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| Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) |
1. The Battle for Senate Majority Just Got More Interesting
Isakson's seat, in a state that Donald Trump only won by 5-points, sets up a potential battleground Senate race in a theoretical swing state in 2020. The thing is...Georgia already had a Senate seat up in 2020. Isakson's colleague David Perdue is up for reelection, and was already a mid-level target for the Democrats in their quest to take back the Senate; not necessarily as important as races in Maine & Arizona, but a spot where they might be able to sneak in and win a seat in the right circumstances. There's a few electoral quirks that make this more interesting (we'll get to both below), and Georgia has been a state that has been accused (loudly) of voter fraud from 2018 (you can read about it and cower in terror here, as it's likely that both Democrats Stacey Abrams and Sarah Riggs Amico were cheated out of votes in 2018, with Amico potentially cheated out of a victory), but assuming that the election is on the up-and-up (or that the margin is too big to overcome with chicanery), this becomes a very important part of the map for Democrats who hope to best Mitch McConnell.
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| House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams (D-GA) |
The first thought pretty much everybody had with an open Senate seat is that Abrams, who came very close to winning the gubernatorial election in 2018 and has emerged as something of a rock star as a result, needs to get into the race. Abrams had refused to take on Perdue, but an open Senate seat is a wholly different matter, and seemed like the opportunity an ambitious presidential candidate couldn't turn down. However, Abrams was quick to state that she is out of the race, and will continue to focus on her voter protection organization.
I'm of three schools of thought on this. The first is that Abrams is a smart woman, and I cannot imagine that she is throwing away such a golden opportunity for nothing. It's possible she literally has no interest in running for Congress, entirely intent on either retiring from electoral politics (doubtful-she's only 45) or has something else up her sleeve. Occam's razor suggests a gubernatorial rematch in 2022, though running in a midterm where a theoretical Democratic president is in office might be considerably more challenging than this year's race, to the point where she's choosing between a win and a loss, and so I'm hoping she's not waiting on a rematch that might just be another 'L.' After all, people like Dianne Feinstein, Claire McCaskill, Susan Collins, & Joe Manchin made long careers out of "really wanting to be governor" but being important senators instead.
Or she might genuinely have a deal with Joe Biden to be his running-mate. I think that'd be foolish on both of their parts. Biden will likely have to pick one of his primary opponents to appease different factions in the party, and picking Abrams would backfire as she'll be accused of being under-qualified considering she lost her last race & her highest position is as a State House Minority Leader (particularly for a man who will be in his eighties during his first term), but Abrams does come with a distinct advantage now-she might be the key to winning the Senate. Biden ultimately will (and should) care more about who gets him an actual state on his quest for 270, but Abrams is the highest-profile Democrat in a state where high turnout might win two Senate seats, and if you actually intend on serving as president (not just running for it), having such a gold mine of senators would be a big deal.
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| Jon Ossoff (D-GA) |
With Isakson gone and Abrams out, who will run here? It's possible we'll see some of the Democrats from the current race make a jump over to this contest, potentially Sarah Riggs Amico (who along with Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson seems to be the Democrats best option in the contest to take on Perdue), but I anticipate an open seat in such a circumstance is going to bring out some of the bigger names who smell an opportunity to be the first Democratic candidate to win a Georgia Senate seat since Miller in 2000. Former State Sen. Jason Carter (grandson of former President Jimmy Carter) and Michelle Nunn (daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn), both ran impressive but ultimately losing campaigns for governor and Senate in 2014 (respectively), and would be leading options in this race. Jon Ossoff, also a high-profile recent loser (he lost the most expensive House election ever in 2017 by three points), comes with a mountain of fundraising experience and likely a pile of cash already primed for a Senate campaign. It's also worth noting that interim-US Attorney General Sally Yates (who was famously fired early in the Trump presidency in a sign-of-things-to-come) hales from Georgia, and while she's never run for political office before, her recent foray into social media indicates she wants to stay in the public eye. One could make a sincere argument that at least one of the Georgia Senate candidates this year should be African-American considering the disproportionate number of black voters who make up the Democratic base in Georgia (this could also, as Abrams indicated, increase turnout in communities that frequently have lower turnout), which isn't currently the case (Tomlinson, Amico, Carter, Nunn, Ossoff, & Yates are all white). However, with Abrams out of the contest, there aren't a lot of high-profile African-American candidates that might run except former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed or Rep. Lucy McBath, but while Reed would be a top-tier candidate, mayors of big cities tend to do poorly when they try and win statewide, and McBath just won an election to the House (and her running for Senate likely would imperil her House seat going back to the GOP).
Republicans have a bench full of options here. Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, AG Chris Carr, and any of the nine sitting-Republican congressmen could make a play for it (Doug Collins or Tom Graves in particular). The GOP has done well running very conservative but non-bombastic white men in Georgia for twenty years now, and that's probably what they'll go for, though it's entirely possible that in the "Trump Era of the GOP" someone like Rep. Jody Hice or even former presidential candidate Herman Cain (who ran against Isakson in the 2004 GOP primary) could sneak in and make a play for the seat. Both Hice & Cain are more conservative and court controversy more regularly than the other men I listed, and could appeal to the more conservative elements of the base while also putting this seat at greater risk. Stranger things have happened-look at how Republicans in 2010 threw easy victories in Colorado & Delaware away because they screwed up in the primaries.
Of course, the Republican nominee won't be able to start campaigning yet for the race like the Democrat can since Isakson won't resign until the end of the year, in which case Gov. Brian Kemp will appoint his successor. It's entirely possible some Republicans who know they won't be appointed (like Hice or Cain) might try and get a leg-up before Isakson leaves office to clear the "right wing" field, but this isn't territory trod often (where a senator resigns but in the longer future), so the game book isn't defined.
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| Sens. Tina Smith & Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) who last year swept the Minnesota Senate races for the Democrats |
There are two things I want to address before I leave you here, and the first is that, historically, one party is going to win these seats. While there have certainly been years where two Senate seats were up in the same cycle since then (just last year it happened in both Mississippi and Minnesota), the last time two different parties split the Senate seats in such an election was 1966 when Democrat Fritz Hollings & Republican Strom Thurmond both won in the same night. As a result, it's probable that either the GOP wins both of these seats (considering Democrats couldn't sink any of the elections in 2018, still the more likely option) or the Democrats take them both. It has to be said that while the Democrats should pursue these, winning Georgia isn't one of the "best" pathways to a Democratic majority (that still remains winning 4 of the CO/AL/ME/NC/IA/AZ sextet), but even taking one of these seats would be an enormous coup for Chuck Schumer, even if it's a seat he'll only hold for two years (Isakson's seat will be up for a full term in 2022).
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| Rep. John Barrow (D-GA) |
The bigger problem for the Democrats is that they'll likely have to win one (or both) of these seats in a runoff election. The Isakson seat is going to be a blanket primary, with the top two performers advancing (similar to how they do primary elections in California), and the runoff would be later (potentially as late as January, in the new Congress). The matchup against Perdue would have designated nominees (there will be party primaries earlier in the year), but if no one wins a majority there (and with Libertarian candidates frequently running, this happens more than you'd think), it's possible that that race would advance to a runoff as well.
This means it's entirely possible that control of the US Senate will hinge on who wins these two runoff elections. Look at it this way- a very probable scenario next year is Doug Jones loses, but Mark Kelly, Sara Gideon, & John Hickenlooper all win. That would put the Democrats at 49 Senate seats. They would need at least one of the Georgia seats (both if they lose the White House) in order to win in a runoff. Generally red-state Democrats like Doug Jones & Jon Tester, those who have successfully won, have done so by focusing on local issues or their specific opponent. It will be impossible to do that if control of the Senate hangs in the balance, particularly if the Democrats have already won the White House and House, and the Senate is the "checks and balances" wing of the government.
And Democrats have historically done terribly in runoffs in Georgia. Much was made about Stacey Abrams just missing a runoff in 2018, but in fact two Democrats did advance to runoffs last year: former Rep. John Barrow (running for Secretary of State) and energy executive Lindy Miller (running Public Service Commission). Barrow came within a hair's breadth of a plurality win in his race, losing by only 0.4%, but then seeing his margin disappear with a 4-point loss in the runoff (Miller went from a 2-point loss to 3.5-point loss). Even in higher-profile races, the Democrats have suffered. The Democrats could have had a 60-vote supermajority for almost all of President Obama's first two years in office had the Democrats won the runoff in Georgia, but they didn't vote; Sen. Saxby Chambliss had a close race against State Rep. Jim Martin (D) taking him by 3-points in the general, but Martin got crushed by 15-points in the runoff, proving Democrats aren't good at showing up for off-cycle elections. It's entirely possible that Joe Biden is able to pull the Georgia Democrats to pluaralities in their races, even turning the state blue in the electoral college for the first time since 1992 but the runoff crushes them when they don't have a presidential race to bring them across the finish line. Thus is the (very real) problem of the Democratic Party-it's hard to get their voters to care about minor races that make a major difference.
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