Early voters are turning out in droves for the dual run-off elections in Georgia that will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate when President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated.
Over 1.3 million Georgians have already cast ballots in person or by mail — more than two weeks before the election date. That rivals, and could exceed, the turnout in the Nov. 3 presidential election.
But pollsters? Not so much, reports Politico.
“After a disastrous November election for the polling industry, when the polls again underestimated President Donald Trump (who lost regardless) as well as GOP candidates down the ballot, pollsters are mostly sidelined in the run-up to the Jan. 5 Georgia elections, which most observers regard as toss-ups,” Politico says.
Polling failures going back to 2016 appear to have left pollsters wary of their own methods for predicting who and how many people will vote, as well as who they’ll vote for.
“Some of the most prolific, best-regarded media and academic pollsters … [say] they have no plans to conduct pre-election surveys in Georgia,” Politico says.
In any event, voters are savoring their role, choosing between Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue and Democratic challengers Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Both Democrats must win to give their party control of the Senate.
“In below-freezing temperatures on a recent morning, voters in line to cast their ballots said they were eager to have a say in the high-stakes contests,” reports the Washington Post.
What limited polling there is, according to FiveThirtyEight’s aggregated analysis, indicates a neck-and-neck race — 2 percentage points or less — between the Democrats and Republicans.
“About 36,000 Georgians who didn’t vote in November cast ballots early for the January runoffs, according to state data. That includes people who were too young to vote last month,” as well as people of color, the Post reports.
“It is usually a struggle to turn out voters for off-cycle elections, like runoffs,” the New York Times reported recently. “Activists and officials also feared that the swirl of turmoil that trailed the presidential election, with recounts and a barrage of baseless claims of fraud, would keep people from the polls.
“Instead, Georgia’s voters were motivated, fueled by either their jubilation or their outrage after … Biden [narrowly] secured the first win for a Democratic presidential candidate in Georgia in 28 years.”
Part of the voters’ motivation no doubt grew out of the more than $400 million dollars already spent by the two parties on advertising.
“Georgia residents have found the runoffs virtually inescapable,” the Times says. “Advertisements praising or attacking the Senate candidates have filled every commercial break, and social media feeds have been clogged with posts trying to telegraph just how high the stakes are….”
High stakes or not, the usual frenzy of pre-election polling simply isn’t happening — and that makes estimating the outcome difficult, to say the least.
“It is hard,” Atlanta-based pollster Robert Cahaly told the Times, noting that the timing of the twin races — during the holiday season — adds to the challenge.
The campaigns, Cahaly says, aren’t competing with each other: “they’re competing with Santa Claus. They are literally competing with the Lexus ad with the big, red bow on the car.”