Gubernatorial Race 2018 (qualifications, woman, Republican)

[LTCM]

Abrams has zero chance of wining a runoff, barring some kind of bombshell.

[Soccernerd]

By the time I went to bed last night at 11:30, Kemp was ahead by 8 points or so with 60 something percent of the vote. Were early votes the last ones to come in?

[BELMO45]

Originally Posted by LTCM

Abrams has zero chance of wining a runoff, barring some kind of bombshell.

It’s really hard to say. Turnout would plummet on both sides. It’s a question of who would get more to show up

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by Iconographer

Last night, I heard Deal say (once again) that he believes that Kemp will be a much more moderate governor than most have a right to expect. After all, Deal has a legacy to protect; he has, in short, positioned Georgia as one of the top states in which to do business. He's not about to let Kemp's irresponsible demagoguery and dopey ideas about taking Georgia retrograde blow all that effort into pieces. I'd bet dollars to donuts that Cousin Jethro has already been taken to the woodshed by Deal over this, and that Deal has let him know that he would come out against him publicly if he makes good on his vow to sign the Religious Freedom Bill or anything else that might send the wrong message to the business community.

Deal is a fiscal conservative and a social moderate. Kemp is a hard-right conservative.

I fear that Kemp may have stolen this election and become a governor that will sign all sorts of ultraconservative laws into effect. Maybe this race will somehow go to a runoff.

Speaking of which, what the hell is taking officials so long to tally the votes?? Surely there was a way to count some of the absentee and early-voting ballots before election night. It feels embarrassing that, yet again, we have to endure such a sluggish electoral system. And guess who's in charge of that system right now?!

[CaliDreaming01]

Originally Posted by Soccernerd

By the time I went to bed last night at 11:30, Kemp was ahead by 8 points or so with 60 something percent of the vote. Were early votes the last ones to come in?

That's was about the state of the race when I went to bed. The early vote would have been counted first I believe. I had thought that they were waiting on the metro Atlanta counties to finish counting. Those counties had many problems in the voting and long lines past 7 so it was taking an extended period of time to finish to vote. After metro Atlanta's votes started to come in, Kemp's lead shrank down to barely there.

I think now they are addressing the absentee ballots and all of those provisional ballots that were the subject of all the lawsuits. That is going to take a few days.

[LTCM]

Originally Posted by BELMO45

It’s really hard to say. Turnout would plummet on both sides. It’s a question of who would get more to show up

She got less votes yesterday, there is no way her base shows up better relative to kemps in a runoff.

[CaliDreaming01]

Originally Posted by toll_booth

Speaking of which, what the hell is taking officials so long to tally the votes?? Surely there was a way to count some of the absentee and early-voting ballots before election night. It feels embarrassing that, yet again, we have to endure such a sluggish electoral system. And guess who's in charge of that system right now?!

There are probably a lot of absentee ballots that came in or were dropped off on election day. Also remember there are a significant number of provisional ballots cast and controversies over the 53K voters whose registrations were held up and the voters caught up in the "exact match" saga. It's going to take a few days to sort out and that's even if there aren't further lawsuits filed.

Yes it is very disheartening to know Kemp will have to weigh in over many of these disputes.

[LTCM]

Originally Posted by toll_booth

Deal is a fiscal conservative and a social moderate. Kemp is a hard-right conservative.

It's funny, they said the exact same thing about deal when he was elected. About how extreme he was going to be. They will also say it about the next Republican governor elected, and the next, and the next and the next...

[CaliDreaming01]

Originally Posted by LTCM

She got less votes yesterday, there is no way her base shows up better relative to kemps in a runoff.

Yes, Metz got less than a percent of the both whereas Libertarians usually get 2-3% of the vote. Usually that vote would throw the result to the Republican.

Both Kemp and Abrams' vote was made up of a significant number of disengaged voters who usually don't vote in elections. So both sides are going to have to hope that their bases stay motivated.

Also, in GA voters who didn't vote in the main election will be able to vote in the runoff, so Abrams would still have time to scrounge up more voters.

I think a runoff would just be a repeat of what happened last night, and like someone else said, it's a coin toss.

[BELMO45]

Statistically the longer the result of the initial election takes to certify the more likely the party that was ahead and lost is to win the runoff so if we end up waiting til Friday to find out she’s caught up I would give her a smaller chance than if we can wrap this today and say we have a runoff. The GOP base will lose their minds if this gets pulled out from under them 72 hours from now and will come out like bandits on 12/4