Tag Archives: Jon Ossoff

Perdue to Challenge Kemp in Georgia

By Jim Ellis

Former US Sen. David Perdue (R-GA)

Dec. 7, 2021 — Something that has been rumored about and speculated upon for weeks has finally come to fruition. Defeated Sen. David Perdue has formally announced that he will challenge Gov. Brian Kemp in next year’s Republican primary.

The serious primary challenge is part of the aftermath from the 2020 election controversy where Gov. Kemp’s perceived handling of the voter fraud complaints and challenges left a significant portion of the Republican base expressing discontent. Former President Donald Trump has many times attacked Kemp on the subject and is one of the key people behind Perdue’s fledgling gubernatorial candidacy. Trump is expected to play a large role in the primary.

Georgia Gov Brian Kemp

Sen. Perdue lost his seat in the 2020 post-general runoff to Jon Ossoff (D) by a 50.6 – 49.4 percent count (54,944 votes of a total turnout of 4.48 million) after placing first in the general election by almost two full percentage points. Georgia has a majority victory rule, however, that requires all candidates to win their elections with more than 50 percent. In the November vote, Sen. Perdue fell just one-quarter percent short of securing outright victory.

One of the reasons he lost is the state’s strongest Republican counties didn’t perform in the runoff as strongly as did the best Democratic counties. Many Republicans, it is believed, did not return for the runoff because they listened to some of the key Trump leaders, including the former president himself, argue that the Georgia election system is “rigged.”

Gov. Kemp was elected in 2018, winning the primary largely because he positioned himself far to the right, thus successfully appealing to the ardent Trump Republican voter. After moderating for the general election campaign, Kemp defeated former state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams (D) by just 54,723 votes, an almost identical number to the difference between the Ossoff-Perdue election two years later. She, like Trump, challenged the election results.

The relationship between Gov. Kemp and Trump first became strained when the former disregarded the latter’s endorsed candidate for the US Senate appointment: then-Rep. Doug Collins who was in the running to replace resigned Sen. Johnny Isakson. The three-term senator, former House member and state legislative leader, was forced to leave office for health reasons, thus allowing the governor to appoint an interim successor.

Instead of Collins, Gov. Kemp chose billionaire businesswoman Kelly Loeffler, who would go onto lose her special election runoff campaign to current Sen. Raphael Warnock (D).

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The Democrats Take Georgia

By Jim Ellis

Documentary filmmaker Jon Ossoff (D), left, is poised to defeat incumbent Sen. David Perdue (R) in the Georgia runoff elections. Rev. Raphael Warnock (D) is projected as winner over appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R).

Jan. 6, 2021 — In a rather surprising finish, it appears the Democrats will win both of yesterday’s Georgia runoff races and clinch a 50-50 majority in the US Senate (with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote).

Rev. Raphael Warnock (D) has been projected a 50.6 percent winner over appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) to claim the special election, while documentary filmmaker Jon Ossoff (D) is poised to defeat incumbent Sen. David Perdue (R).

The races are extremely close, as correctly predicted in polling. Rev. Warnock’s margin is currently 53,430 votes from a current turnout of 4,401,162 votes with a projected 98 percent of the vote reporting. The Ossoff spread is even closer. He leads Sen. Perdue by 16,370 votes of 4,401,064 cast ballots, a margin of 50.2 – 49.8 percent. The latter race has not been declared, but it is clear, when looking at where the outstanding ballots remain, that Ossoff will increase his percentage.

The runoff campaigns, made necessary under Georgia election law that requires majority support to win office, came down to a turnout battle within the evenly split state. Democrats did just slightly better than Republicans in getting their votes to the polls, and that made the final difference.

It is likely that the African American vote that appears key. In the early voting trends, black voter participation comprised an estimated 32.6 percent of the voting populace in the runoffs versus 29.8 percent in the regular election. Clearly, this increase was enough to change the outcome of both campaigns. In the regular election, Sen. Perdue missed winning outright by just one-quarter of a percentage point, and the entire Republican special election field outpolled the entire Democratic candidate group by just over 47,000 votes.

We clearly have a record voter turnout for this Georgia runoff election. In the past, these types of contests have produced drop-off rates of approximately one-third of the number of people who voted in the regular election. In this 2020 runoff, understanding that the numbers will increase by approximately 90,000 more votes when all ballots are processed and counted, the turnout will likely reach in the neighborhood of 90 percent of the total number of people who voted on Nov. 3.

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Georgia Runoffs Underway Today

By Jim Ellis

Jan. 5, 2021 — At long last, the 2020 US Senate election cycle will end today, and the determination of which party will hold the chamber’s majority for the next two years will likely become known late tonight.

To recap, Sen. David Perdue (R) and documentary filmmaker Jon Ossoff (D) battle for the in-cycle seat with the winner being awarded a six-year term. The special election winner, the race between appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) and Rev. Raphael Warnock (D), will serve the final two years of the term that resigned Sen. Johnny Isakson (R) won back in 2016. The seat will be in-cycle for the full six-year term in 2022.

The 2020 regular election outcome, current polling, and the early/mail voting count all suggest very close results to unfold this evening.

To re-cap:

2020 Regular Election Tallies – Nov 3, 2020

Seat A
Sen. David Perdue (R) 2,462,617 49.73%
Jon Ossoff (D) 2,374,519 47.95%
Shane Hazel (Lib) 115,039 2.32%
Total Cast 4,952,175
Seat B
Raphael Warnock (D) 1,617,035 32.90%
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) 1,273,214 25.91%
18 Others (D/R/I) 2,024,112 41.19%
Total Votes
Total R Vote 2,426,120 49.37%
Total D Vote 2,377,712 48.38%
Total I Vote 110,529 2.25%
Total Cast 4,914,361

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Coasting on Trump’s Coattails?

By Jim Ellis

President Trump

Dec. 11, 2020 — When examining 21st century electoral behavior, in an overwhelming number of states, we find that voters are choosing the US Senate contender of the party whose presidential candidate carries their particular electorate, and the 2020 vote is mostly no exception to such a premise. This pattern allows the various presidential nominees to develop political coattails and potentially bring in additional members of his party to both the Senate and House.

In November, the only state where voters swayed from that pattern was Maine, where Pine Tree State voters broke 52-43 percent in favor of Democrat Joe Biden at the top of the ticket but returned to the Republican column to re-elect Sen. Susan Collins by a 50-42 percent margin. And, as we will see when examining the data below, in the 2020 presidential race the coattail margin was not as determinative as it has been in other such campaigns during the past 20 years.

Though not legal victories in the sense that the first-place finisher did not obtain the office sought, the two Georgia Senate elections did yield Republican “wins,” if you will, since the GOP candidates finished ahead of their Democratic counterparts in a state that President Trump failed to carry.

Remember that all of the Georgia races finished with razor-thin margins, so the pattern is not particularly definable. While President Trump was losing to Biden by just 12,670 votes of 4.998-plus million ballots cast, Sen. David Perdue (R) outpaced Democrat Jon Ossoff with an 88,098-vote spread, and the aggregate special election Senate Republican vote total was 47,808 higher than the combined Democratic sum.

The patterns of how the Senate Republican candidates fared with President Trump leading the ticket are interesting in that they don’t yield a consistent flow. In the 35 Senate races from 34 states where such elections were conducted, President Trump carried 19 of the states hosting Senate races as compared to 15 for Mr. Biden. Simultaneously, Republican candidates placed first in 22 of the 35 Senate races.

In 10 of the states hosting a Senate race where President Trump won, the Republican Senate candidate, though winning in all 10 of those instances, ran behind the top of the ticket by an average of 2.2 percent. Conversely, however, in nine other states that President Trump won, he fell behind the GOP Senate candidate by an average of 2.8 percent.

Turning to the 16 states hosting Senate elections that Joe Biden carried (counting Georgia twice because of their two Senate campaigns), President Trump ran ahead of the losing Republican Senate candidate in nine states by an average percentage factor of 1.9, while he ran behind the losing Republican in four, and then behind the winning — or first-place — Republican in three more. In these latter situations, the deficit margin was 1.8 percent.

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Georgia Senate Races Unfold

(Sen. David Perdue Ad)

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 9, 2020 — We are over halfway into the Georgia US Senate runoff campaigns that will decide the national legislative body’s majority and it is clear that political prime time will determine the winners. Election Day is now less than a month away and the start of early voting begins next Monday, Dec. 14.

Setting the political table, the Republicans have a slight advantage coming from both Nov. 3 elections. GOP Sen. David Perdue (see ad above) placed ahead of Democrat Jon Ossoff (see ad below) by 88,098 votes but came up a quarter of a percentage point shy of obtaining the majority support necessary to win. In the 20-candidate field for the special election, when adding all of the Republican candidates and comparing that tabulation to the Democratic aggregate, we see the GOP holding a 47,808 vote edge.

(Jon Ossoff Ad)

The combined Georgia Senate runoff elections are sure to set a spending record once the campaigns end on January 5th. Already, according to the AdImpact marketing organization, as the Daily Kos Election site and Bloomberg Government reports, over $300 million has been spent since the beginning of these runoff campaigns.

(Raphael Warnock Ad)

A total of $170 million has been expended in the special election campaign, for example. Between the two candidates, Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock (see ad above) has outspent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler (see ad below), $60 million to $45 million, but outside groups supporting the appointed incumbent have more than made up the difference, outlaying $53 million as compared to $13 million from left-of-center organizations.

(Sen. Kelly Loeffler Ad)

Democrats have run approximately 42,000 commercials as compared to the Republicans’ 33,500 during the runoff period even though the latter party and its allies have spent more. Because the right-of-center organizations have dominated the non-candidate spending, and the cost to run such ads is greater than for an individual candidate’s committee, the monetary imbalance is thus explained.

Polling predictably shows a close race with virtually every study finding all four contenders within the polling margin of error, as a listing of the latest post-November 3rd election surveys reveal:

Senate – A

Trafalgar Group (Dec. 1-3; 1,083 likely voters)

• Jon Ossoff (D) 48%
• Sen. David Perdue (R) 47%

Survey USA (Nov. 27-30; 583 likely voters)

• Jon Ossoff (D) 50%
• Sen. David Perdue (R) 48%

RMG Research (Nov. 19-24; 1,377 likely voters)

• Jon Ossoff (D) 48%
• Sen. David Perdue (R) 47%

Insider Advantage (Nov. 16; 800 likely voters)

• Jon Ossoff (D) 49%
• Sen. David Perdue (R) 49%

Remington Research Group (Nov. 8-9; 1,450 likely voters)

• Sen. David Perdue (R) 50%
• Jon Ossoff (D) 46%

Senate – B – Special Election

Trafalgar Group (Dec. 1-3; 1,083 likely voters)

• Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) 50%
• Raphael Warnock (D) 45%

Survey USA (Nov. 27-30; 583 likely voters)

• Raphael Warnock (D) 52%
• Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) 45%

RMG Research (Nov. 19-24; 1,377 likely voters)

• Raphael Warnock (D) 48%
• Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) 46%

Insider Advantage (Nov. 16; 800 likely voters)

• Raphael Warnock (D) 49%
• Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) 48%

V-Creek/AMG (Nov. 10; 300 likely voters)

• Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) 50%
• Raphael Warnock (D) 46%

Remington Research Group (Nov. 8-9; 1,450 likely voters)

• Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) 49%
• Raphael Warnock (D) 48%

The campaign messages are also well defined. Sen. Perdue continues to emphasize the national negative themes that appeared to work well for the GOP in the down ballot races: socialism, defunding the police, packing the US Supreme Court, raising taxes, and illegal immigrant voting.

Ossoff has been concentrating his ad messages on COVID and what he claims are Perdue and President Trump’s failures in handling the issue. His latest ad linked below features film of former President Barack Obama at a rally for the Democratic candidate, along with Ossoff’s wife, Dr. Alisha Kramer, who is a physician.

Turning to the special election, the Loeffler and Warnock campaigns have been trading attacks, counterattacks, and defensive messages.

Rev. Warnock hits Sen. Loeffler on her controversial stock transactions, while she responds with an aggressive hit about him being an extremist who calls the police “thugs” and once invited Fidel Castro to speak at a church where Rev. Warnock was an assistant pastor. Warnock responds with the linked ad that shows him walking his dog and disposes of the animal’s excrement in a reference to characterizing the Loeffler attacks.

In the end, the races will come down to which side can better deliver its base votes to the polls. Turnout will be robust but certainly well under the 4.952 million people who originally voted in the Perdue-Ossoff campaign, the larger turnout figure from the two Senate contests.

At this point, the races’ conclusion is uncertain, but Republicans should still have at least a slight advantage heading into early voting period and the election itself. Such a premise is based upon past voting history even in this politically changing state, and the original vote margins recorded on Nov. 3.

Attack of the Attack Ads

(Sen. Perdue Ad)

By Jim Ellis

Nov. 17, 2020 — All four Georgia Senate runoff candidates are already hitting the airwaves with new messages that telegraph just where they want their campaigns to head in the final weeks of 2020 political overtime.

As you know, Sen. David Perdue (R) faces Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff for the in-cycle six-year term, and appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) opposes Rev. Raphael Warnock (D) in the special election to fill the final two years of resigned Sen. Johnny Isakson’s (R) final term. Loeffler was appointed when Isakson left office at the end of 2019 for health reasons. Both contests will be decided on Jan. 5.

The outcome will decide the Senate majority. If the Democrats sweep the two races, they will become the majority party because the new vice president, Kamala Harris, will break the 50-50 tie. If Republicans just win one of the two, they will maintain their current majority status, albeit smaller, at 51-49. Winning the pair means the GOP will have only lost a net of one seat in the 2020 election cycle as their majority would register 52-48.

Sen. Perdue set the tone of his runoff effort with a new ad (top) that highlights Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) saying, “when we (meaning the Democrats) take Georgia, we will change America.” The Perdue ad defines “the Schumer-Pelosi-Ossoff” change as “defund[ing] the police, voting rights for illegal immigrants, and making Washington, DC the 51st state.” The message then quotes Ossoff as saying, “change is coming to America.” The ad closes with the narrator saying, “believe them. Vote Perdue to stop them.”

(Jon Ossoff Ad)

Ossoff responds with an ad (above) solely devoted to COVID-19. The media consultants found virtually identical COVID related statements from President Trump and Sen. Perdue, and then runs their audio consecutively in an attempt to tie the two together. The ad closes with the narrator saying that “David Perdue ignored the medical experts, downplayed the crisis, and left us unprepared.”

The special election is taking a much different tone. Challenger Raphael Warnock, the Baptist minister who pastors the church over which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his father once presided, Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta, re-visits Sen. Loeffler’s controversial COVID related stock transactions and creates an ad around this subject (below).

(Raphael Warnock Ad)

The script says Sen. Loeffler, “after receiving confidential briefings on Coronavirus immediately starts dumping stocks …making sale after sale and getting rid of $3.1 million before the market crashed.” The tagline ends with the narrator saying, “Kelly is for Kelly. Warnock is for us.”

The ad, of course, makes no mention of Sen. Loeffler’s transactions being investigated and cleared by the Securities and Exchange Commission, but it is more than probable that we will be hearing that part of the story in future Loeffler campaign communications.

Sen. Loeffler launched a hard-hitting new attack centered around her theme, “saving the Senate is about saving America.” The ad attacks Rev. Warnock for “calling police thugs and gangsters, host[ing] a rally for Communist dictator Fidel Castro, and prais[ing] Marxism in speeches and writings.” (below)

(Sen. Loeffler Ad)

With the campaign battle lines being drawn early in this two-month runoff campaign, we can expect this type of hard-hitting rhetoric to continue all the way to the Jan. 5 election as both sides attempt to motivate their base voters to return for the runoff.

The last time we saw a US Senate runoff in Georgia – Georgia and Maine are the only two states that require general election winners receive majority support – occurred in 2008 when Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) was forced into a secondary vote. The circumstances were similar. Sen. Chambliss placed first in the general election but, like Sen. Perdue, finished just a few thousand votes under the 50 percent threshold (49.8 percent). This forced Chambliss and his opponent, Democrat Jim Martin who received 46.8 percent, into a Dec. 2 runoff election of that year.

Sen. Chambliss prevailed in the runoff with 57.4 percent of the vote. In that year, 3.752 million people voted in the general election with 2.138 million returned for the runoff election for a drop-off rate of 43 percent. In 2020, a total of 4,945,702 individuals cast a vote in the Perdue-Ossoff Senate race, while the figure was approximately 37,000 people lower for the special election, 4,907,872. While a drop-off from the 2020 general election is expected, political intensity suggests it will likely not be as high as we saw in the 2008 US Senate runoff campaign.

Outstanding Races Update

By Jim Ellis

Nov. 9, 2020 — A few races were called over the weekend, while political overtime drags on for others.

Alaska senate race still undecided between physician and commercial fisherman, Democrat Al Gross (left), and first-term Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan.

The uncalled Senate races will likely remain in their current position throughout this week. Currently, Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) holds a big lead over physician Al Gross (I/D), 62.3 – 32.1 percent, with a vote margin of 57,616. Despite the large spread, the race is not called because only 58 percent of the vote is reporting. The Alaska cut-off date for receiving ballots postmarked Nov. 3 is this Friday, Nov. 13. Therefore, it is presumed that we will not have a final declaration until the weekend at the earliest.

The North Carolina situation remains frozen. Sen. Thom Tillis (R) holds a 95,739-vote lead with all counted but those ballots that could come in through Nov. 12. It appears the universe of requested ballots not yet returned could only be a maximum of approximately 116,500. The ballots must now be in the mail stream as they would have to have been postmarked on Nov. 3. Mathematics suggest a Tillis victory will occur, but such a declaration is not yet official.

As we know, both Georgia Senate races will advance to their respective runoff elections on Jan. 5. The political battles feature Republican Sen. David Perdue (49.7 of requested ballots not yet returned) and Democrat Jon Ossoff (47.9 percent). The special election features Democratic Rev. Raphael Warnock (32.9 percent) and appointed Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler (25.9 percent).

The House races are not fully complete, as 24 contests remain in abeyance. At this point, Republicans have gained a net five seats among the 411 campaigns that have been decided. Of the remaining 24, the GOP candidates lead in 18, but many will likely flip back toward the Democrat as counting concludes. In the end, it is likely that the Republicans will gain between seven and nine seats, meaning they will hold 208 to 210 House seats as compared with 227 to 225 for the Democrats.

In the past few days, the following races have been declared and the winners are listed below:

AZ-6: Rep. David Schweikert (R)
CA-50: Darrell Issa (R) – Open Seat – Republican hold
GA-7: Carolyn Bourdeaux (D) – Open Seat – Democratic gain
IN-5: Victoria Spartz (R) – Open Seat – Republican hold
MI-3: Peter Meijer (R) – Open Seat – Republican gain
MI-8: Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D)
MI-11: Rep. Haley Stevens (D)
MN-1: Rep. Jim Hagedorn (R)
MN-2: Rep. Angie Craig (D)
NV-3: Rep. Susie Lee (D)
NV-4: Rep. Steven Horsford (D)
NJ-2: Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R)
NY-4: Rep. Kathleen Rice (D)
PA-7: Rep. Susan Wild (D)
PA-8: Rep. Matt Cartwright (D)
PA-10: Rep. Scott Perry (R)
PA-17: Rep. Conor Lamb (D)
WA-3: Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R)

The remaining races are still undecided:
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