Posted on 02/04/2021 9:47:00 AM PST by SeekAndFind
During a week in which Democrats formally finalized their takeover of the US Senate's instruments of power, and flexed their legislative muscles by pushing through a party-line vote to pave the way for a massive spending bill, it seems like an opportune moment to reflect on how we got here. Republican voters largely held the line, despite a daunting Senate map, in November. After election night, it very much looked like Democrats would net just one single seat in the upper chamber, allowing Mitch McConnell to remain majority leader, and force the Biden administration into tough negotiations on a wide range of issues. All they had to do was not lose both Georgia runoffs, which seemed eminently achievable. After all, Republicans had received more votes than Democrats in both races in the first round, and the runoff format has traditionally heavily favored the GOP. But then January 5 happened, and the Democrats swept both contests.
As a result, Chuck Schumer is now majority leader, and Kamala Harris is the tie-breaking vote. In the immediate aftermath of that debacle, we cited early evidence that David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler lost because Democrats were united and motivated, while GOP turnout was underwhelming amid conspiracies and intra-party anger. Republican fears had come true. More support for this theory has continued to trickle in:
Story of the lost #GASen runoffs: Decreased GOP turnout pic.twitter.com/grZnpYHeMC— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) January 15, 2021
More data, via the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Over 752,000 Georgia voters who cast ballots in the presidential election didn’t show up again for the runoffs just two months later, according to a new analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of recently released voting records. More than half of the no-shows were white, and many lived in rural areas, constituencies that lean toward Republican candidates...Trump’s message that the election was stolen discouraged voters such as Craig Roland, a 61-year-old Rome resident. Roland said he didn’t believe his vote would count. “What good would it have done to vote? They have votes that got changed,” Roland said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever vote again."...The AJC’s analysis found that the drop in turnout was most severe in northwest and South Georgia, areas where Trump held rallies, in Dalton and Valdosta, to bolster support for the state’s Republican senators.
That quote from Mr. Roland must haunt Georgia GOP operatives' nightmares. When the most prominent and influential Republican in the country repeatedly and baselessly tells his ardent fans that the election was rigged and stolen – including by members of their own party, in their own state – a significant number of those fans will internalize and believe that message. Follow-up exhortations that they turn out to vote anyway will invariably fall on a lot of deaf ears. And that's precisely what happened. The "Trumpiest" areas (including the North Georgia district represented by a certain congresswoman who was a loud "stop the steal" adherent, and who evidently is predisposed to believe literally any conspiracy that crosses her desk) saw the biggest dips. The statistics tell the story, Allahpundit writes: "Eleven percent fewer whites who voted in the presidential election turned out for the runoffs. By comparison, just eight percent fewer black voters did. Warnock defeated Loeffler by 93,000 votes while Ossoff topped Perdue by just 55,000; the number of whites who showed up for the Trump/Biden race but didn’t show up for the Senate races was on the order of 400,000 people." And both GOP Senate candidates were essentially forced to go along with the incoherent, "stop the steal," but also vote' two-step, in what a former campaign official described as a daily "hostage situation":
"It was a hostage situation every day," said one Republican strategist familiar with the campaigns who only agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity. "We were always trying to guard against the tweet [from Trump]," the strategist said. "Every week we had some new sort of demand," said another strategist involved with the campaigns. "Calling for the hand recount. The signature match. A special session. $2,000 [coronavirus relief] checks. Objecting to the electors." "It was, 'If you do not do this, the president will actively work against you and you will lose,' " he recalled.
Can't win races without the base, can't win races in certain key states and districts with only the base. That's the very real dilemma moving forward as the party goes to war with itself, replete with purges and loyalty tests. And the GOP fratricide runs a very serious risk of turning a red state into a purple state into a blue state in a matter of a few cycles. Internal Republican animosity and dysfunction are boosting Democrats in Georgia, to the point that at this stage, it's hard not to see both Raphael Warnock and Stacey Abrams as early frontrunners in the 2022 Senate and gubernatorial elections, respectively:
It hasn’t mattered for the last 2 decades, the GOP made that clear.
Their loss.
I will not be ignored.
You absolutely will be ignored. Nothing you can do about it.
You have not posted a single thing that is correct.
In the hundreds of times I have called my elected reps over 30 years, not once has anyone inquired as to my voter registration status or participation in an election.
They have ignored us regardless.
You know that there are other ways (that are much more reliable) to check your voting status, beside you disclosing that information, right?
I also note how incredibly absurd your cowardice is, given that no one anywhere has suggested that Missouri’s election was “rigged.”
You do understand that the aliens and lizard people don’t actually have a centralized counting center. All counting is done at the local precinct level. Missouri’s elections are well run and completely above board.
You can shove your condescending tone and lame insults where the sun don’t shine.
You call me a moron and then rely on half assed guess work.
Piss off.
Oh, you are triggered... let the butt hurt flow through you.
Your impotent rage is amusing.
More guesswork.
Be amused at how wrong you are.
Considering they saw the presidential election stolen on live TV as they stopped counting ballots ON election night, why would they bother to vote again? Stacy Abrams made clear that she sent out millions of mail in ballots for the senate race.
If I was wrong, you wouldn’t bother replying. LOL!
Yes, cultists. Like you. You want a LEADER, a Strong Man on a White Horse. An infallible cult leader. Screw that. Using ‘never Trump’ as some kind of infantile smear is your weak-assed attempt at gaslighting.
No. I want a border and fair trade. That’s why I vote Trump. I know I’ll never get that from the GOP. There is no more bipartisan agreement in the swamp than support for open borders and unfair trade.
And get a grip. You are parroting progressive Democrat talking points about the first president to advance conservatism since Reagan. 30 years! 30 years of GOP support for open borders and unfair trade. Open your eyes and thank President Trump instead of attacking him and his supporters.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.