Damn!, that was satisfying! Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock is heading back to the United States Senate for a full 6 year term. And it followed the newly printed Democratic Georgia playbook. And once again it worked.
The playbook is simple. Smash the shit out of early in person and mail in voting, and build a big enough lead to withstand the expected GOP surge in election day voting, considering Traitor Tot basically banned GOP voters from early voting. And the Democrats blew the doors off with in person early and mail in voting.
But it might not have been enough. The GOP was on its hind legs to try to flip that seat so that they could hamstring Biden for the next 2 years with a 50-50 Senate with no committee advantages. After the Senate runoff debacle of 2021, the GOP legislature went to work to pass a law that cut the time between the election and the runoff in half. And they tried to limit early voting. They made it harder for non white college students at HBCU’s to vote with their student I’ds. And they almost pulled it off. But they failed, for one reason.
The incredible grassroots activism organizations that Stacey Abrams has worked tirelessly for over the last 6 years. This was the secret sauce. Ditch McConnell and his dark money friends pumped more than $30 million in dark money to try to prop up Walker. But dark money can’t buy on the ground activism. They can only put up negative advertising.
From the time that early voting started, grassroots activists knocked on more than 4 million doors, making personal connections, and holding personal conversations. After early voting ended last Friday, they didn’t let up. They knocked on more than 400,000 doors, holding those conversations, and empowering people to go out to vote on election day. And that turned out to make all the difference.
Steve Kornacki on MSNBC summed up Walker’s strategy perfectly tonight. He said that what Walker had to do was to a) hold Warnock at or under the numbers he posted in November in the Democratic strongholds of the Atlanta suburbs and, b) To drive his own output up in the GOP strongholds and GOP friendly cow counties, while holding Warnock under his numbers in November.
Walker did neither. In the Democratic strongholds, Warnock largely exceeded his November numbers, while Walker either flatlined or lost ground. But it was in the GOP stronghold suburban and cow counties where Walker fell on his face. Time and time again, Walker either flatlined, fell short, or exceeded his November numbers, only to see Warnock overperform his November numbers tonegate Walkers advantage.
That was the turning point. The Democratic grassroots activists didn’t just go into the Democratic strongholds to whip up the vote, they went everywhere. Time and time again, the results showed that while Walker may have won the cow counties, and even increased his share, Warnock also increased his share, depriving Walker of the extra votes he needed to try to stand off Warnock’s Atlanta edge. In the 2 largest GOP stronghold counties, Warnock basically held Walker to a draw. That was a Waterloo for Walker, he needed to get to 70%, and never got close.
For only a couple of decades now, the Democrats have been talking about engaging in a 50 state strategy. And here it was, in full bloom. Even Democrats know that they can’t win every county, but if they contest every county, they can trim the GOP’s winning advantage there enough to give their candidates a shot in statewide elections with heavy Democratic turnout in the large urban areas.
This is what the GOP can’t match. The GOP is pathetic at setting up anything even vaguely resembling the Democratic model. They have no ability to set up grassroots organizing that speaks to anybody outside their hard core shell. And their attempts to set up a ground game in states requires money, which the GOP doesn’t have, with Traitor Tot sucking up every shekel. Hopefully the Democrats expand on this success.
The republicans can’t do grassroots, with all their dirty corporate money they can only astroturf.
And astroturf only looks like real grass, it doesn’t have the roots.
I hope (fervently) Stacey Abrams’ work in GA has included mentoring a few people to take over and keep what she’s built with the grassroots organizing going. Because she’s exactly who should be running the DNC where she can start getting the entire country to do what she’s done in Georgia! Yes, it will take years and require some tough choices on priorities on which states to focus on. Still, I have to believe there are activists in a lot of states (looking at YOU Florida!) that have gone to Abrams/Georgia looking at what they’ve done and how they do what they do. And probably begging Abrams to come to their state and give their own State Democratic Party a swift kick in the ass. Democrats seem to have written off FL which is nuts. It even seems to be the case in Ohio and Pennsylvania has been more of a toss-up than it should be. Also, Virginia and NY State need some shoring up.
As head of the DNC Abrams could, if given the resources put the Democratic Party into a strong position for a generation. 2024 is going to be tougher than many Democrats think and we need to get started on grassroots organizing for ground games right now. But give her four years and the 2026 midterms should be good and by 2028 we can be about aa close to being a permanent majority as one could hope for.
Almost 80,000 people voted in this runoff who had not voted in the general election in November. MSNBC asked one of the grassroots leaders about those “new” voters and she attributed it to the door knocking and in-person conversations.
Much awesomeness! ALL the people brought it! “O happy Day”!
The successful Georgia D grass roots organizing led by Stacey Abrams to register & GOTV was very similar to the Northeast Arizona Native Dem coalition who put Ds over the top in statewide elections in Arizona. In Navajo and Hopi sovereign lands within Navajo County, Arizona, over 89% of registered Ds voted in Nov. ’22, a new record for any election! Without those additional Native American votes, avowed NAZI-lover Kari Lake would likely be Governor of AZ instead of Dem Gov-elect Katie Hobbs and avowed NAZI-lover Abraham Hamadeh would certainly be the Attorney General of Arizona instead of Dem AG-elect Kris Mayes. Proof positive that ground level massive grass roots makes as much if not more of a difference moving the needle than pouring millions of dollars of political PAC $ into ads, such as Senatortoise McConnell’s $54 million PAC money wasted in Georgia.
The gop can’t do grassroots organizing. What’s to talk about? Their policy platform? Their voting record? Their plan to address all the problems on our doorstep? They, like the fictional show Jerry & George pitched to NBC on Seinfeld, are a party about nothing. Oh. Except lining their pockets. That doesn’t sell on the street. Add in they are afraid of blacks, women, and democracy…well…best to lie on tv rather than in person.