Bold Predictions for the Primary

Good day, grifters! You want bold – some might say nonsense – predictions for the primary, you have them from the most griftiest grifter among all the grifters:

Brian Kemp wins the Republican Primary with more than 70% of the primary vote.

From the outset of this campaign, the Kemp campaign took every threat to his candidacy seriously – especially the prospect of having to campaign against Benedict Arn…David Perdue. It’s David Perdue. Let’s face the honest truths here, though. One, Perdue never wanted to be in this race. He’s campaigned across the state half-assed, and relied almost exclusively on nonsense arguments about “stolen” elections and surrogates who care more about ratings than policy.

Two, those surrogates have done little to actually grow the campaign. Perdue’s supporters tend to be notoriety chasing gremlins like the Chairwoman of the Dekalb GOP that coined her own hashtag. Or, they tend to be genuine conservatives that have actual gripes about the changing State we live in and feel like they aren’t being heard. Either way, this strategy can only work if the electorate is small and focused. This primary, with election numbers surging, the base needed to be larger. They’ve not done it.

Third, Kemp just flat out has done a good job. Taxes are low, the economy is in much better shape than other States, and he’s welcoming in modernizing industrial jobs that promise to last well into the coming century. Anecdotally, even not activist Democrat base voters are showing some flexibility on saying “Meh, at least he helped me keep my job…” There is no reason to change something that is working; that’s a universal paradigm that even the former President cannot overcome.

Brad Raffensberger wins without a runoff. Period.

Go ahead, take a few moments and collect yourself. Yes, I said it. Raffensberger runs without a runoff. Just a gut feeling, no scientific basis to it, but here’s why I think that.

Polling is horrible. Per the latest from the Honorable Former State Representative Turned Lobbyist Promoted to Editor-in-Chief of Peach Pundit, some polling on the races are questionable in this State. This is because the pollsters have notable biases in some of the races they poll, and others have a limited grasp as to what they’re doing. Here’s what is important to know about polls – they are representations of probability that reflect the likelihood of something being accurate within the framework of who is polled.

In other words, you can only be accurate as to who you poll, which makes sampling so incredibly important. The early voting results demand a discussion of sampling methodologies. The voting population this primary is different. Early voters in the GOP primary voted at a clip of 2.87x compared to four years ago. That would have to mean that Election Day voters have to trend downward by half of what they were four years ago to match rough turnout, and that isn’t going to happen. I’d venture to guess that the primary turnout increases about 35-40% overall, and those voters likely aren’t highly targeted by any of the campaigns.

Meaning, they’ll vote on defaults and news cycles. It also means if the polling methodology is off, then the results are inaccurate because those polled don’t reflect the voting population. We can’t see the sampling methodology used by the particular pollster because it’s not stated, nor can we see the polling script. Some rough calculations of my own suggest that about 25% of the GOP voters in the primary are not what we would call “Primary Hard R.” They’re what we would call “General Election Soft R” voters and above. They’re not the base Trump voters. These are easy pickin’s for an incumbent in a difficult cycle.

It’s also worth noting that Raffensberger has stuck with his team that got him to the office in the first place, at least the ones that stuck with him. Their untraditional strategy of targeting voting groups with sizable conservative populations (he’s made a number of Rotary visits around Georgia) means he’s done with the others haven’t – talk to those voters.

Jake Evans doesn’t make the CD6 runoff.

You heard it here first. Now, this does leave open an umpteen number of possibilities – McCormick wins without a runoff, one of 312 other candidates making the runoff instead of him – but it’s as close to a Grifter Guarantee as you can get that Evans doesn’t make the runoff. Here are a couple of reasons why.

First, his campaign team is not exactly top notch. They’re the same folks that helped Casey Cagle lose his winnable race for governor, and they also lost to McCormick badly in the CD7 primary back in 2020. They’ve used a wrote playbook for this campaign throughout, and it doesn’t lend itself well to actually giving the vibe of a comfortable, winning candidate. Commercials have appeared stiff, and they’re expensive to run with this lot.

Second, he’s taken a drubbing from down ballot candidates for the last few months. He did in fact write a legal article that highly parrots BLM talking points. Staples especially has been hammering away at this, but Hanson flat out embarrassed him with her recital of his own words during the GPB debates. His answer that he’s always supported law enforcement and they’re desperate attacks by losing opponents, however true they might be, doesn’t actually answer the criticism.

Third, his father is a liability. With Kemp having such a comfortable lead and already showing signs of pivoting to the general, that gives his campaign team some time to also pivot to primary grievances. Evans Sr.’s well documented going off the rails to get an endorsement strategy is not short lived. High profile campaigns are notorious for helping out their friends when it suits their needs, but also punishing their enemies – and it is likely that the Kemp campaign wants to punish Evans 2 for the behavior of Evans 1. Now is the time to do it.

Only the Democrats’ LG race goes to a runoff.

Unlike Republicans, Democrat primaries largely go to plan. There are always outliers, but when they want someone to win they do their best to make sure it happens. I don’t know if it’s a byproduct of their generally more utilitarian outlook on politics than their Republican counterparts or not, but it works for them. In the LGs race, though, I do have a feeling their deal does not work out as planned.

Charley Bailey originally decided to pursue a rematch with Chris Carr so he could lose again. The Democrats, not happy at this prospect and favoring the Senator from Buckhead Jen Jordan, made a deal with Bailey to anoint him as the LG candidate instead. The statement this makes on the legislators and former legislators currently running for the post notwithstanding, the Democrats chose a largely uninspiring candidate when compared to the other races on their ticket.

They have Stacey Abrams condescendingly lecturing us for another run at Governor. They have a know-it-all State Representative who hasn’t the first clue how to run a large complex bureaucratic organization, but does fit the mold for what Democrats want for a high-profile race. She also did a better job of understanding what the GOP was talking about in their election hearings than they did. There is the aforementioned Jen Jordan, and Mathew Wilson, a LGBTQ+ legislator out of Brookhaven that has already beaten an incumbent Republican once, running for Labor Commissioner.

The truth is that Charley Bailey is the one that doesn’t look like the others. Sadly, the parties are now organizing along categories so much that candidates like Bailey just can’t check off the boxes. He’s male. He’s white. He’s not LGBTQ+. He’s a prosecutor. Literally four things that the modern progressive Democratic party all devalue in their calculus of what makes a “good candidate.” (Note: Being male, white, cis, and a prosecutor as well doesn’t make you a good candidate either, but I digress).

Charley Bailey may make the runoff. He may not. Either way, there will be one. The rest of the top billing races will steamroll through to the general.

Carolyn Bourdeaux wins in CD7.

Go ahead, take a few more moments and collect yourself. Yes, I said it. Bourdeaux beats McBath – and thank God for that!

Of the two candidates, McBath is the more insufferable of them. As an academic, Bourdeaux is definitely the more intellectually curious of the two and has governed that way. She’s not leaned in to the AOC/MTG model of screaming at people until you get your way, and as such, has at least been a good representative of what was a center-left district. Now that the district is far less center-left, many prognosticators thought Bourdeaux’s days were numbered. I’m not so sure.

First reason comes back to the surge in primary turnout. Just like Republicans, people who don’t traditionally vote in primaries are coming out at a much higher clip in the Democratic Primary. Even more so than Republicans, which lends itself to the people that probably vote Democratic in November because it’s always a better choice than the Republican but aren’t necessarily fond of progressive histrionics. They’d naturally gravitate towards someone like Bourdeaux who is progressive, but intelligent, and wants the genuine best decision made.

McBath, on the other hand, is condescending at every turn. She’s the type that will apologize to you for your feelings on why she’s wrong – you know, the backhanded “I’m sorry you feel that way…” comments. Her signature mission of aggressive gun control, while generally acceptable to most Democrats, is not the only issue that they’re concerned about right now. Democrats, like Republicans, are frustrated at high prices, expensive gasoline, and baby formula shortages. McBath will go through the motions and talking points, but it’s unbelievable she cares.

She loves being Congresswoman, and people will take note when casting a ballot. Even Democrats want problem solvers and that is not what McBath is.