I must admit that I was mildly surprised by the Victories of Ossoff and Warnock in the Georgia Senate races. Both had trailed on Election Day, and if the turnout was the same for the runoff, the Republicans would be expected to win. But the turnout was not the same, and the Democrats did a better job of getting their voters to the polls than the Republicans did. What kept so many Republicans at home during the runoff? A pretty big factor was Donald Trump's insistence that there was voter fraud and the election in Georgia was stolen from him.
If that was true, then why should Republicans vote? It turns out that was the thinking of many white Republicans.
Here is part of an analysis of the Georgia runoff election from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Control of the U.S. Senate was on the line, but many Georgia Republicans — at least some deterred by Donald Trump’s loss — stayed home rather than cast ballots in January’s runoffs.
Their absence at the polls helped swing Georgia and the Senate to the Democrats.
Over 752,000 Georgia voters who cast ballots in the presidential election didn’t show up again for the runoffs just two months later, according to a new analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of recently released voting records.
More than half of the no-shows were white, and many lived in rural areas, constituencies that lean toward Republican candidates.
Trump’s message that the election was stolendiscouraged voters such as Craig Roland, a 61-year-old Rome resident. Roland said he didn’t believe his vote would count.
“What good would it have done to vote? They have votes that got changed,” Roland said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever vote again.”
Meanwhile, 228,000 new voters cast ballots in the runoffs who hadn’t voted in the Nov. 3 election. They were more racially diverse and younger voters who tend to back Democrats. . . .
The AJC’s analysis found that the drop in turnout was most severe in northwest and South Georgia, areas where Trump held rallies, in Dalton and Valdosta, to bolster support for the state’s Republican senators. . . .
The numbers show that while overall turnout fell from 5 million in the presidential election to 4.5 million in the runoffs, the most precipitous declines occurred among Republican voters, Fraga said. . . .
Over three-quarters of Republican voters said they thought there was widespread voter fraud in the presidential election, compared with 4% of Democratic voters, according to a poll conducted for the AJC.
