Here’s an analysis of the vote in Fulton County, one of the three counties in GA-6 & the largest one.
First of all, turnout:
Comparing the turnout map above with map of Clinton support in 2016 below shows that the high-Clinton, Democratic precincts had relatively low turnout yesterday:
Turnout as a function of Democratic support
Clinton 2016 margin in precinct |
2017 turnout |
< -20% |
63% |
-20% to 0% |
61%
|
0% t0 +20% |
50% |
> +20% |
35%
|
But lower Democratic turnout is just a fact of politics in most elections, for various reasons, & therefore not specifically a cause of yesterday’s disappointment. Clinton got 46% of the vote in Fulton County GA-6 precincts last November while Ossoff got 47% in the same there yesterday—a very similar result, even slightly better for Ossoff.
A lot of attention is paid to early vote vs. election day vote, with mixed predictive success at best. Here’s how it broke down for Fulton Co. GA-6 precincts:
|
ossoff |
handel |
ossoff margin |
mail |
5,781 |
3,698 |
+21% |
early in person |
35,111 |
37,140 |
-2.8% |
election day |
17,321 |
24,062 |
-16% |
For point of reference, here’s a similar table for the 2016 presidential election which had 79% turnout overall:
2016 presidential votes in Fulton Co. GA-6 precincts
|
clinton |
trump |
clinton margin |
mail |
4,401 |
4,946 |
-6% |
early in person |
39,237 |
37,301 |
+2.5% |
election day |
73,541 |
77,619 |
-2.7% |
|
|
|
|
Interesting that mail and early vote totals were similar between 2016 and 2017, with election day voting accounting for the greater 2016 turnout. Ossoff did better with mail-in ballots but got creamed on election day. Clinton did better on early in-person voting. What explains the differences? Who knows? One possibility is that Clinton (or just the fact that it was a presidential election) mobilized the minority vote more, leading to the higher election day blue turnout. Somewhat strange though that the mail and early voters were motivated to similar levels in the two elections but not so much on election day.
Finally, to explore the idea that never-Trump Republicans who stayed home or didn’t make a presidential selection last November reverted to type yesterday with the more classic Republican Handel, here a map of, call it, the “Handel bounce” yesterday relative to Trump’s performance last November:
So some precincts showed a positive bounce for Handel, and some negative, broadly corresponding to red and blue areas in the 2016 presidential map above, with some exceptions probably corresponding to demographics other than party registration. For example, there were some 2016 strong blue precincts where Ossoff’s margin was even greater than Clinton’s. That could be a reflection of the mobilized resistance and Ossoff GOTV efforts.
A good number of precincts showed a bounce for Handel, supporting the idea that never-Trumpers were fine with her. Backing up this assertion is the relatively large vote for Gary Johnson in these precincts in 2016—4.7%. Johnson could be seen as an escape valve for never-Trumpers.