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Georgia's 6th Congressional District Special Election |OT| Round 2: Fight!

That's a fallacy of probability. There's no proof that one race being closer means another one will follow the same pattern. They are each individual races. That +10 district could jump to +20 or +2 or whatever other number at, at least in theory, the same amount of probability.

What you're doing is just making yourself feel better. Does it show progress? Absolutely, and that should be commended. But let's not act like it's a victory for anyone but republicans.

You should probably shy away from using terms you don't understand. If seats in South Carolina, Kentucky, Georgia, and Montana are all more competitive due to a rise in Dem voting, that's plenty to extrapolate a national trend out of. Nate Silver has been doing just that recently.
 

Quazar

Member
Man, seems like republicans always get a secret +2 bonus despite the polling, probably because they turn out.

Precisely the damn problem. It's either oh we got this or oh we don't. Fucking excuses from the left. The right shows up! Bottom line.
 
Nate Silver with the truth
If we wind up with Handel winning by like 2 points and Norman winning by about 4 points, that’s by no means the worst outcome for Democrats. In fact, it’s a sort of par-for-the-course one, given expectations going in. But it’s just about the most annoying possible outcome for Democrats, closing the gap in a lot of places, but not winning anywhere yet.

It's frustrating to lose, but these results are not as bad as they seem. These losses over the last few months were in places Democrats had no business even getting close, and yet each time they were fairly close to winning.

SC's results from tonight are especially crazy.
 
Man, seems like republicans always get a secret +2 bonus despite the polling, probably because they turn out.

I told PolGAF this in November and got told in no uncertain terms I didn't know what I was talking about.

No, the reason Republicans do well in non-General Elections is because these old people who don't want future generations to have a say in anything show up EVERY GOD DAMN TIME there's ANY ELECTION. It could be a Special Run-Off Election for the County Dog Catcher on Christmas fucking Day and they would still show up in force to make sure the Democrats couldn't win.

Yup. Saw a bunch of older folk out today, which is weird for a not Wednesday. The polling milkshake brings all the old white folks to the yard.
 
It has nothing to do with probability, it shows national trends, regional trends and demographic trends.

Guess we will find out just how much that actually means in an unrelated race.

Democrats need more bodies in these areas. Republicans will vote for whoever has an R next to their name and will continue to do so. Democrats and dependant on independents voting.
 
I wonder if the mail-in-votes or early votes are being counted separately at a later time tonight. The pretty large increase in Handel votes over the last hour leads me to believe that counties are just counting their in-person votes at the moment.

I think it was mentioned by Silver that was the case, but the margin isn't expect to make a massive difference. They have Handel up by over 10,000 votes right now.
 
The olds who only wake up once every two years to vote Republican

No, the reason Republicans do well in non-General Elections is because these old people who don't want future generations to have a say in anything show up EVERY GOD DAMN TIME there's ANY ELECTION. It could be a Special Run-Off Election for the County Dog Catcher on Christmas fucking Day and they would still show up in force to make sure the Democrats couldn't win.
 

Althane

Member
What I mean is that she came into the race with lots of baggage and not the best reputation. Plus she has zero charisma. I really think Ossoff should have just moved back to his district. It's a ridiculous error on an otherwise well run campaign.

I mean, I listened to both debates and she was hitting all the points that my family would hear and go, "Man, we gotta vote for her".

Look at Trump, what you and I are interpreting as charisma is clearly not what other people are.
 
Precisely the damn problem. It's either oh we got this or oh we don't. Fucking excuses from the left. The right shows up! Bottom line.

The left definitely showed up in the Georgia election, that's not the question here. There's just a helluva lot more of the right in this district.
 
No, the reason Republicans do well in non-General Elections is because these old people who don't want future generations to have a say in anything show up EVERY GOD DAMN TIME there's ANY ELECTION. It could be a Special Run-Off Election for the County Dog Catcher on Christmas fucking Day and they would still show up in force to make sure the Democrats couldn't win.

So, what's stopping younger people from voting with such fervor?
 
No, the reason Republicans do well in non-General Elections is because these old people who don't want future generations to have a say in anything show up EVERY GOD DAMN TIME there's ANY ELECTION. It could be a Special Run-Off Election for the County Dog Catcher on Christmas fucking Day and they would still show up in force to make sure the Democrats couldn't win.

So this sounds like a dem issue and not a rep issue
 

Bunta

Fujiwara Tofu Shop
Karen Handel (Republican) 53.2% 104,223
Jon Ossoff (Democratic) 46.8% 91,657

117 of 208 (56%) Precincts Reporting, 195,880 Total Votes
 

Zolo

Member
It's as if the district is made up of a majority of Republican voters 🤔

Yeah. It's been noted that one of the things to look into is if increased turn out here helped or hurt Democrats due to being a majority Republican district.
 
It absolutely "means shit." I cannot understand how the fuck people are so desperate to be negative they can't even reason a little bit.

If a district that was R +20 is now R +5, is that important? What do you think that suggests? What can we hope for in an R +10 district?

People need to fucking pay attention and stop tripping over themselves to drop their real talk bullshit on everyone.

Until those +10 Republicans lose their seats, then Democrats really have nothing more than hope that they will. The Republican party is a complete shitshow right now. Their president is hated and they're trying to shove a horrible tax disguised as a healthcare plan down peoples throats, yet Democrats still struggle to unseat them. At this point, Democrats really have very little to show for in an actual results. And until they do, then they really are just hoping that eventually things will start to go their way.
 

Capella

Member
I'm looking at Upshot but I guess a lot of Fulton and the rest of Cobb County votes are coming in on 538's vote count?
 
Until those +10 Republicans lose their seats, then Democrats really have nothing more than hope that they will. The Republican party is a complete shitshow right now. Their president is hated and they're trying to shove a horrible tax disguised as a healthcare plan down peoples throats, yet Democrats still struggle to unseat them. At this point, Democrats really have very little to show for in an actual results. And until they do, then they really are just hoping that eventually things will start to go their way.

Obviously the Democrats are going to struggle to win +10R seats...

They actually have a lot to show for results. There's are quite a lot of Congressmen who cannot survive a +5 or more shift to Democrats. It just so happens these special elections were able to survive that.
 
He had a good run.

You know, I mean, I'm not sure he did at this point? People can shout about the margins and stuff, but this was supposed to be a razor thin race, and he's now behind by 7 points. Handel is trending almost three times what Trump won the district by. Unless a big surge for Ossoff is coming, Handel may performed way above expectations.
 
There is a winner and a loser. It doesn't matter if you win by 1 vote or 100,000 votes, all that matters is that you win. If you lose, you're a loser.

Please do not celebrate losing, it's pathetic.
 
You know, I mean, I'm not sure he did at this point? People can shout about the margins and stuff, but this was supposed to be a razor thin race, and he's now behind by 7 points. Handel is trending almost three times what Trump won the district by. Unless a big surge for Ossoff is coming, Handel may performed way above expectations.

He's probably only going to lose by 1 or 2 percent

Stop watching the results in real time and assume it's the final margin

There is a winner and a loser. It doesn't matter if you win by 1 vote or 100,000 votes, all that matters is that you win. If you lose, you're a loser.

Please do not celebrate losing, it's pathetic.

There's an entire Wikipedia article on why it kinda actually does matter the percent Democrats lose by
 

KHarvey16

Member
Until those +10 Republicans lose their seats, then Democrats really have nothing more than hope that they will. The Republican party is a complete shitshow right now. Their president is hated and they're trying to shove a horrible tax disguised as a healthcare plan down peoples throats, yet Democrats still struggle to unseat them. At this point, Democrats really have very little to show for in an actual results. And until they do, then they really are just hoping that eventually things will start to go their way.

This is on the same level as plugging your ears with your fingers and saying lalalala.

Dem's have picked up some of these elections. They've lost the ones where republicans are historically ahead by a lot. That's huge.

These seats themselves hold almost no practical value for doing or preventing any of the things you talk about. And they're up for re-election in 2018 just like the rest anyway.

Closing gaps in huge +R districts is real, tangible progress that means a great deal. Trying to diminish that by going around saying it all means shit because they didn't win is incredibly short sighted and foolish.
 
Man, seems like republicans always get a secret +2 bonus despite the polling, probably because they turn out.

Or polls consistently under-represent Republican turnout in almost every election.

No, the reason Republicans do well in non-General Elections is because these old people who don't want future generations to have a say in anything show up EVERY GOD DAMN TIME there's ANY ELECTION. It could be a Special Run-Off Election for the County Dog Catcher on Christmas fucking Day and they would still show up in force to make sure the Democrats couldn't win.

Seems like you're blaming Republicans for voting. I vote D, but like, if Democrats actually cared to come out to vote more than once every 4 years, the political landscape across the country would be very different. You're right, though, Republicans generally come out to vote in what seems like meaningless elections while Democrats (or those Democratically minded) don't. The major problem with this is that the winner of the Special Run-off Election for County Dog Catcher ends up running for School Committee 2 years later, and then City Council, and then State Legislature, and then Congress.
 

slit

Member
Until those +10 Republicans lose their seats, then Democrats really have nothing more than hope that they will. The Republican party is a complete shitshow right now. Their president is hated and they're trying to shove a horrible tax disguised as a healthcare plan down peoples throats, yet Democrats still struggle to unseat them. At this point, Democrats really have very little to show for in an actual results. And until they do, then they really are just hoping that eventually things will start to go their way.

You do know that there are MANY place in this country where the GOP is not +10, in fact, there are places that should not have gone to the GOP but because of the firestorm created by Obama they did during midterms. If the only thing you look at this is from "well they didn't win so nothing is changing", yes I see why you are disillusioned but know you can't see the forest for the trees.
 

Zolo

Member
Yeah. At this point, no official call's been made, but everyone's assuming Ossoff will lose at this point.
 
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