Thread by @lxeagle17

🚨GEORGIA UPDATE 12/28 (TOTAL + VBM + IN-PERSON)🚨

Total Votes: 2,337,477 (+211,223)

Percent of registered voters: 30.2%
White: 55.2% (56.5% in general)
Black: 31.5% (27.7% general)
Hispanic: 2.1% (2.6% general)
Asian: 2.5% (2.6% general)

COUNTY TURNOUT RATES (shown as % of registered voters):

State Average: 30.2%
DeKalb: 36.4%
Cobb: 30.5%
Fulton: 35.6%
Gwinnett: 32.9%
Chatham: 20.4%
Muscogee: 27.2%
Columbia: 27.7%
Houston: 30.9%
Baldwin: 25.5%
Fayette: 37.5%
Hall: 26.9%
Clayton: 27.6%
Forsyth: 36.7%

IN-PERSON EARLY VOTES

Total Votes: 1,535,187 (+157,432)
Percent of registered voters: 19.8%
White: 55.6% (58.2% in general)
Black: 31.4% (26.4% general)
Hispanic: 2.2% (2.6% general)
Asian: 2.1% (2.0% general)

COUNTY TURNOUT RATES (shown as % of registered voters):

State Average: 19.8%
DeKalb: 23.1%
Cobb: 13.9%
Fulton: 25.7%
Gwinnett: 20.5%
Chatham: 12.5%
Muscogee: 19.4%
Columbia: 21.7%
Houston: 18.4%
Baldwin: 16.3%
Fayette: 27.3%
Hall: 17.7%
Clayton: 18.7%
Forsyth: 26.3%

VBM DATA

Accepted Votes: 802,290 (+53,988)
White: 54.5% (53% general)
Black: 31.6% (30.3% general)
Return Rate: 59%

Requested Votes: 1,347,856 (+8,157)
Request Rate: 17.6%
White: 51.5% (51.2% general)
Black: 32.8% (31.4% general)
66+: 45.9% (40.7% general)

Some good signs for both sides yesterday. Democrats continued to see strong Black turnout, as the Black share of the electorate stayed roughly static at 31.5% (!) compared to 27.7% in Nov. There’s no signs it's letting up, and we look to be on pace for a ~31% Black electorate.

It appears as if the Asian share of the electorate appears to be identical to November (2.5 vs 2.6), though Hispanic share is down. However, this is offset by the electorate also becoming far more Black (by over 3%, likely), and more suburban (better white numbers for Democrats).

Not coincidentally, this comes with Gwinnett having solved most of its turnout issues earlier, meaning that the GOP probably doesn’t like where it is too much right about now in those counties — DeKalb, Fulton, and Clayton are all well ahead of where they were in the general.

On the GOP side, counties like Forsyth and Fayette continued their turnout charge, and it looks as if they got some decent turnout numbers in places like Paulding as well. These are areas they’ll need to surge in if they are to win.

Continuing problem points, however, are Hall and Cherokee — Hall had an average day yesterday, Cherokee an abysmal one at first glance. And those counties need to start turning out. The north and non-college whites still remain problems for the GOP, from what I understand.

Yesterday, however, was still a net Democratic day in terms of estimated votes, padding their lead by a bit. The fact remains for the GOP that when you are *this* far down, you don’t need average days to edge into the lead. You need great days.

Yesterday was, at best, an average to slightly-above-average day for the GOP. We currently estimate Democrats have about a 200,000 vote lead at this point in time. Can the GOP cut that margin? We’ll see.

And it is possible that they will! But with a backlog of mail ballots still to go in some heavily D places like DeKalb, Muscogee, Chatham, and Henry, I don’t know if they’ll cut it enough.

Our precinct model is at D+2.8, and our county model at D +2.1. I expect our precinct model to end up anywhere between D +2.1 to D +2.5 before Jan 5, so you will see that margin shrink some more. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

Now let's play out a scenario with our precinct model.

Assuming we get about 500K more in-person early votes (that are more Republican) and about 200,000 more mail votes left (more Democratic)…we get 713K votes forecasted on election day, with a projected final margin of D+2.2 in the precinct model.

To break even with that turnout, they need a margin of 66.4-33.6. If they hold 61-39 margins on election day, like they did in November, they need a turnout of ~1M votes, which exceeds November’s turnout and would represent 24.6% of the state vote...

That would be a significant spike up from 19.1% in November, per @JMilesColeman and @NilesGAPol. If we split the difference and give them a 63.6-36.4 margin on election day, they need 855K votes, which is 22% of the total vote.

All of that is possible. But I don't find it *likely* at this point. The GOP can still definitely win, but they are behind right now, and they need to catch up. Can they? Of course. Will they? We'll see, but for now, I leave it as lean Democrat.

Special thanks to @ADincgor, the co-creator of the models. And to @joe__gantt, @thunderousprof, @EconWanabe and @dooraven for all their help with understanding data, backlogs, etc.

And lastly, thanks to @ElectProject for the data.