James_Sept-Oct_2025_web - Flipbook - Page 17
Trump back to the White House. As I often
say on air “Trump is the ballot magnet.”
When he is on the ballot, all Republican
boats rise. But when Trump is not on the ballot, the magic disappears… but not always.
Kemp, who was certainly not relying
on Trump in his 2022 campaign, waltzed to
both renomination and reelection. Now the
“Kemp Machine” is not only pushing Dooley,
but will also be there in the general election,
regardless of who wins the GOP nomination. As will the president.
Incumbent Ossoff will be running in a
Georgia where very little of the Greater Atlanta Metro is Republican. The state’s huge
African-American vote, which Trump managed to crack a bit in 2024, will likely return
to the Democratic column. The Republican
Senate nominee will have to rely on a huge
turnout in North, Middle, and South Georgia. That is a tug of war that has proved
increasingly difficult in recent years,
One thing that will be radically different
from Ossoff’s win in the 2020 runoff, though,
centers on who votes and how. The massive
mail-in ballot program created during the
pandemic is no more. Voter rolls have been
cleaned up. And ballot drop-off locations are
minimal. Add to that, foundations can no
longer provide funds to primarily Democrat
counties to turn out the vote.
Furthermore, lacking Trump’s name
on the ballot, Republicans are likely to
make the midterm elections about him—
using Ossoff’s own words to motivate
their base. At an April town hall meeting
Ossoff strongly agreed Trump should be
impeached. He then noted the need for
Democrats to win in the midterms to make
impeachment a reality. With that one statement Ossoff assured himself a much closer
contest by giving otherwise low propensity
voters— those who were determined to
come out and vote for Trump in 2024— a
reason to return to the polls. To paraphrase
the punchline of an old Lewis Grizzard
joke, “Damn brother, I don’t think I would
have said that.”
All this likely means a victory for one
side or the other of a percentage point or
less. So, with such slim margins at play, one
must ask “how many inspired votes come
from helping get someone’s mail back into
that mailbox?” That may be Ossoff’s slimmest of potential advantages in 2026.
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