans — driven by the fact that Trump himself was on the ballot.
“He’s still critically important,” said Brockway, the former Republican state representative. “Trump, sort of like Barack Obama, brought people into the political process. Their first exposure to politics is Trump, and they don’t necessarily view themselves as longtime loyal Republicans. They’re Trump Republicans, and when their guy gets rejected, that’s hard to take.”
That infighting taking top billing in the press has some Georgia Republicans worried that Trump’s continued baseless claims about a rigged election and fixed voting machines in the state could cause his supporters to stay home. Even as he recently encouraged his supporters to vote for Perdue and Loeffler in the January runoffs, Trump continued to claim baseless voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Republicans have another fear too. Remembering that Trump motivated Democrats and independent-minded voters to come out in droves in November, the fact that the president is still refusing to concede to Biden could keep Democrats energized longer than under normal circumstances. Of course, we don’t know if Trump will keep this up all the way until January — but he’s showing no signs of accepting defeat in the shorter term.
“When there are warring factions within the Republican Party casting blame saying that we should not concede, with the president taking to Twitter and calling people out ... all that does, I think, is fire the Democratic base up,” said Jason Downey, a Republican and the vice chair of the Georgia state Board of Education.
8) What other issues are driving the race?
The defining issue of the Georgia runoffs is control of the US Senate.
These races have just two outcomes: divided government in Washington split between a Democratic White House and US House, and a Republican-controlled Senate; and unified Democratic control in Washington. With the incoming Biden administration, the stakes are high.
Both sides in Georgia are framing the race around these outcomes. Republicans are attacking Ossoff and Warnock as “radical” and “socialist.” (Neither candidate identifies as socialist.) GOP mailers frame the Georgia race being “America’s last line of defense from a socialist takeover.” Republicans have especially been playing up comments Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has made about flipping Georgia, where he said, “Now we take Georgia, then we change America!”
Georgia voters will determine which party controls the US Senate on January 5, and thus decide the fate of President-elect Joe Biden’s agenda
“Anybody would agree that Chuck Schumer is a savvy political mind, but he was playing to his audience in New York and he handed Georgia Republicans a huge gift with that clip,” Robinson said. He added he believes Republicans and independents are “scared of a Democratic Senate joining Pelosi and Biden. Fear will motivate much more strongly than any other emotion in the runoff.”
Democrats have also emphasized the stakes of Georgia, but they’ve been framing the races more around a commonsense agenda to pass more Covid-19 relief, economic stimulus, and a jobs bill — legislation that is much less likely to come to fruition if Republicans keep the Senate.
Democrats argue that winning Georgia will give them a shot at governing and passing basic bills. Even if Democrats win 50 seats in the Senate, they will have to forge bipartisan compromise on big bills. There certainly will be no Medicare-for-all or Green New Deal passed even if Democrats manage to flip Georgia.
Ossoff and Warnock also have spent a lot of time talking about their Republican opponents’ financial past, particularly stock trades the two made after they received classified briefings on the Covid-19 pandemic while they were in office. Perdue sold stocks in a casino company and invested in the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, while Loeffler’s financial advisers sold stock in a company called Intercontinental Exchange, which operates global exchanges for financial and commodity markets and saw its stock drop during the pandemic. Both have denied the allegations of wrongdoing, and say that the trades were made by outside advisers, without their knowledge.
The stock trading issue hasn’t gone away, particularly for Perdue. The Daily Beast’s Sam Brodey recently reported Perdue invested in a company that manufactured Navy submarine parts called BWX Technologies right around the time he became head of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower. Perdue’s office told the Daily Beast that Perdue’s stock investments are managed by outside financial advisers and done without his prior approval.
Over the summer, Ossoff told Vox that if he’s elected, anti-corruption reforms — including a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United, a corporate PAC ban, and a ban on stock trading by sitting senators — will be his first priority in the Senate. That focus on anti-corruption is not a coincidence.
9) Is it really possible to move to Georgia and cast a ballot there before their deadline?
If it’s before the December 7 registration deadline, then technically yes. But those who want to move to a state just to vote in an election need to be comfortable with the idea of staying there for a while.
Otherwise, it’s against Georgia’s laws.
The deadline to register as a voter ahead of the runoffs is December 7, and Georgia law allows anyone with a legal primary residence in the state to register. However, the secretary of state’s office has been very clear that moving to the state with the sole purpose of voting and then moving away could carry a felony sentence.
Georgia state law requires that those who register be “a resident of this state and of the county or municipality in which he or she seeks to vote.” The law adds that “the residence of any person shall be held to be in that place in which such person’s habitation is fixed, without any present intention of removing therefrom.”
In a recent press release, the Georgia secretary of state’s office confirmed that “this would include individuals who move to Georgia solely for the sake of casting a ballot in an election with no intention of remaining in the state.”
False registration — or registering to vote knowing they don’t qualify in Georgia — is a state felony and carries a pretty stiff punishment: between one and 10 years in prison, and/or up to a $100,000 fine.
In other words, if you were already planning a move to Georgia or just got a job in the state and would like to vote there in the January election, it’s totally legal to do so. But if you’re registered and live elsewhere and are planning to vote and leave immediately after, it’s legally dubious.


vox--2020-11-30--The death of the department store and the American middle class

In a New Jersey suburb seven miles west of Midtown Manhattan , the American Dream is on shaky ground .
The Dream in question isn ’ t the mythological notion that upward social mobility is within reach for all hard-working Americans .
It ’ s a $ 5 billion , 3 million-square-foot shopping and entertainment complex in East Rutherford featuring an indoor ski slope , an ice-skating rink , and a Nickelodeon-branded amusement park .
The complex finally opened last fall , but it ’ s now facing huge new challenges .
The development ’ s complicated 17-year history , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and broken promises , had already put American Dream in a precarious situation .
The Covid-19 pandemic hitting in March made things much worse .
Whether the mall makes it in the long term will hinge in part on how it deals with the collapse of three of the marquee department stores that were to anchor the complex and draw foot traffic — Barneys New York , Lord & Taylor , and Century 21 — which all have gone bankrupt and closed , or are planning to close all their stores in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American Dream opened their doors to customers in October and November , but the complex ’ s future is not guaranteed .
Its owners , Triple Five Group , missed several mortgage payments this summer , and it ’ s not clear who might fill the enormous holes left by the three fallen department store chains , or which other retail tenants will opt out of their leases now that the development is missing three of its anchors .
While the story of American Dream is unique in many ways , its struggles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many US malls and department stores — whose destinies have long been intertwined .
The downfall of these once-crown jewels of retail will have meaningful impacts on the Americans who work for them and the communities they ’ ve long called home .
More than half of all mall-based department stores will close by the end of 2021 Across the US , department stores are shrinking or shuttering altogether .
In 2011 , US department stores employed 1.2 million employees across 8,600 stores , according to estimates from the research firm IBISWorld .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ fewer than 700,000 employees in the sector , working across just over 6,000 locations .
The reasons for the struggles are both shared and unique .
Since the Great Recession began in late 2007 , the vast majority of income growth in the US has gone to high-income households , squeezing middle-class households and altering where they spend money .
As a result , chains that sell brands at sharp discounts like TJ Maxx , Ross , and Dollar General have become more popular , siphoning away shoppers from full-price department stores like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were designed to cater to a stronger middle class of yesteryear .
Department stores are also facing the reality that they are no longer the main way most shoppers discover or access new brands — which was once perhaps their main appeal as one-time innovators .
Consumer brands have increasingly become focused on building connections with customers through their own stores , websites , social media platforms , and other online-only marketplaces .
All the while , department stores ’ contraction is upending local labor markets and the communities they called home .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ yet .
More than half of all mall-based department stores will close by the end of 2021 , according to estimates by Green Street Advisors , a commercial property research firm .
And that will have a massive impact on malls ; as of January , department stores accounted for nearly one out of every three square feet in malls .
“ The department store genre has been taking the great American shopping mall down with it , slowly but inevitably , ” said Mark Cohen , the director of retail studies at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of multiple department store chains in the US and Canada .
What happens when an entire sector of retail , one that employs more than half a million people , is in free fall — and is slowing or dragging down shopping malls like the American Dream with it ?
And what becomes of the local communities across the country whose social identities and local economies rested on , at least in part , now-fallen department stores and the malls they buttressed ?
We ’ re about to find out .
For much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ store chains played an important role in many Americans ’ lives and an innovative role in the retail sector .
For the American middle class of the 20th century , department stores helped shape what successfully living the American dream looked like .
These stores were often an entry point into fashion and home furnishing trends once reserved for only the wealthiest , since they offered large selections of name brands at affordable prices all under one roof — first in big cities , and then following population exoduses out to the suburbs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ malls in the suburban US , they played a foundational role in the idea of shopping as a social activity in the second half of the 20th century .
Department store employees also had it pretty good , for a time .
The sector was welcoming to women salespeople , providing a path to certain corporate roles for those who found success , according to the book From Main Street to Mall : The Rise and Fall of the American Department Store .
A successful salesperson working in one of these stores , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the sector , could make a career of their role , providing for their family , no college degree needed .
Those days are mostly long gone .
Since the Great Recession began in 2007 , the middle 40 percent of the US saw its income shrink But over the last two decades , a confluence of other factors has placed several giants on death ’ s door and put even the most innovative in a precarious situation .
These factors were both external and internal : Amazon led a boom in online @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relied on department stores began selling directly to customers online and in their own stores .
Meanwhile , many department store chains made the wrong bets , investing more heavily in store expansion while underinvesting in merchandise differentiation and e-commerce strategies .
But perhaps most critically for the chains targeting the middle class — think Macy ’ s , J.C. Penney , and Bon-Ton — this category of households has been struggling since the Great Recession began in 2007 .
According to a 2018 study from consulting firm Deloitte , “ the middle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its income shrink in the previous decade , while more than $ 8 out of every $ 10 in income growth nationwide went to high-income households .
As a result , discount chains that sell name brands at a bargain — like TJ Maxx and Ross stores — became much more attractive to middle-class shoppers than department stores selling at full price .
The treasure-hunting aspect of stores like TJ Maxx and Home Goods also added to their appeal over many of their department store competitors .
Macy ’ s , the largest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said earlier this year that it planned to close 125 of its 800-plus stores — and that was before the pandemic .
But department stores catering to wealthier customers have failed , too .
In addition to Sears and J.C. Penney , higher-end stores Barneys New York , Lord & Taylor , and Neiman Marcus have all filed for bankruptcy in the last two years .
Even Nordstrom , viewed by industry insiders as the most progressive traditional department store chain , is facing significant headwinds .
While overall US e-commerce sales increased @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to June as pandemic shutdowns pushed more shoppers online , Nordstrom registered just 20 percent growth in online sales .
As more Americans came online and as social media platforms rose in popularity , brands started establishing direct relationships online and through their own stores , which chipped away at their reliance on department stores for finding customers .
For a while , department stores still could provide a way to reach mostly older consumers who preferred in-person shopping or others who didn ’ t have internet access , but the chains became @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remaining a crucial sales channel .
More mid-priced brands such as Levi ’ s and Adidas started selling on Amazon and other online marketplaces as department stores targeting the middle class started to struggle , meaning chains like Macy ’ s now had serious online competition , too .
And since Amazon and other top online retailers are in many cases more convenient than visiting a large store where salespeople are trained and paid less than they once were , department store advantages further diminished .
Finally , some private equity companies — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in part by saddling them with debt — have taken aim at the sector , and the debt associated with their takeovers has hastened the demise of some department store chains like Neiman Marcus .
The Dallas-based luxury chain filed for bankruptcy earlier this year under crushing debt from its PE owner .
The chain was also late to e-commerce — when it finally started getting aggressive around 2014 , introducing free shipping and returns to better compete with Nordstrom , it didn ’ t work and instead crimped its profits .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hurt by some of the biggest brands it sells moving from a wholesale model to a more flexible and lower-risk model that was less profitable for Neiman Marcus .
While a private equity owner didn ’ t force these moves , the fallout from these crises coupled with a heavy debt burden was a recipe for disaster .
How the decline of department stores is reshaping communities While the pandemic has accelerated contraction of the department store industry , the sector has been in a slow descent for decades .
And the communities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ upside of their presence during the golden years , are now faced with a series of cascading challenges .
“ First they become an eyesore ; it ’ s aesthetically damaging , ” said Vicki Howard , the author of From Main Street to Mall .
“ Second , there ’ s the jobs .
… Third , it impacts the consumers themselves that have turned to that area for leisure activities , for places to go in the winter , to go with their kids.
” “ It ’ s quite a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to have these department stores closing .
...
They occupy such a physical place as well as a social space.
” “ It ’ s quite a big economic and social and cultural phenomenon to have these department stores closing — and malls also , ” she added .
“ They occupy such a physical place as well as a social space.
” The decline of department stores and the malls they supported has required local governments to get creative .
In Bartlesville , Oklahoma , a city of 36,000 near the border @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discount chains as the local Washington Park Mall has struggled .
The city provided $ 1.5 million in incentives in 2016 to develop an outdoor shopping center with popular discount retailers TJ Maxx and Ross to help offset the longtime troubles of the mall , once anchored by the department stores Sears , J.C. Penney , and Dillard ’ s .
( Sears and J.C. Penney both closed their stores there in recent years , and Dillard ’ s recently turned its mall location into a clearance store . )
“ We ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the mall ’ s legacy brands with up-and-coming brands better aligned with today ’ s consumer preferences , ” David Wood , Bartlesville ’ s economic development chief , told Recode in an email .
The city also provided a $ 200,000 incentive to divide an old Kmart into five smaller retail establishments , including outlet stores Ollie ’ s and Burkes Outlet , as well as a Dollar Tree store .
The new retail additions , Wood added , “ have largely offset the employment loss — with rising sales tax collections @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dropped in 2015 and 2016 in Bartlesville but grew modestly in 2018 and 2019 .
Of course , department store jobs are different from discount chain jobs , which have lower average hourly pay and rarely offer sales commissions .
In Madison , Wisconsin , local city-planning officials are looking ahead to a possible future where their city won ’ t have malls anchored by department stores .
They have been discussing potential redevelopment plans for the areas around the community ’ s struggling East Towne Mall and West Towne Mall since 2018 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ significance when the malls ’ owner filed for bankruptcy in early November .
Several of the malls ’ anchor tenants have closed up shop in the last few years , including the department store chains Boston Store and Sears .
While the Madison economy is diverse outside of retail , with a large research university and state government offices calling the city home , city planners believe it is critical to start discussing potential redevelopment plans , whether or not the mall ’ s owner ends up selling or gets on board with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commercial properties are in true distress , the ripple effects can be dangerous .
“ Longer-term vacancies can sometimes snowball and have the effect of spreading and negatively impacting surrounding areas , ” said Ben Zeller , a city planner for Madison .
Madison officials have been studying other mall redevelopment plans around the country for ideas about what to do .
If redevelopment of these Madison malls do end up happening and they look anything like projects in other communities that city planners are studying , the retail presence would likely be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and non-retail employers .
Zeller himself lives in an apartment building built on a former mall parking lot in another part of Madison .
At a high level , Zeller told Recode that such redevelopment plans are complex , which means they take time : 15 to 20 years or longer to complete .
One challenge involves the fragmented ownership structure of large mall properties , where the main mall may be owned by one business and the department store anchors and restaurants could be owned by separate entities .
Another challenge involves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ It ’ s very difficult to have a future neighborhood created when there are blocks [ in existing mall developments ] that are 100 to 200 acres as opposed to a normal city block , ” he added .
Residential neighborhoods typically need shorter street connections to make public transportation and walking viable .
Zeller added that the city wants to make sure that , no matter who buys in , “ we ultimately end up with a connected public street network , adequate parkland to serve new residential uses , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and other components of complete neighborhoods.
” In short , communities can rebound from department store chain failures — and the ripple effect on malls — if they have the time and resources to plan two decades into the future like Madison is starting to .
But not every American community does .
What it means for the people who depend on retail jobs While some of the evolution that the department store sector has gone through marked natural generational shifts in consumer behavior , the industry ’ s failures have had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in retail , extinguishing the idea of retail sales positions as careers — which in the 20th century was an advantage for department stores .
“ It ’ s a negative cycle .
If you have less career-oriented employees and higher turnover , you invest less in those employees , ” said Jason Goldberg , the chief commerce strategy officer at the global advertising holding company Publicis .
“ It creates this vicious cycle and then you can ’ t recruit good employees .
They were turned from advisers and very relationship-based salespeople @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the idea of a department store sales job being a career hasn ’ t been a reality for decades .
In the mid-1900s , they could be steady , family-supporting jobs with fixed schedules .
But in the decades following the birth of big-box retailers Walmart , Kmart , and Target — all in 1962 — retail wages began dropping as traditional chains chased the lower-paying labor models of the new discount retailers .
So where are department store employees going ?
In the five-year period from 2015 to 2019 , more started @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ I would have to guess that by 1980 it was not likely that a single-wage earner could support a family while working on the selling floor of a retail store , ” said Cohen , the Columbia professor and former department store executive .
Yes , there are still top salespeople at chains like Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus who might pull in six figures , but they are the few exceptions to the rule .
So where are department store employees going as their employers cut jobs , close stores , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ period from 2015 to 2019 , more started working in discount chains .
The category of the retail industry that includes dollar stores like Dollar General jumped into the Top 5 categories of employment that attracted workers who had recently left or were laid off from a department store job .
( This job transition data was based on a Brookings Institution analysis of current population survey public-use microdata provided to Recode by Chad Shearer , a former senior research associate at the think tank who is now an economic development consultant .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ thing , as least as it relates to employee earnings .
While Dollar General ’ s stock price has nearly tripled over the last five years , its frontline employees don ’ t see much of that enrichment .
Average hourly base pay at Dollar General is $ 9 , according to the job review site Glassdoor , compared to $ 11 at Macy ’ s .
The rise of e-commerce can be seen in this job movement data , too .
During the same five-year period , if you combine the “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ job sectors ( which both include e-commerce companies ) into one category of employment , the combined sector moves into the Top 10 for industries where employees who had recently left department store roles went to work next .
It ’ s possible e-commerce employers should rank even higher in reality , since many e-commerce warehouse employees are technically hired by third-party temporary employment firms .
There are trade-offs to this shift .
On the one hand , Amazon warehouse employees in the US make a base wage of $ 15 an hour @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than most entry-level department store jobs .
But the work is often much more physical in nature than a retail job , requiring workers to pick or stow hundreds of items per hour at a rapid pace and to be able to lift up to 50 pounds of goods .
The reality is that when it comes to finding a job in 2020 , Amazon and Walmart — already the two biggest private-sector employers in the US — are the retailers offering work .
While so many industries have contracted , they ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ job openings this year alone .
And as department stores continue to cut jobs , the largest players in the new retail economy capture more power in the labor market .
How to rebuild from department stores ’ ruins There is no silver bullet for US department stores to immediately start thriving again , so the best many can do is simply try to adapt and survive .
For chains that still have a nationwide presence — like Macy ’ s or Nordstrom — that means fewer large , full-price stores and more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by smaller pickup points for online orders to offset expensive shipping costs .
Macy ’ s executives have also said the company plans to test smaller stores that aren ’ t attached to malls in an effort to unhitch their destiny from struggling regional malls built for a weakening American middle class .
As department stores fight their uphill battles , they are being replaced by competition that can provide better prices , selection , or convenience to shoppers of all wealth levels As these chains fight their uphill battles , they are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that can provide better prices , selection , or convenience to shoppers of all wealth levels .
The best discount chains , for example , are still thriving a decade after the Great Recession ended .
Even without a strong e-commerce presence , the parent company of TJ Maxx , Marshalls , and Home Goods is moving steadily through the pandemic , with a stock price equal to what it was before Covid-19 hit the US in March .
And Dollar General ’ s stock price hit an all-time high in October ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 53 billion .
Brands that sell apparel and cosmetics — key product categories for many department store chains — continue to sell more goods directly to shoppers through their own stores and websites rather than through department store chains .
This direct connection gives brands — whether they ’ re established or new startups — more control over how their goods are displayed , more information about who their customers are , and often better profit margins .
Nike , for example , stopped selling through department stores Belk and Dillard ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ available at the online retailer Zappos .
Under Armour announced it would cut its wholesale partners in North America by 2,000 to 3,000 stores .
New online retailers that attract digital-savvy consumers and , in turn , more brands — like Stitch Fix , Rent the Runway , The RealReal , and ThredUp — were also stealing market share from department stores pre-pandemic .
But Amazon continues to be the titan of the modern retail world .
It ’ s at least seven times bigger than No .
2 Walmart in e-commerce , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in beefing up its physical store presence as well .
While the online giant ’ s direct impact on department stores was minimal for much of its history , things have changed in recent years .
Amazon is still not a high-end fashion destination , but it is absolutely a place where a majority of Americans are willing to buy footwear , casual clothing , or basics like underwear and socks .
In April , the retail research firm Coresight said that more than 70 percent of apparel shoppers bought clothing or footwear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — an increase of 10 percentage points from 2019 and 25 percentage points from 2018 .
At the weakest moment for department stores , Amazon is becoming a more powerful direct competitor .
Taken together , the future for department stores is bleak , and for many of the malls they anchor .
Yes , the US has too many retail stores — 40 percent more retail square feet per person than No .
2 Canada — and too many subpar malls , considering current shopping trends .
Yes , the retailers courting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ superior products , prices , or experiences that are resonating better with shoppers .
Yes , it is normal in capitalism for industry categories to fall while others rise .
But the communities across the country that depended on these stores and malls as job creators will have to get creative to rebuild around their ruins .
And the Americans who once saw a department store sales job as a potential career , or at least an entry path to a better-paying retail corporate job , now face a new reality : Many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discount chains and e-commerce giants — are offering less pay , or perhaps better pay but less personable and more grueling work .
Even if you could snap your fingers and return this retail sector to glory , it wouldn ’ t solve the key societal and macroeconomic problems connected to its decline .
While the median US household brought in 48 percent more income in 2018 than in 1970 , the vast majority of those gains happened prior to 2000 .
Along the way , the middle class ’ s income share @ @ @ @ @ @ @ store chains catered to — has shrunk by 19 percentage points as the rich keep getting richer .
In turn , most shoppers value discounts above all else — who can blame them ?
And for those who can afford it , the convenience of Amazon Prime delivery and its endless virtual shelves of merchandise is very difficult to beat .
If the American dream of department stores wasn ’ t fully extinguished before 2020 , the year of the pandemic will make sure it is .

In a New Jersey suburb seven miles west of Midtown Manhattan, the American Dream is on shaky ground.
The Dream in question isn’t the mythological notion that upward social mobility is within reach for all hardworking Americans. It’s a $5 billion, 3 million-square-foot shopping and entertainment complex in East Rutherford featuring an indoor ski slope, an ice-skating rink, and a Nickelodeon-branded amusement park. The complex finally opened last fall, but it’s now facing huge new challenges.
The development’s complicated 17-year history, marked by ownership changes, false starts, and broken promises, had already put American Dream in a precarious situation. The Covid-19 pandemic hitting in March made things much worse. Whether the mall makes it in the long term will hinge in part on how it deals with the collapse of three of the marquee department stores that were to anchor the complex and draw foot traffic — Barneys New York, Lord & Taylor, and Century 21 — which all have gone bankrupt and closed, or are planning to close all their stores in the US.
More than half of all mall-based department stores will close by the end of 2021
Around 100 storefronts in American Dream opened their doors to customers in October and November, but the complex’s future is not guaranteed. Its owners, Triple Five Group, missed several mortgage payments this summer, and it’s not clear who might fill the enormous holes left by the three fallen department store chains, or which other retail tenants will opt out of their leases now that the development is missing three of its anchors.
While the story of American Dream is unique in many ways, its struggles are emblematic of the bleak future facing many US malls and department stores — whose destinies have long been intertwined. The downfall of these onetime crown jewels of retail will have meaningful impacts on the Americans who work for them and the communities they’ve long called home.
Across the US, department stores are shrinking or shuttering altogether. In 2011, US department stores employed 1.2 million employees across 8,600 stores, according to estimates from the research firm IBISWorld. But in 2020, there are now fewer than 700,000 employees in the sector, working across just over 6,000 locations.
The reasons for the struggles are both shared and unique. Since the Great Recession began in late 2007, the vast majority of income growth in the US has gone to high-income households, squeezing middle-class households and altering where they spend money. As a result, chains that sell brands at sharp discounts like TJ Maxx, Ross, and Dollar General have become more popular, siphoning away shoppers from full-price department stores like Macy’s and J.C. Penney that were designed to cater to a stronger middle class of yesteryear.
Department stores are also facing the reality that they are no longer the main way most shoppers discover or access new brands — which was once perhaps their main appeal as onetime innovators. Consumer brands have increasingly become focused on building connections with customers through their own stores, websites, social media platforms, and other online-only marketplaces.
What happened to department stores? The fates of the American middle class and American department stores have always been intertwined.
All the while, department stores’ contraction is upending local labor markets and the communities they called home. And rock bottom is not even here yet. More than half of all mall-based department stores will close by the end of 2021, according to estimates by Green Street Advisors, a commercial property research firm. And that will have a massive impact on malls; as of January, department stores accounted for nearly one out of every three square feet in malls.
“The department store genre has been taking the great American shopping mall down with it, slowly but inevitably,” said Mark Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia University who was previously the CEO of multiple department store chains in the US and Canada.
What happens when an entire sector of retail, one that employs more than half a million people, is in free fall — and is slowing or dragging down shopping malls like American Dream with it? And what becomes of the local communities across the country whose social identities and local economies rested on, at least in part, now-fallen department stores and the malls they buttressed? We’re about to find out.
What’s killing the department store
For much of the past century, US department store chains played an important role in many Americans’ lives and an innovative role in the retail sector.
For the American middle class of the 20th century, department stores helped shape what successfully living the American dream looked like. These stores were often an entry point into fashion and home furnishing trends once reserved for only the wealthiest, since they offered large selections of name brands at affordable prices all under one roof — first in big cities, and then following population exoduses to the suburbs. And as the main attractions for malls in the suburban US, they played a foundational role in the idea of shopping as a social activity in the second half of the 20th century.
Department store employees also had it pretty good, for a time. The sector was welcoming to women salespeople, providing a path to certain corporate roles for those who found success, according to the book From Main Street to Mall: The Rise and Fall of the American Department Store. A successful salesperson working in one of these stores, especially before large chains came to dominate the sector, could make a career of their role, providing for their family, no college degree needed. Those days are mostly long gone.
Since the Great Recession began in 2007, the middle 40 percent of the US saw its income shrink
But over the past two decades, a confluence of other factors has placed several giants at death’s door and put even the most innovative in a precarious situation. These factors were both external and internal: Amazon led a boom in online shopping, and many brands that once relied on department stores began selling directly to customers online and in their own stores. Meanwhile, many department store chains made the wrong bets, investing more heavily in store expansion while underinvesting in merchandise differentiation and e-commerce strategies.
But perhaps most critically for the chains targeting the middle class — think Macy’s, J.C. Penney, and Bon-Ton — this category of households has been struggling since the Great Recession began in 2007. According to a 2018 study from the consulting firm Deloitte, “the middle 40 percent” of the country saw its income shrink in the previous decade, while more than $8 out of every $10 in income growth nationwide went to high-income households. As a result, discount chains that sell name brands at a bargain — like TJ Maxx and Ross stores — became much more attractive to middle-class shoppers than department stores selling at full price. The treasure-hunting aspect of stores like TJ Maxx and Home Goods also added to their appeal over many of their department store competitors. Macy’s, the largest traditional department store in the country, said earlier this year that it planned to close 125 of its 800-plus stores — and that was before the pandemic.
“Sears was built for [the] middle-class mall goer,” Web Smith, the founder of the commerce and media newsletter 2PM, wrote in the wake of Sears’s 2018 bankruptcy. “It’s been the thesis of 2PM, Inc. that retailers who’ve built their businesses for this American demo will continue to struggle until the American middle class rebounds.”
But department stores catering to wealthier customers have failed, too. In addition to Sears and J.C. Penney, higher-end stores Barneys New York, Lord & Taylor, and Neiman Marcus have all filed for bankruptcy in the past two years. Even Nordstrom, viewed by industry insiders as the most progressive traditional department store chain, is facing significant headwinds. While overall US e-commerce sales increased 45 percent year over year from April to June as pandemic shutdowns pushed more shoppers online, Nordstrom registered just 20 percent growth in online sales.
As more Americans came online and as social media platforms rose in popularity, brands started establishing direct relationships online and through their own stores, which chipped away at their reliance on department stores for finding customers. For a while, department stores still could provide a way to reach mostly older consumers who preferred in-person shopping or others who didn’t have internet access, but the chains became more complementary for popular brands rather than remaining a crucial sales channel.
More mid-priced brands such as Levi’s and Adidas started selling on Amazon and other online marketplaces as department stores targeting the middle class began to struggle, meaning chains like Macy’s now had serious online competition, too. And since Amazon and other top online retailers are in many cases more convenient than visiting a large store where salespeople are trained and paid less than they once were, department store advantages further diminished.
Finally, some private equity companies — investment firms that buy up struggling companies in part by saddling them with debt — have taken aim at the sector, and the debt associated with their takeovers has hastened the demise of some department store chains like Neiman Marcus. The Dallas-based luxury chain filed for bankruptcy earlier this year under crushing debt from its PE owner.
The chain was also late to e-commerce — when it finally started getting aggressive around 2014, introducing free shipping and returns to better compete with Nordstrom, it didn’t work and instead crimped its profits. The company’s bottom line was also hurt by some of the biggest brands it sells moving from a wholesale model to a more flexible and lower-risk model that was less profitable for Neiman Marcus. While a private equity owner didn’t force these moves, the fallout from these crises coupled with a heavy debt burden was a recipe for disaster.
How the decline of department stores is reshaping communities
While the pandemic has accelerated contraction of the department store industry, the sector has been in a slow descent for decades. And the communities they call home, which experienced the upside of their presence during the golden years, are now faced with a series of cascading challenges.
“First they become an eyesore; it’s aesthetically damaging,” said Vicki Howard, the author of From Main Street to Mall. “Second, there’s the jobs. … Third, it impacts the consumers themselves that have turned to that area for leisure activities, for places to go in the winter, to go with their kids.”
“It’s quite a big economic and social and cultural phenomenon to have these department stores closing — and malls also,” she added. “They occupy such a physical place as well as a social space.”
The decline of department stores and the malls they supported has required local governments to get creative. In Bartlesville, Oklahoma, a city of 36,000 near the border of Kansas, local officials have embraced discount chains as the local Washington Park Mall has struggled. The city provided $1.5 million in incentives in 2016 to develop an outdoor shopping center with popular discount retailers TJ Maxx and Ross to help offset the longtime troubles of the mall, once anchored by the department stores Sears, J.C. Penney, and Dillard’s. (Sears and J.C. Penney both closed their stores there in recent years, and Dillard’s recently turned its mall location into a clearance store.)
“We’ve been exceedingly fortunate to have replaced the mall’s legacy brands with up-and-coming brands better aligned with today’s consumer preferences,” David Wood, Bartlesville’s economic development chief, told Recode in an email.
The city also provided a $200,000 incentive to divide an old Kmart into five smaller retail establishments, including outlet stores Ollie’s and Burkes Outlet, as well as a Dollar Tree store. The new retail additions, Wood added, “have largely offset the employment loss — with rising sales tax collections, too.” Taxable physical retail sales dropped in 2015 and 2016 in Bartlesville but grew modestly in 2018 and 2019. Of course, department store jobs are different from discount chain jobs, which have lower average hourly pay and rarely offer sales commissions.
In Madison, Wisconsin, local city-planning officials are looking ahead to a possible future where their city won’t have malls anchored by department stores. They have been discussing potential redevelopment plans for the areas around the community’s struggling East Towne Mall and West Towne Mall since 2018, and the discussions took on added significance when the malls’ owner filed for bankruptcy in early November.
Several of the malls’ anchor tenants have closed up shop in the past few years, including the department store chains Boston Store and Sears. While the Madison economy is diverse outside of retail, with a large research university and state government offices calling the city home, city planners believe it is critical to start discussing potential redevelopment plans, whether or not the mall’s owner ends up selling or gets on board with redevelopment, because by the time large commercial properties are in true distress, the ripple effects can be dangerous.
“Longer-term vacancies can sometimes snowball and have the effect of spreading and negatively impacting surrounding areas,” said Ben Zeller, a city planner for Madison.
Madison officials have been studying other mall redevelopment plans around the country for ideas about what to do. If redevelopment of these Madison malls does end up happening and looks anything like projects in other communities that city planners are studying, the retail presence would likely be downsized and supplemented by new residential buildings and non-retail employers. Zeller himself lives in an apartment building built on a former mall parking lot in another part of Madison.
At a high level, Zeller told Recode that such redevelopment plans are complex, which means they take time: 15 to 20 years or longer to complete. One challenge involves the fragmented ownership structure of large mall properties, where the main mall may be owned by one business and the department store anchors and restaurants could be owned by separate entities. Another challenge involves restructuring the public street network around malls.
“It’s very difficult to have a future neighborhood created when there are blocks [in existing mall developments] that are 100 to 200 acres as opposed to a normal city block,” he added. Residential neighborhoods typically need shorter street connections to make public transportation and walking viable.
Zeller added that the city wants to make sure that, no matter who buys in, “we ultimately end up with a connected public street network, adequate parkland to serve new residential uses, integrated transit, an improved bike network, and other components of complete neighborhoods.”
In short, communities can rebound from department store chain failures — and the ripple effect on malls — if they have the time and resources to plan two decades into the future like Madison is starting to. But not every American community does.
What it means for the people who depend on retail jobs
While some of the evolution that the department store sector has gone through marked natural generational shifts in consumer behavior, the industry’s failures have had a significant impact for those who work in retail, extinguishing the idea of retail sales positions as careers — which in the 20th century was an advantage for department stores.
“It’s a negative cycle. If you have less career-oriented employees and higher turnover, you invest less in those employees,” said Jason Goldberg, the chief commerce strategy officer at the global advertising holding company Publicis. “It creates this vicious cycle and then you can’t recruit good employees. They were turned from advisers and very relationship-based salespeople into cashiers.”
With few exceptions, the idea of a department store sales job being a career hasn’t been a reality for decades. In the mid-1900s, they could be steady, family-supporting jobs with fixed schedules. But in the decades following the birth of big-box retailers Walmart, Kmart, and Target — all in 1962 — retail wages began dropping as traditional chains chased the lower-paying labor models of the new discount retailers.
“I would have to guess that by 1980 it was not likely that a single-wage earner could support a family while working on the selling floor of a retail store,” said Cohen, the Columbia professor and former department store executive.
Yes, there are still top salespeople at chains like Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus who might pull in six figures, but they are the few exceptions to the rule.
So where are department store employees going as their employers cut jobs, close stores, or go bankrupt? In the five-year period from 2015 to 2019, more started working in discount chains. The category of the retail industry that includes dollar stores like Dollar General jumped into the top five categories of employment that attracted workers who had recently left or were laid off from a department store job. (This job transition data was based on a Brookings Institution analysis of current population survey public-use microdata provided to Recode by Chad Shearer, a former senior research associate at the think tank who is now an economic development consultant.)
That may not be a great thing, as least as it relates to employee earnings. While Dollar General’s stock price has nearly tripled over the past five years, its front-line employees don’t see much of that enrichment. Average hourly base pay at Dollar General is $9, according to the job review site Glassdoor, compared to $11 at Macy’s.
The rise of e-commerce can be seen in this job movement data, too. During the same five-year period, if you combine the “electronic shopping” and “warehousing” job sectors (which both include e-commerce companies) into one category of employment, the combined sector moves into the top 10 for industries where employees who had recently left department store roles went to work next. It’s possible e-commerce employers should rank even higher in reality, since many e-commerce warehouse employees are technically hired by third-party temporary employment firms.
There are trade-offs to this shift. On the one hand, Amazon warehouse employees in the US make a base wage of $15 an hour, which is a higher base pay than most entry-level department store jobs. But the work is often much more physical in nature than a retail job, requiring workers to pick or stow hundreds of items per hour at a rapid pace and to be able to lift up to 50 pounds of goods. The reality is that when it comes to finding a job in 2020, Amazon and Walmart — already the two biggest private sector employers in the US — are the retailers offering work. While so many industries have contracted, they’ve added hundreds of thousands of new job openings this year alone. And as department stores continue to cut jobs, the largest players in the new retail economy capture more power in the labor market.
How to rebuild from department stores’ ruins
There is no silver bullet for US department stores to immediately start thriving again, so the best many can do is simply try to adapt and survive. For chains that still have a nationwide presence — like Macy’s or Nordstrom — that means fewer large, full-price stores and more investment in e-commerce sales, potentially supplemented by smaller pickup points for online orders to offset expensive shipping costs. Macy’s executives have also said the company plans to test smaller stores that aren’t attached to malls in an effort to unhitch their destiny from struggling regional malls built for a weakening American middle class.
As department stores fight their uphill battles, they are being replaced by competition that can provide better prices, selection, or convenience to shoppers of all wealth levels
As these chains fight their uphill battles, they are being replaced by a bevy of options that can provide better prices, selection, or convenience to shoppers of all wealth levels. The best discount chains, for example, are still thriving a decade after the Great Recession ended. Even without a strong e-commerce presence, the parent company of TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Home Goods is moving steadily through the pandemic, with a stock price equal to what it was before Covid-19 hit the US in March. And Dollar General’s stock price hit an all-time high in October; the company is now worth nearly $53 billion.
Brands that sell apparel and cosmetics — key product categories for many department store chains — continue to sell more goods directly to shoppers through their own stores and websites rather than through department store chains. This direct connection gives brands, whether they’re established or new startups, more control over how their goods are displayed, more information about who their customers are, and often better profit margins. Nike, for example, stopped selling through department stores Belk and Dillard’s earlier this year and is no longer available at the online retailer Zappos. Under Armour announced it would cut its wholesale partners in North America by 2,000 to 3,000 stores. New online retailers that attract digital-savvy consumers and, in turn, more brands — like Stitch Fix, Rent the Runway, The RealReal, and ThredUp — were also stealing market share from department stores pre-pandemic.
But Amazon continues to be the titan of the modern retail world. It’s at least seven times bigger than No. 2 Walmart in e-commerce, and it’s continuing to invest in beefing up its physical store presence as well. While the online giant’s direct impact on department stores was minimal for much of its history, things have changed in recent years. Amazon is still not a high-end fashion destination, but it is absolutely a place where a majority of Americans are willing to buy footwear, casual clothing, or basics like underwear and socks. In April, the retail research firm Coresight said that more than 70 percent of apparel shoppers bought clothing or footwear on Amazon in the prior 12 months — an increase of 10 percentage points from 2019 and 25 percentage points from 2018. At the weakest moment for department stores, Amazon is becoming a more powerful direct competitor.
Taken together, the future for department stores is bleak, and for many of the malls they anchor. Yes, the US has too many retail stores — 40 percent more retail square feet per person than No. 2 Canada — and too many subpar malls, considering current shopping trends. Yes, the retailers courting business away from department stores are providing superior products, prices, or experiences that are resonating better with shoppers. Yes, it is normal in capitalism for industry categories to fall while others rise.
But the communities across the country that depended on these stores and malls as job creators will have to get creative to rebuild around their ruins. And the Americans who once saw a department store sales job as a potential career, or at least an entry path to a better-paying retail corporate job, now face a new reality: Many of the biggest retailers hiring today — discount chains and e-commerce giants — are offering less pay, or perhaps better pay but less personable and more grueling work.
Even if you could snap your fingers and return this retail sector to glory, it wouldn’t solve the key societal and macroeconomic problems connected to its decline. While the median US household brought in 48 percent more income in 2018 than in 1970, the vast majority of those gains happened prior to 2000. Along the way, the middle class’s income share — which many of the biggest department store chains catered to — has shrunk by 19 percentage points as the rich keep getting richer. In turn, most shoppers value discounts above all else; who can blame them? And for those who can afford it, the convenience of Amazon Prime delivery and its endless virtual shelves of merchandise is very difficult to beat. If the American dream of department stores wasn’t fully extinguished before 2020, the year of the pandemic will make sure it is.