The Good the Bad and How We Can Actually Win in Georgia

Ben Tyson
3 min readDec 5, 2020

--

SurveyUSA just came out with new numbers, and there are some really important insights for Vote From Home’s 2 Senators, 1 Ballot program in Georgia. (I know we’re all skeptical of polls now, but SurveyUSA is one of the highest rated polling firms and still serves as an important source of good data.)

There are five tables I want to highlight here for you.

Topline head-to-head numbers show that both of our Democratic candidates are leading right now. Given the Georgia’s historically Republican bent, starting off slightly ahead is an excellent position for us.

What Makes Me Worry: Voting Preferences

Among voters who identify as Democrats, there are actually more voters who say that they plan to vote by mail than the number who actually voted by mail in the general election.

As someone who is a huge proponent of voting from home, this is awesome to see. I say it’s mixed though because many of these voters may not know they need to submit a new absentee ballot request. We have our work cut out for us in terms of ensuring that all of these voters get signed up for a runoff absentee ballot.

A Close Look at Voting Likelihood

Overall, we see almost identical levels of Trump vs. Biden supporters who say that they are certain to vote in the runoff election. It’s good that we are not starting from a deficit there, but when we dig in further, we see that the most important core of likely Democratic voters, Black voters, are six points less likely to say that they are certain to vote than Democratic voters overall. Vote From Home is focused Chatham County voters where we’ll be talking to folks on the doors, phones, and via text about why we need to elect Reverend Warnock and Jon Ossoff in this runoff election.

One last crosstab on voting likelihood: Among voters who say they aren’t likely to vote in the runoff, there are warning signs for Democrats who are much more likely to say that they aren’t likely to vote because they either think their vote doesn’t matter or because they don’t like our candidates. We clearly need to do more work to get out the message about our incredible Democratic candidates, Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, and make the case for why casting a ballot is important and powerful.

I know you might be feeling burnt out from the epic saga of the general election, but this really matters. If we don’t kick Mitch McConnell out of power in the Senate this January, the Biden-Harris administration will get “Merrick Garlanded” before they even get a chance to get to work.

Vote From Home is fighting to make sure that we send Rev. Warnock and Jon Ossoff to the U.S. Senate by making calls, sending texts, and knocking on doors. You can find out more and join us by visiting www.votefromhome2020.org.

--

--

Ben Tyson

Ben is a Co-Founder of Vote From Home 2020, a progressive organization that is fighting to expand vote-by-mail in vulnerable populations and defeat Donald Trump