 Okay, looks like we're recording now. So welcome everybody again. So this is our discussion event on election 2022. What's the stake in what to watch for? And we will be discussing the 2022 elections in this panel discussion that's being hosted by the Department of Political Science and School of Education and Behavioral Sciences here at Middle Georgia State University. We're also co-sponsored by the MGA Political Science Student Organization and the Alpha Museta chapter of PISA to Alpha, which is the National Honorary Society for Political Science. So I just want to talk briefly about some of our programs for this. You may not be familiar with our department. We've got a bachelor's degree in political science as well as minors in political science, African and African diaspora studies, global studies, pre-law, environmental policy studies, and also a certificate in European Union studies, as well as the Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies as well. So we have lots of different programs in our department. So hopefully one of those might be of some interest to you at some point in your academic career. So let me go ahead and introduce our panelists for today. We have Dr. John Hall, who's an associate professor of political science here at Middle Georgia State University, joined us in 2015, and his doctorate in political science is from Auburn University. We also have Dr. Matthew Keverly, who is a lecturer of political science, and I believe has been here at Middle Georgia State since January 2016. I believe that's correct. And his doctorate in political science is from the University of Florida. And rounding out our all SEC crew is myself. I'm Dr. Christopher Lawrence. I'm the associate professor and the department chair, the department of political science. I've been here at MGA since 2012, and my doctorate is from Ole Miss or the University of Mississippi. Looks like we're also joined by our Dean of the School of Education and Behavioral Sciences. I don't know if he wanted to speak briefly. I'm going to give him a very brief opportunity to unmute and speak if he wants to. Yeah, Dr. Lawrence, thanks. And I will be very brief in just literally thanking the panel and thanking you for putting this together. And, you know, as we get further into the month of October, I can see almost nothing more important than what we're going to discuss tonight. So thank you again. Okay, and thank you, Dr. Beek. So that was Dr. David Beek, who's a professor of psychology and also the Dean of the School of Education and Behavioral Sciences, and perhaps most importantly my boss, and our bosses for that matter. So before we get started, I'll talk about our structure and a few ground rules and things like that. So we're going to start with some questions that I have worked out in coordination with our two panelists, and we will also be accepting questions from the chat window. So if you want to post your questions in the chat window, we'll try to get to those as we can. You're certainly welcome to ask multiple questions, but in the interest of giving everybody an opportunity to speak, I do want to stress that we'll try to spread the wealth around a bit. So if you have lots of questions, you may want to hold some of those towards the end, but we will prioritize answering one question per audience member at the very least. Please be civil and courteous to each other in the chat window. I know that sometimes we can, in political discussions, be discussing things that are a little more controversial, and I want to stress that certainly controversy is a good thing, perhaps, but nonetheless, you know, avoid getting too personal in your discussions. Criticize the ideas, not the person making the argument, that sort of thing, if you feel the need to do so. Let's see, so why is this not, okay. So, except post your questions in the chat window, I guess I already said that, didn't I? As we skipped the slide, that's why, okay. So, as far as our plans for our questions, I'm going to go through these questions, I have one by one, this is kind of an outline. As a matter of fact, I'll probably stop sharing, so the video is actually a little more focused on the people discussing, but some of the questions will be talked about today are what are some of the major contests in the election? How do you register to vote? Where can you vote for those of you that are novices of this sort of thing? Talk a little bit about that. And then two particularly prominent races we're definitely going to talk about are the contest here in Georgia for one of our two U.S. Senators, and also the Georgia Governors Contest as well. Might talk about some other races as well, depending on audience questions and the interests of the panelists, but those are the ones that we're definitely going to focus on. And we'll go from there. So let me hit the stop sharing button if I can. So you're at how to make it stop sharing. I'm not sure how I'm going to stop sharing. Oh, there it is. Giant button says stop sharing. So now it's just us. So let's go ahead and proceed to our first question, which is for either panelists, as always. So what are some of the major contests on the ballot in November, this November, rather, and here in Georgia and across the country? Well, I'll jump in here first. Thank you, Chris, for that introduction. Thank you, Matt, for joining us. Thank you, Dr. Beak for being here with us. And I see several other colleagues here as attendees. Welcome to our second policy discussion. Dr. Lawrence did a great job of summarizing and the first question is really the biggest question. This is what we could spend the rest of the night on. What are the big races coming down the pipe here in the midterms? First and foremost, going looking at it from the perspective of Georgia, we have a gubernatorial race here that is of significance. We have two candidates, one incumbent governor, Republican Governor Kemp, and the other Democratic candidate, Stacey Abrams, who was once served a little over a decade in the Georgia House of Representatives served as the minority leader for several of those years. And in 2018, the two candidates fought to one of the closest races you can possibly have in Georgia. Governor Kemp won with, I believe, something in the realm of 55,000 votes, which sounds like a lot, but in a state with over 10 million people like Georgia, that was close. And they are back for round two. So one of the most important will be the gubernatorial race in Georgia. There are, I think, like 36 other gubernatorial elections that we can talk about throughout the night. We also have to look at, from the perspective of Georgia, the U.S. Senate, where we will have incumbent U.S. Senator, a statistical anomaly, historically, a Democrat in Raphael Warnock, who will be going up against Herschel Walker, who played football for the Georgia Bulldogs and went on to the NFL. That race is actually quite close. Although the most recent data I've seen does have current Senator Warnock stretching ahead with roughly a two-point lead, but that can change dramatically. We also have a number of other elections that we will get to tonight right out of the gates because of the breadth of this particular question. I'm going to purposefully slow myself down from going into U.S. Senate seats and other gubernatorial elections so we can get to that later. But I'll turn it over to Matt to fill in any blanks that he saw, because I left a lot of blanks. Thank you, John. So, first of all, welcome everybody. Thank you for attending our discussion here this evening. So, of course, as Georgians, what Professor Hall addressed there is the biggest thing. But I'd like us all to think a little bit about at the national level, because the midterm elections have become increasingly nationalized. And this has been the rise of, for starters, the way our media covers politics, but is a reflection of that. But it's also been a rise of sort of the resurgence of political parties as candidate servicing organizations and hubs for nationalized campaigns. And that's very much going on. And so when we talk about a race involving the Senate or the governorship in Georgia, what we're actually also talking about is the basic conflict at the national level between the Democratic and the Republican parties. The electorate is so closely divided that at this moment in time, I can tell you that both the House and the Senate are potentially up for grabs. Now, the House and the Senate are currently under the control of the Democratic Party. But if you look at the polling and the funds and the monies that are being raised and spent, what you very quickly find is that this could potentially be anybody's victory. Almost regardless of what happens here in Georgia. So I just wanted people keep in mind that what's going on in Georgia is really part of a national contest. And it's also, and I'll close with this, and as this is an early runner of the presidential election, quite frankly, as midterm elections have long been. They're seen as referendums on the incumbent president's party. Historically, they tend to lose seats in the Congress. That's especially manifested in the House. If you look at the empirical patterns over time, but this is going to be a, this is an early run. So we're going to see a test across the country of some of former President Trump's backed candidates about how well they're going to do, which might lead something to do with him. Because of course, he's out in the, he's still very much a factor in Republican Party politics and for that matter, presidential politics. And of course, this is also a part of President Biden. President Biden has had some a fair amount of legislative successes in recent months. And, but yet, if you look at his approval ratings, they're not really manifested in that. So I think we're going to have a very interesting night, regardless of what happens. But it's very much, I'd like people to think about as there are national elements of this, and there are presidential elements of this. And now I'm going to shut up. Okay. Thanks. So, so kind of a more mechanical question. I decided that since we had a bunch of young people here that may not have ever voted before, it makes sense to ask a couple of these questions. So first question is, as they've probably been told already in their American government classes or at some point in their lives, you know, that, you know, to be able to vote, you need to register to vote. So the question would be, how do you do that? How do you how do you get registered to vote? And how does that vary between states? So we may have some people that are not from Georgia here. And so the process might be a little different for them. Great question. Matt, I didn't want to jump in front of you here. Very quickly to summarize, how do you get registered to vote the good news? It's incredibly easy. The bad news that outside of a handful of American states, it's not automatic. Everything you need to be registered to vote in the state of Georgia. I don't know what you know about, and this is to all the students. I don't know what you know about your relationship with the state of Georgia, but it's a lot more intimate than you might think. The state of Georgia knows your driver's license number. The state of Georgia knows where you live. The state of Georgia knows where you work. They know your phone number. They know your date of birth. They have all of this information. Having said that, in Georgia, you can register online. You can register in person. You can register by mail. Basically, if you have access to a computer, you can go to the Secretary of State's website. You don't even have to do that. All you have to do is Google, how do I register to vote in Georgia? And it will take you straight there. And you can check to see if you're still registered or already registered. What you need is your driver's license or another state issued license. You need your date of birth. You need a name. You need an address. And that's about it. Again, the state of Georgia already has this data, but they're going to require you to ask to give it to them and ask to be registered. So how do we get registered? Very simple. Online is the simplest you can imagine. If you do this by mail, you are going to be providing the exact same information and sending it in. And you could also do it in person at your local voter registrar's office. Having said that, when it comes to registration, there are a number of states, particularly actually the entire West Coast automatically registers voters. That is a way of encouraging the electorate to get out to vote. Some states don't necessarily go out of their way to do everything possible to make it as easy as possible. Having said that, it's not that hard. Is the fact that you may live in a state that doesn't automatically register you vote? Does that fact make it impossible for you to vote? No. Does it add one more hurdle that might be just annoying enough for you to skip out on voting? Maybe. So to summarize, that's how you get registered to vote. It is overwhelmingly easy. And I'll turn it over to Matt or Chris. Well, I'll just jump in here. So I went around and I poked around. And so for if anybody is interested out there, if anybody's interested out. So the actual website, the address is georgia.gov forward slash register dash vote. And so if you put that in, that's going to take you to the Secretary of State's webpage. And it'll answer questions that you have about registering to vote. So political scientists over time have spent a lot of ink on this sort of thing. And one of the things that they've done in studies that they've found is that while Professor Hall is absolutely right, it's actually fairly easy as long as you know the process to register to vote. Now, know what I just added on there that I said as long as you know the process. But what most of a lot of studies have found in political science is that the more difficult you make it to do something in politics, the less likely it is that people are going to do it. They've also found empirical studies have found over time that there's a sort of asymmetry about how this impacts. There are people who probably no matter how many obstacles you put in front of them, they're going to come out and vote. And then there are people who if it rains on Election Day, it's a crapshoot weather going to show up. There's a partisan differentiation between how those people, their patterns in political participation. The people that if you will are, and I don't mean this in a normative way, but I'm just saying that I'll just call them the better quality voters. And I don't mean that they're not better people. Everybody's the same. But there's somebody that if you're a politician, you say, well, can I count on Chris Lawrence and John Hall to come out on Election Day? Well, overwhelmingly, actually, I would probably be able to with those two guys. But the pattern is that the Republican Party, Republican voters tend to show up more, no matter what the conditions are. And the harder you make it to vote, if you will, the voters that that mostly impacts, not entirely, but mostly, are people on the political left. So it hurts Democrats and it helps Republicans. So that's that's what the patterns indicate. Now, I do want to say there might be some change in that. I just I don't just throw a little cold water on my own little finding there. As your Republican Party has increased its voter support among the white working class, they might be developing some. They might over time develop some of the same difficulties that the Democrats have with some of their coalition. So that but that's that's very speculative at this moment in time. Anyway, I just want to throw that out there. That was I took us off in the weeds a little bit, but I just wanted to throw that out there about about ready vote. And by the way, before I turn over, I actually also looked up. There is a whole bunch of interest groups out there that have specific information to help you to get registered. And so I'll just read off a list of a few of them. There's a group called Democracy Works, the League of Women Voters. They have a vote for 11 initiative. You go to that vote for 11 and it'll tell you where to go and how to go. You could put in your state and your day. The American Legion has a get out to vote bunch. There's rock the vote. If anybody in here is a little bit older, particularly the professors on there. Even the Dean might might remember to rock the vote from the MTV days. There's forward justice. There is a fair fight, fair fight by the way, Stacey Abrams organization, the legal defense fund. So these things that are manifested, there are certain religious organizations. And on both the left and the right that also provide out information on voting. And so there's lots of places to go just Google around and find out and go do your, well, I'll just close out by saying this. Voting is a right, voting is a right, but I would hope that all of you over time would start to think about voting as a duty. That is an obligation. If you live here, if you're an American, it is the most important thing that we can do as citizens to influence our own governing. And now once again, I will shut up. Great point sir Matt, it occurred to me I want to throw this out and did not talk at all about requirements. These are somewhat intuitive, but just to double check and make sure we go over them. You have to be a US citizen, non US citizens can't vote. You have to be an actual resident. You also have to be at least 17 and a half when you are registering. You have to be 18 on the day of the election. Depending on the state, your status as a non as a felon in Georgia, you can be re enfranchised once you're out of prison unless your felony that you were convicted for involved moral turpitude. Also, you can't be found to be mentally incompetent by a judge. So depending on the state in which you live, you're going to see some differences there, but definitely a US citizen 18 the day you vote. And in Georgia, a non felon, unless you were involved in turpitude, there are a number of states that allow you to vote when you get out of prison. Some require you to be out of prison off of parole completely out of the criminal justice system. Three states actually don't take away the franchise at all. You can vote from prison, but those are some other basic points there. And I'll stop talking again. Okay, thank you, Matt, and thank you, John, both for a lot of important and useful details there. So currently to that is, you know, once once you're registered to vote, which by the way, the deadline for that here in Georgia is next Tuesday. So if you do plan to register to vote, you need to be registered on or before the 11th of October, because the 10th is a holiday, even though we don't get the holiday. But nonetheless, I guess voter registration offices do get the holidays. So do make sure you if you do plan to vote in November, you're registered by the 11th. And again, that's something that can vary by state. So there are some states where the registration deadline might be a little bit earlier and certainly there are some states where the registration deadline might be a little bit later. So if you're not in Georgia, you should check your state websites. And I posted a couple of those in the chat or at least sites where you can find that information in the chat. So related to that, once you're registered to vote, the question arises, where and when can you vote? And how might I or how might the hypothetical voter in the audience find that out? I'll jump on this again, and I cannot stress this enough. Obviously, we vote on election day, which will be one month after the, a little less than a month after the 11th. I can't stress enough the joy of early voting. You can skip out on lines. You can get your voting done in Georgia. I believe it's October 7th through November 4th. You can participate in early voting. Each county has at least one site where you can go in and early vote in person. I highly recommend that. Very stress-free. In addition, this is something that we all became much more familiar with during the pandemic. Not only did we have a pandemic in 2020, we had it during an election year, a presidential election year. We now have an expansion on what has always been called absentee voting. We now call it mail-in voting. However, there have been some changes in Georgia. You can vote early as I just said. You can absentee or mail-in vote available to all Georgians. The only difference is now instead of 2020, you have to request that mail-in voting information. You also, due to recent legislative reforms, have to show ID, voter ID requirements in order to get those absentee balances. You can also take your mail-in ballots and you can drop them off at ballot boxes throughout the state. These changes to election law have limited the number of those boxes that we have. Each county must have at least one. This does present some problems when you have a geographically large county that might have one ballot box that you can drop off. So these are some reforms that we're going to be experiencing in real time. A few other changes. In the past, you could request absentee ballots 180 days before the election. I think that's been limited now to just under 80 days. So early voting, recommended highly. Mail-in voting, recommend that highly if you are possibly leaning in the direction of a little lazy that day and don't want to go stand in a line. And then of course, there's in-person voting on election day. In Georgia, it's from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. So those are the three main ways you can vote. Vote early, vote absentee or mail-in, vote on the day of the election. And I'll leave it at that. I don't really have anything to add on too much on that other than particularly the absentee voting, mail-in voting and early voting are of particular interest, I think, to college students. Because in many cases, college students might not be able to get back home to cast their ballot in time. And especially although I think the truth of the matter is I think most instructors, lecturers, professors would be pretty lenient when you push came to shove because we tend to be people that want people to vote. But potentially, I realize one of the things that has caused a decrease in voter turnout over the years has been things like this. If you notice the election day, which by the way looked up on the calendar, is November the 8th. November the 8th is like our election days are on Tuesdays. Well, this may not be as important for the college students in the room, but most of us who work in jobs, we know that we have to be in work. And so one of the things that has deterred voting on election day has been people who just can't get off work. In some states where they close the polls really early, now Georgia does pretty good up to 7 p.m., but there are states that shut it down at like 4 p.m. Well, you might not even be off work at that time. Now, again, a lot of I would argue employers that are, I would say good employers will give people time off to do it, but that doesn't always happen. So anyway, that's just something to keep in mind. And that leads you to think, well, why would they have rules like that? And that's something to think about. Matt, great point. I wanted to point out, I forgot the name of the legislation, but there is federal law that requires that your employer give you time to get off work and vote on election day. Having said that, you make great points in terms of the inconvenience. And if anyone here has ever had a job and a boss, especially a busy job, while you have the federal right to get off work to go vote that day. Matt, as Matt was saying, it's inconvenient. So even though you have a federal, even though you have the right to go, in many instances, the reality of the workday is such that it can be a huge preventative in terms of voting. Most liberal democracies on the planet Earth, we've covered this in class for any of my students will cover it more later, have voter holidays, or they vote on the weekends. We vote on Tuesday. We do not have a national holiday. Many of the liberal democracies of the planet Earth automatically register their voters to vote when they're of age to vote. We do not have that as a federal law. There are a number of things that the state and for federal government can do that would make it easier to vote. Many states do not do that. As Matt suggested there, I will leave it to you to figure out why that is. It's because in many instances they don't necessarily want absolutely everyone to vote. There is no alternative to them. There are political realities to that that Dr. Cavali pointed out earlier. Republicans vote better than Democrats. As of the 2020 election, that's the last data I confirmed. There are more Democrats than there are Republicans. I've had several students when we talk about this ask, well, why isn't why aren't all 435 Congress persons and all senators and all governor, why isn't everyone a Democrat? Because Republicans vote better than Democrats. If you were a strategist for any political party, this is neither Democrat nor Republican. There are reasons to possibly slow down that vote based on these political realities. I'll leave it at that. Great summary there, Matt. Okay, thank you. One additional point I might add on the question of voting on election day and getting off work is it's also not paid time off, right? So if you're somebody that's struggling to make ends meet or something like that, two hours of work, that's two hours you're not getting paid. And the other thing I would say about early voting is it's going to let you vote on your terms as opposed to you may not know what's going to come up on the election day. And so it would probably make sense if you're somebody that works somewhere that has an ebb and flow and you don't know if it's going to be busy or not. Maybe you luck out and it's not a busy day, but maybe it is a busy day. And so being able to plan around that early voting period might make things a little easier or take advantage of an absentee ballot or something like that might make sense as well. I almost always vote early just because I don't know how long the line is going to be on election day, right? And so whereas I can probably find some time in that early voting period where I know that I can block off some time and be sure that, okay, it's going to work for me. But that's just me. There are some people that want to wait until the election day. I have colleagues that believe very strongly and I want to vote on election day because that's what they do. It's their civic holiday, if you will, right? So I'm not going to begrudge them that. Let's see. And we also posted that website for the Georgia Secretary of State that I posted the website for. That will also work. If you're already registered to vote, it will tell you where you need to vote. So where your regular polling place is. It'll has information on early voting sites, has information on how to request an absentee ballot, has information. It gives you a copy of your sample ballot. So, you know, it's all there. You just have to go and look it up basically. And all you need is your first name, your last name, your date of birth to what county you live in or what kind of your registered in. So it's pretty straightforward, but you do have to do it. And you should also got a postcard in the mail at some point in the last year or so that has that information, at least for your regular voting site as well. We move on to the next question. I just want to thank a couple of our other guests, Dr. Matrock and Dr. Svonovec for joining us as well. I want to appreciate them coming out to join us. They're not under any obligation to speak or ask questions or anything like that. I did want to thank them for joining us as well as thanking all of you up to about 50 or so people in the audience and participants. That's pretty close to a record for us, I think. I think we have one with like 70 or so, but 50 is a good number for us. We appreciate you taking the time to join us this evening or afternoon or whatever this is. We're kind of in the gray zone there. So let's move on to some more immediate questions, perhaps. And I thought about the order of these and I think if you asked me last week what order I was going to ask, I think I would have asked about the governor's race first. But we've had some interesting developments in the Senate contest and so perhaps making things a little more interesting or at least a little more spicy. And that is, you know, there's a bit of a tight race between the incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, who we've mentioned already. What are the major issues in the contest? What's really dividing Warnock and Walker as far as what they're promising to do in office, what the impact of voting for them would be? That's a good thing. Just to set this up a little, I have a separate question about some of the developments that have come up in recent days. So for this question, I want to focus more on what are the issue positions distinguishing the two candidates and why would somebody want to vote for one or the other if they were voting based on the issues, starting on, you know, like abortion or, you know, something like that. Man, I didn't want to jump on the first one every time. Oh, okay, all right. I'll go ahead and take this. Oh, by the way, before I get going here, again, if you go to the Secretary of State website, they have a wonderful calendar, a schedule of events of elections that gives you all of the dates with the deadlines in it related to for everything from registration to voting times to vote when to start the early voting and then all of that. So it's just a wonderful reference to look at. All right. So addressing trying to address anyway, the issues that have come up here. So Senator Warnock has really pushed from the time that he ran through his time as senator. He's really pushed voting rights particularly accept ballot access and has pushed against some of the movements of the actually the Georgia General Assembly which is dominated by the other party by the Republican Party to adjust those access things. And so that's been a major personal issue for him. And that he has really put up another great issue that he has tied himself into has been the the reaction to the Dobs decision that undid row. And so sort of moved the abortion issue back to the states and Warnock has has come out in favor he's been tying this to women's rights and so on and so forth. And even how this is associated with with civil rights more generally. So the, of course, this this is a number I said before we had the issue of a nationalization of elections and midterm elections. This is actually a manifestation of this because a lot of this comes back to reactions to the fallout from the 2020 election. And so one thing Mr Walker is a he was tied at the hip, so to speak, and is run as he is a president Trump former president Trump preferred candidate. So Trump backed him into primary and is now backing him in the general election and raising money for him and so on. Again, what if we want to think about this? What is this? Why would President Trump involve himself in this? Well, one potential idea out there might be that perhaps President Trump wants to be president again. And and this is a an early run because remember part of the reason why he is no longer president is because of things that happened in Georgia. So the this election is very much tied up into these national issues and and also into these other issues another area and then I'll leave on this. But Warnock has also been very associated with some of the movement against the racial profiling or accusation of racial profiling in criminal criminal justice policies and in policing policies. And so Warnock has worked within that now. Mr Walker Walker has not been as policy substance of orientation. He's been more of a vote for me. You know, I'm a conservative and that sort of thing. So I think I'll leave. I think I'll leave this over to John to take over on the rest of this. Great summary, Matt, not much to add the major differences. The incumbent Senator Warnock is a Democrat. Hershel Walker is running as a Republican and all that that brings with it. If you are in favor of women's rights, you will be looking at Warnock. If you are in favor of prohibiting abortion, you would probably be in favor of Hershel Walker. Hershel Walker has actually come out with a relatively aggressive stance on abortion rights, saying just recently that he does not believe in any exceptions for a woman's right to abortion. They should be banned in all cases. So one is a classic based Democrat. The other is at least in terms of the policies that we have heard him talk about. Matt made a good point there. He's not been very policy specific. Has it been very visible? There are some differences here. If you're in favor of potential gun control policies, you would be looking at Warnock as opposed to Hershel Walker. Overall, the major differences have been in the fact that there is a degree, not a degree, there is an extraordinary amount of inexperience on the part of Hershel Walker, not just in politics. He isn't dipping his toe into the shallow end of the political pool. He is running for US Senate. So it is an extraordinarily large arena that he's stepping out into. And so far, a major difference I would say would be less policy specific ad campaigns, less publicity. Hershel Walker has really not been in the public eye a great deal. We do now officially have one scheduled debate between Senator Warnock and Hershel Walker in Savannah. The Warnock camp wanted, I think, at first four. The Walker camp has now agreed to one. So there are some significant differences between these candidates. But in terms of the differences politically, once a Democrat, once a Republican, what this could mean, it could mean very similar. It can have similar ramifications to the 2020 election. Who controls the US Senate? I don't think it's going to come down to Georgia. We'll talk about this later. I'm expecting something big to happen in Pennsylvania and Ohio, maybe North Carolina, regarding the US Senate. But we'll talk about that later. But in terms of the importance of this campaign, once a Democrat, once a Republican. Okay, thanks. So to kind of follow up on that, as I have alluded to before, there's been a bit of a, I guess, the classic October surprise here. Maybe more to come, we'll see. But there's definitely been one already. And that is that allegations have surfaced that Hershel Walker paid for a former girlfriend to have an abortion in 2009. And that was, I guess, as that story was breaking, one of his children, Christian Walker, has gone on record on videos posted social media, including Twitter, accusing his father of threatening and violent behavior towards his mother and siblings. What impact, if any, do you think that this revelation or these stories may have on the contest? That's a great question. A lot of what we're looking at are allegations. Do that, do with that what you will. In the realm of politics, I know exactly what we're going to do with that. Allegations of this magnitude, allegations that have been backed up, again, by multiple family members, have a huge impact. Right out of the gate, so I want to say this, when looking at the horrifying accusations of domestic violence, of threatening a spouse with a gun, of threatening to murder a spouse, there are die hard. I would argue, definitely, Trump Republican voters in Georgia, it's not going to matter at all. There are die hard Democratic voters in Georgia, that's not going to matter at all. It's with those independent voters in the middle, that's where this is all going to play out. We're seeing some relatively unprecedented ad campaigns in Georgia right now. On the one hand, it's because of the horrifying nature of the accusations against social Walker, but I don't know if anyone's seen this yet. The commercial that actually has images of a gun being placed at the head of a woman and the police report that his wife had made. This is horrifying, and it may have the effect of turning independent, possibly even Republican female voters into the camp of Raphael Warnock. If you combine the possibility of domestic violence, plus the Dobs opinion that has completely removed the constitutional guarantee of a woman to an abortion that had been covered under the substantive due process right of privacy. That should push an incredibly important demographic, the female relatively center line voter. On that note, most recently, you had mentioned, there are now accusations that personal Walker had paid for the abortion of a female friend, I'm thinking girlfriend, I don't know any details beyond that. It is important we see accusations like this on the one hand outside of the political spectrum, depending on how you feel about abortion but just in general, you could look at a male biological male, helping a biological female have an abortion that he caused the need for. You could look at that as responsible in politics that's not how that's going to be interpreted he's a Republican, he has publicly said he does not want women to have access to an abortion. And that's your opinion, that's your opinion, no judgment. The fact that he may have actually paid for an abortion would be horrifying. But again, for those die hard Republican core voters, it won't matter for the die hard Democratic voters it won't matter but for those in the middle, it could matter a great deal. So we'll see how that pans out over the next month and a couple of days. Beyond that I'll turn over Matt this my quick assessment of that. Oh well I don't have too much to add I thought that was very good. The only the only thing I might say is that there's a. So, if the election remains close between these two, which right now is close. If it remains close, then a slight change in turnout. If. Professor Hall's assessment is correct. This could cause a slight decrease in the turnout on behalf of Walker. That's all Warnock would need to win. That's it, because just remember, he spoke about the gubernatorial election in 2018 it was decided by 55,000 votes. You don't need much. If you think about the presidential election here in Georgia, I want to say I think it was Biden won Georgia by like 12,000 votes. 12,000 votes in an electorate that's millions large is that's nothing. I mean that's that's a that's a difference between, you know, five minutes across polling stations. So it this is. If this turns out it could have a have an impact. Now, again, though. Remember the Republicans tend to come out more and they tend to stay with their guy or their gal more. So Walker might have enough embedded support that could work against that but but I think it remains to be said I think a lot of it will really come down to is how much the media really tamps down on this and how much we hear of this in the next month. And what I mean by the media is I don't just mean, obviously the the liberal side of the media is going to beat them up. But remember that people who are Republicans, they're not watching MSNBC anyway so it doesn't matter. But if it creeps into, you know, if you get some of the evangelicals. Somebody talking about on on Trinity Broadcasting Network or something talking about, you know, how could be comes Governor O former Governor Huckabee mentions, you know, something about that about something like this, which espousal abuse that could cause and a thing about abortion that could be, you know, because if you, you know, you could get you could get Walker on not being true to his principles. And when it comes down to it, will it will it have an impact. I think it remains to be seen, but it, all it needs to have is a very small impact to cause the election to go one way or the other. So that's important to understand a very tight electorate like that. Thank you. I agree, Matt, really quick. I think at the end of the day, the most important event, my light keeps going out. I'm not moving enough is going to be Savannah in Savannah you are going to have on a stage televised Senator Raphael Warnock with civilian her for Walker. And I think a lot of important things will happen there. You either have the experience of going before a national audience answering very difficult questions or you don't. Nothing against Herschel Walker, nothing against anyone voting for him. This is totally a political. He's had some problems so far with public appearances. It's not accidental that he is not aggressively seeking public events. It's not accidental that he purposefully wanted one debate, not more than one. So I think that debate in Savannah is going to pretty much wrap things up outside of any other surprises. Because a much better and seasoned public speaker than Walker is. Yeah, there is some discussion in the chat that somebody says that the debate in Savannah has been canceled. I am not finding any stories to that effect. I know there were, and this is getting confusing. There were actually two scheduled debates in Savannah, one of which was the originally planned debate that I believe. That Warnock was planning to participate in. And then Walker didn't like the format of that debate and arranged for a debate to be hosted by different outlets that was going to have an audience, I think. And Warnock eventually agreed that he was going to attend that debate. So I'm not sure if the debate that's been canceled is the one that wasn't going to have Walker anyway, or if Walker has backed out of the event he already planned on having, which would seem a little weird. But then again, I guess based on what we've been discussing, I guess Walker could be trying to avoid that one-on-one confrontation based on what's come out today. But yeah, we've had some stories like, for example, there was a debate that was scheduled for Macon. But that's one that Walker had never agreed to. There was also, I believe, a debate that was scheduled for either Atlanta or Columbus that Walker again had not committed to. And then the Macon debate was canceled because basically Walker wasn't showing up and apparently they decided that they didn't want to bother with a debate between Warnock and the Libertarian candidate, which personally I think might have actually been somewhat educational to the voters, but apparently they did not think that was newsworthy enough. Now, for Warnock, I could also hold out, I guess there's no point in having the debate at that point, but that's a different question. So we'll shelve that as to be confirmed. But as of now, I believe the date is October 14th, is when it's supposed to be happening, which is a debate to see next Friday, I think. And so we'll see if that actually happens or not. But as of now, I can't find any stories on the Savannah local TV website that was going to be hosting it or the Atlanta Journal Constitution or anywhere else for that matter. They're saying that that debate is off. So for now at least looks like it's on. That's the sort of the situation that could maybe move the needle here where, you know, it's like, OK, I mean, so far he's basically faced behind closed doors, some friendly audiences. But I think, you know, it's got to be a question that's going to be asked in a debate and how he responds to that is going to be a real challenge. So now that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to cost him a quarter of his supporters or anything like that, right? I think there are a lot of people that are willing to kind of take their lead from a lot of the conservative commentators who have, in some of the graphic terms, some even said that basically, well, you know. I mean, the old stereotype is, you know, they, you know, they could kill somebody on stage and they'd still vote for them since they're not a Democrat, right? And some of the commentators have gone pretty much that far, right? Basically saying, well, you know, I don't care if he murders babies. He's still not a Democrat. And and literally have put it that way. And so I'm not sure it's going to cost him a lot of votes. But the problem is that he's every voting yet, right? You know, this is not a race where, you know, it's, it's a gerrymander district where he can, he can pull through with, you know. If the independence don't vote for it, right? You know, he needs those independent voters and they might not necessarily be as willing to take the lead of Eric Erickson to sort of give him an absolution for this. Not to pick on Eric Erickson in particular, but we're going to pick on Eric Erickson in particular, I guess. So let's see. Back to our questions. We actually had a couple of questions from the chat that was going to ask us to address. So I do have a, we have a question here. Who is running this election? I'm not sure if that's a question about who is actually operating the election or who was actually running in the election. Yeah, the October 13th debate was the one in Macon that's been canceled. So that's been, I mean, that was kind of a walking dead debate for a while now anyway. Just because Warlock was signed up, but Walker wasn't. So let's see. Do we have anything about this race in particular? I was just kind of scrolling to see if we have anything that we're tied in nicely with this. Okay, so we had a question. What are your views on having a National Voting Day holiday where work in non-essential industries is suspended or perhaps mandatory voting? I'll jump on this. We absolutely should. Absolutely. Should have been done decades ago. I'm a huge proponent. There are no partisan. Of which mandatory voting or a day. I didn't hear the manager. I heard National Voting Holiday. Yeah, they're, yeah, the question also mentioned the possibility of mandatory voting like Australia or Brazil or my apologies man. National Voter Holiday. Absolutely. It is an overwhelming oversight on our part as a Republic collectively that we do not have a National Voter Holiday or put it on Saturday. But even that would not be a National Voter Holiday for people who work on Saturday. So again, I don't want to offend anyone here. But Presidents Day. Not to take away from American presidents, but that's the type of holiday we could literally replace. We wouldn't actually have to add a new holiday. So yes, I think we should have a National Voter Holiday mandatory voting in the United States. I have my personal opinions on that, but constitutionally and no, I can't imagine. Personally, I have different feelings and I don't mean prison time or jail much like Australia's mandatory. I believe it's a relatively negligible fine that you would pay, but it has dramatically increased voter turnout. So National Voter Holiday. Absolutely. Mandatory voter law, not in this country. I don't see how that could possibly survive several different constitutional challenges. Matt. I agree with John on both counts. Now on a personal level, remember I said that I would like people to think about voting as a duty, even though, but the reality is voting to right. And when you talk about a right, it's hard to say that, well, this is something you have to do because if it's a right, then you have a right to defect. But on a personal level, I would love it if people were forced to do this, but there's lots of things that I would like people to be forced to do that they're not forced to do. You know, like coming to class. You know, things like that. Just just throwing that out there. I know there's a lot of students in the audience. But I understand that at the end of the day, you know, we can't put a gun to your head. And that sort of thing. But but no, I they having it as a holiday. And I do believe I would actually I do want to take one more a little bit maybe a little bit deeper than what Professor Paul said in that I think you could construct national level legislation where you could have it as a paid holiday for most at least for government employers employees. You might not be able to push that with the private sector, but as a show, in other words, this is a public school. So in other words, this would be we would have school would be closed that day and everybody that worked at this school the expectation would be that they would go out and vote and they would get paid for this day because it's a government work. I realize that may not that would be sketching in the private sector. But the public said that's the only thing I would add on to it. I think that that's a reasonable thing that could be done in for at least for people that work directly in the public sector. Great point, Matt. One quick thing after thinking about it more, I think you could. I think a mandatory voter law could withstand constitutional scrutiny. If you look at the sibilious opinion that held the Affordable Care Act provided it was considered a tax, then it might actually survive constitutional scrutiny. But again, personally, I think it is beyond a shame if you can vote and choose not to vote. But again, I'm very much iffy on mandatory in the United States. Great questions. Okay, great. So I've been looking and trying to find more stories on the Savannah debate thing. I found a really confused story that said that the story from making, canceling the debate and make him actually meant canceled in Savannah. So I don't think they actually understood the story. So that might be where some of this confusion is coming from. But like I said, if we do get any developments that actually do affect that, I will let you know, but probably not in the next half hour or so. So we had a question from the chat. One of our first questions was actually about co-tail effects. So I'm going to read this verbatim. I'm not sure how you want to respond to this. But does the co-tail effect correlate with advertisements of political parties on the internet? Is it qualified as a tactic for candidates to lure voters to vote for them? Great question. We have not yet in my classes gotten to the co-tail effect, but we are a day away. In terms of its impact on internet advertising by political parties, I'm not sure. I'll just point out a few things that I am sure of. The co-tail effect can be highly overestimated. If you do not have an incredibly popular US president who, depending on what definition you look at, is actually running for reelection during the same election as you and you're in the same party. The co-tail effect doesn't even exist for the most part. So that's just a quick little precursor to the lesson the co-tail effect in general is a reference to a popular president being in an election, you are a US senator or US representative, even a governor in the same party, and they come in, they visit you, Air Force One lands in your city, it's incredibly impressive, and you get a bump. Usually a significant bump. President Biden's approval ratings have definitely gone up over the last few weeks. A lot of legislative success from the Democratic Party is going very much under the radar, but I don't think 41-42% would necessarily qualify for the co-tail effect, depending on the state. In terms of its impact on internet advertising, I'm not going to entertain a thought there because I don't want to say something that's not well thought out. I don't know how the co-tail effect would correlate with advertisements of political parties on the internet. My apologies, but I'm sure Matt does. I don't know about all that, but I would say that in terms of studies of the co-tail effect have indicated that it does not exist for midterm elections. That in fact, if anything, there's a bit of a negative effect. The president's party normally loses seats especially in the House of Representatives. There's been a couple of years where that didn't happen in 1934, 1998, 1962 in the Senate, but overall, I said this a bit about the nationalization of these midterm elections. In this case if this is a normal outcome election, the president's party is going to lose seats. Now the majorities that the Democrats have in the House of Senate are razor thin. You don't have to lose much to lose control over one or both of those institutions. Right now, if you look on the polling data from projections from real clear politics, they're actually projecting right now that the Republicans will win control over both houses of Congress. But it's probably a little early for that and real clear as I like them, but they tend to get a little overly excited, in my opinion, with their projections. Nonetheless, now I suppose you could argue in terms of internet advertising with the rise of digital politics and in combined with the nationalization of midterm elections that there might be something there. What that sounds to me like a lot of though would be a fascinating research project for an incoming, for a future graduate student in political science to undertake. I think that would be an interesting thing to look at because that digital politics stuff that's kind of the new sexy stuff that's out there. So whoever wrote that in there, you might have a future in the profession. I'm just throwing that out there to you. Okay, great. Let's see. Another check question. Where was my other check question? This question is from Ryan. Apologies for not giving credits for other questions before. What do you think people could do to prevent people from voting with a dead person's name? Great question. This brings up another question I think I saw from Dr. Beek about the possibility of accusations of illegitimate voting. This is an area that America should have extraordinary pride. We don't. Over half of the Republican party thinks right now, today, that President Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election. That is what I would call peculiar. The American elections post-progressive era, especially today, are by far some of the absolute most legitimate elections in the history of the world. The narrative that we have illegitimate elections is exactly that. It's a narrative. With that, we'll hit what I like to call anecdotal examples. Great example of in the question here. How do we stop dead people from voting? Does that happen? Possibly. We think of the classic joke. Did President Kennedy win the 1960 election with the help of a lot of dead people in New Jersey? When you're dealing with millions upon millions of votes, one instance of voter fraud like that will not affect the outcome. But how we generally keep people from using dead people to vote is the felony prosecution that will come afterwards in the decades that you will spend in a federal prison. I don't know anyone who is so dedicated to having some candidate win that they're willing to commit multiple felonies in order to get one, just one extra vote. Does this happen in the history of the Republic? Yes. Is it something that affects electoral outcomes? No. And how would you keep someone from using a dead person to vote? You're going to have to get through a lot of gatekeepers to successfully use a dead person to vote. You're going to have to have access to someone who very recently died definitely after the last election. While it does have extreme disadvantages, ordering on voter suppression, aggressive manner in which Georgia, for example, purges our voter roles is in many ways to prevent things of this nature. In other words, how do we stop that? First, recognize that it does not happen on a grand scale. Secondly, it's a felony. And third, there are a number of mechanisms underneath the secretaries of state of all 50 states that prevent that. There are federal, state and local entities that investigate examples of voter fraud like that. Great question. Again, to summarize, it just doesn't happen a lot. And if it does, you're tweeting a felony and you're probably going to spend a long amount of time in a federal prison. You have to remember that, again, post-progressive era. If you go pre-progressive era, American elections were hilariously corrupt. Political parties used to print ballots and up ballots. Post-progressive era, we have an incredibly clean electoral system. It's also unimaginably decentralized. We have 50 different states who are nominally in charge of elections. Again, to my students, Georgia is in charge of voting in Georgia. But even then, it's further decentralized at the precinct club. Anyone here who has gone to vote knows what you see when you go to vote. You see your old high school football coach. You see your grandmother over there volunteering. The thought of having a systemic corrupt system the way we run elections is literally impossible. I fear that I'm going off on too many different tangents here. This is an area that I'm passionate about. American elections are shockingly clean and very legitimate. We should be proud of them. How do we stop dead people from voting? A, recognize that they don't in any way that would matter. And two, it's a felony. You're going to get caught. You're going to go to federal prison. On that note, I'll hand it over to Matt. Well, I don't think there really needs to be any more said on it. Other than, I will say so before the across the country the recent wave of electoral reforms, that of course one side claims are suppressive actions. But when you require people to have photo ID and stuff like that to register and when you require them to have photo ID to actually show up and vote as they do in so many states, it really retards the ability to have zombies voting as thrilling as that might be. But has it ever happened? That was sure. It's happened. Lots of things happen. It used to happen on a fairly regular basis in the old age of machine politics. But those times are very far in our past now. And one things that people should actually be quite proud of is really the stability of American elections. Particularly in the last 100 years, 120 years, they've really been stellar and we've been a beacon to the world really on it. Now if you go to certain other countries it's a crapshoot as to whether or not the election is legitimate. But in America, we've tend to do a pretty good job on it overall. Great point, Matt. Just to reiterate what you said, our elections are very legitimate, extremely clean claims to the contrary claims that legitimate elections and election results claims that they are illegitimate are dangerous and irresponsible and they are made 100% of the time by people who A, do not know what they're talking about or B, people who very much know what they're talking about and I don't know which one's more dangerous. The only thing I would add is when there are cases of it usually it's impersonation fraud by relatives more than anything else. That tends to be the most common thing where a spouse will mail in their spouse's ballot oftentimes when they've died or something like that. Or I've heard of cases where people will vote for their children or that sort of thing but again the cases are fairly isolated people tend to get caught and usually they get the book thrown at them when they are caught. So the risk-reward ratio is not very good particularly when you start to think through the process. It's not like you can just sort of smuggle in a bunch of ballots and stick them in the machine and nobody's going to notice. There are audits, there's the poll book, the number of people that sign into the poll book is counted that is cross-checked with the number of votes there are and that sort of thing. If there are discrepancies people will have to go back through and investigate that. One kind of useful thing and one thing you might want to consider as a student actually is anybody that's worked at the polls knows that there's a very intricate and laid out process to make sure that the voters don't slip through the cracks like that. As a young person they're always looking for young people to volunteer to work at the polls and you can find out more information about that on the Secretary of State's website as well. I'm not sure if they're still recruiting people for this election but if you've got time on election day or some of that it might be something you might want to consider. It's a very educational experience and I lived in another community in New Orleans working at the polls and learned a lot about elections that way just from the experience of seeing it firsthand and seeing what goes into it and how seriously poll workers take their jobs and that sort of thing. So it can be a very valuable thing to know whether you're a political scientist or just an ordinary citizen for that matter. Let's see we are down to our last 15 minutes or so so I do want to get to our other big race, skip ahead a little bit and talk about the other marquee contest in Georgia is our big rematch between Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams who faced off before 2018 and so it seems like a rerun but at the same time things may be different this time around. What is the same from last time around just who the candidates are and what's different between what's changed in the last four years that might make this election turn out a bit differently or maybe turn out the same for that matter. Great question the gubernatorial election in Georgia is one that the nation will be watching many potential first if Stacey Abrams were elected she would be the first African-American governor of the state of Georgia also the first female governor of the state of Georgia. The election was incredibly close it did go to a recount it did actually take then candidate Abrams several weeks before conceding the loss because it was so close there was some controversy at the time governor now governor Kemp was the secretary of state and for any students out there the secretary of state of a state is very different than the secretary of state at the federal level they're predominantly in control of elections and the administration of elections so a lot of controversy there with that title election now we have another title election. What's different well let's look at what we have now the last data I have seen has an incredibly tight election right now with forgive me I should have had this already pulled up I believe that governor Kemp has about a two point lead over I've seen three points I've seen four points I've seen one point Stacy Abrams is losing right now if the election were held today she's suffering from a three to four depending on the poll point deficit having said that Stacy Abrams has shown in the past an extraordinary ability to invigorate the Democratic base to actively go out and encourage the registration of voters who have not been registered when it comes to doubting Stacy Abrams ability on election day that's a tremendous bet to make having said that what's changed this is still Georgia well we've had two U.S. senators from the state of Georgia wearing Democratic lapels that have been elected to the U.S. Senate does that mean that the state of Georgia is blue absolutely not but that's a major event we also have current senator Raphael Warnock who will be running for reelection not necessarily the definition of cocktail but it can be something there if you have Warnock voters who are going out specifically to vote for senator Warnock I'm sure they would vote for Stacy Abrams also between the 2018 and 2022 election there have been about 1.5 million new registered Georgia voters added to the roles from migration from other states into the state of Georgia Georgia has one of the most powerful and growing economies on the planet this is a great place to live if anyone's from Georgia it's a phenomenal state there are two voters that were not voting in 2018 having said that with regard to their policies Stacy Abrams is a Democrat, Governor Kemp is a Republican so the national party platforms of both of those parties are relatively well represented there Governor Kemp has advantages that he didn't have in 2018 he's incumbent he has won over an extraordinary amount of support from the Republican base he's won over Democrats it's a rare opportunity to take on President Donald Trump as a Republican and he confronted President Trump when asked some might interpret this to be a possible attempt at electoral fraud when he was asked by President Trump to find thousands of votes for President Trump Governor Kemp stood up to President Trump and President Trump was putting pressure on Governor Kemp that also won him the respect of many centrist Democrats having said that this is a tight election Stacy Abrams is trailing and has been trailing both candidates or strong candidates one thing to keep in mind is that when polled I think it was 98% of Republicans in Georgia are planning on voting for Stacy Abrams these are two candidates who have seized the base this is a battle of the bases this is Democrat versus Republican there is not a lot of wiggle room between registered Democrats and registered Republicans this will be won by independence in the middle that we are not talking about on that note because I can keep going forever I will stop and hand it over to Matt all right that was great so what has what I think a main thing that is one main thing that has changed is that we had to fall out from the 2020 election between 18 and 22 and I think we are going to see what we are going to possibly see an impact on that again I keep going back to this nationalization of these midterm elections but I think it is very important here in Georgia I think it is that we got an early run of maybe something we are going to see in 24 and I don't know at the end of the day which one of these two is actually going to win if you run the trend line and you look at the trend analysis over time it seems to favor the governor but the problem is as Professor Hall pointed out the margin is so small that all you need is a slight change in turnout rates a slight movement of independence a small defection I mean a half a percent could lead to a different differential outcome so this will be interesting to watch now maybe we got about a month to go here we might have one of them might overtake the other and get a significant lift that is possible but my thought would be that if that was going to happen it would have happened already and it hasn't happened so I think we are going down to the wire just like we did four years ago Governor Governor Kemp has advantages from that was pointed out by John but there is also some disadvantages that he has which is sort of the other side that he didn't back he didn't back the big dog in 20 and that might cause a small defection on that side and understand something that's all Miss Abrams would need potentially to get over the line the other thing that's out there is that which could be a somewhat of a help to Kemp to Governor Kemp is a fallout among disaffection with some of the the more extreme civil rights some of the activities that led to some of the some of the violent protests and stuff that could actually hurt that could help Governor Kemp and actually depress a chance for Miss Abrams on that but I see some advantages for Kemp within that now on the Abrams side as John has pointed out she is a voting registering machine she has probably been more responsible as a single person for really some of the Democratic Party's nationwide level success in the 2018 to 2020 period she's a major player I'll even say this that even if she loses this election I don't think she's going anywhere I think she's going to be a major player she may not always be a politician but she's going to be a major player in the Democratic Party for decades to come Governor Kemp if he wins reelection whether that is his last he'll have the gravitas to move forward beyond the second term as Governor he may or he might just be a Nathan Deal or somebody like that but anyway so I think I've belabored a bit too much on this topic already so I'm going to shut up Okay thanks so one last question I think it's perfect we'll take someone from the chat so Eli has a question for us going blue in the 2020 presidential election as indicative of a larger trend towards realignment in Georgia good political science board there are realignment I like that do I think this is a critical realignment occurring in Georgia? No the electoral outcomes were so razor thin if Senator Warnock were to win by a landslide and Stacey Abrams were to win by a landslide then I would start to think possibly because those are the two statewide elections that we are talking about tonight there are of course more than that in terms of statewide elections that we haven't had the chance to get to but is this a realignment of the state of Georgia I'm assuming you mean Eli to a blue state we'll know after this election if this is a realignment to a blue state status for Georgia Senator Warnock and Stacey Abrams when their respective elections significantly that would be literally a sign of a realignment if it's razor thin again then no purple I think purple is the status of Georgia now and into the future great question that's the best way I can answer it I just jump jump in on that that is a great question and realignment issues always fascinate me personally but so there was a one of the great political scientists and he kind of cut his teeth on the study of southern politics but name with V.O. Key he's long passed away but V.O. Key came up with a contribution to the realignment academic literature he came up with a notion of something he called a secular realignment which was that a over a period of elections you could see a change in the distribution of political party power about which party was in power and what we could have is I think that he's pulling out the V.O. Key's southern there it is southern politics of state nation there's the man right there V.O. Key the you could what we could be seeing going on here in Georgia is we could we might be able to say that we have some initial evidence supporting maybe a secular realignment not necessarily to becoming a full blown blue state blue state but a secular realignment away from being red state republican to being as John pointed out here purple state two party competitive as I told my students in in in my classes today that means that in 24 again I keep going about this nationalization thing in 24 it looks to me like we here in Georgia we're going to be major players we're going to get so tired of seeing the democrat at the republican parties will be ready to screen because we're a big state we got 10 million people and it looks to me I think to V.O. Key secular realignment here we're moving in the direction of being a two party competitive so-called purple state which you mean that we're going to we're going to be players in a way in the national politics that quite frankly we haven't been for decades because for decades you know way back in the day actually when V.O. Key was writing Georgia was a southern democratic state and that's what it was and then kind of if we want to go with Key a secular realignment of the south towards the republican party Georgia became a solidly red state republican party in fact in the last series of presidential elections dating back some decades now the democrats only won twice in the state that was Bill Clinton in 92 and Joe Biden in 20 but it looks to me if I'm correct on this which maybe I am maybe I'm not I think we might be moving clearly in this direction I think the closeness between all these elections really shows that I mean there was a time you know if not that many years ago I mean Herschel Walker as the republican candidate I mean especially you know he's Mr. go go dogs you know UGA guy I mean I'm in Georgia politics not that long ago I mean he'd be running down the field just like he used to do with the football he'd be running away with this thing and we'd be asking about Raphael who's a worn out but the fact that it's tight like that I think is some evidence some significant evidence to show how we have moved in this I'll call from V.O. Key a secular realignment so anyway I think that's enough of me to be average. Great yeah I mean I think the only thing I would add to that is you know Georgia has been sort of an odd state in realignment in general right it was one of the last states really to go through the realignment from Democrats for Republicans right you know you still had Democrats winning you know well into the the 1990s right you know Georgia is one of the few states that Bill Clinton won in the south right and then and then of course you know we had kind of this red wall almost in the 2000s and 2010s and now it's kind of going back the other way right and so and you've got two kind of intersecting trends here right it is a contest between them right on the one hand you have this demographic trend towards more diversity right in the state and diversity you know becoming more of a critical factor right but the same time you have so you would expect out to them you know favor the Democrats but but the Democrats are also or the that diversity is also becoming less solidly Democratic you know and you know you could you know there was a time when you could count for you know that black voters were going to go 90% for the Democrats and it's no longer the case right it's not you know it's not 5050 it's not 6040 it's not even 7030 but but it's not 9010 or 95 like it was before right and so while you know if the trends stayed the same with you know the monolithic African-American vote for Democrats you know Abrams would be able to win with 25% of the vote right well that number starts creeping up right you know in the last election it was something like 30% of the white vote was going for Democrats and that was barely enough right and so or not enough right and so as and also we're getting into minorities that aren't 90 9010 right you're getting you know Asian Americans are not as monolithically Democratic Hispanics are not as monolithically Democratic and so you know and particularly you know Donald Trump has gotten some real inroads with Hispanic voters for reasons that a lot of people find very difficult to fathom but nonetheless it's happening right and so that so the quote so the blue state I would say no is Georgia going to stay a competitive state I would say probably just because it's kind of almost a self-fulfilling prophecy you know you get all this attention from politicians and it's going to stay competitive right until until it's some level it isn't right until it's not worth their money anymore until it's not worth their time anymore and for now at least it doesn't seem like it's going to change but we have gone a little bit over and while we've got lots of other questions I could ask I think this is you know we've been here for an hour and 35 minutes or so so I think that's a fairly good point for us to adjourn also leaves us with a lot more things we can talk about after the election as well so much I mean certainly we'll do some post mortem as well we've got a couple of reminders announcements that sort of thing we're going to have another discussion event coming up in a couple weeks on Monday the 17th so a week from Monday a little bit earlier in the week we're going to have our discussion event updating events in Ukraine so international politics discussion you know that's been obviously a lot in the news lately particularly as Ukraine has gone on it's fall offensive if you will things are rapidly changing there and so I will not even try to predict what we're going to be talking about in 12 days or whatever it's going to be I guess it will be 12 days but it will definitely be something I can tell you that and then our final discussion event we're playing on doing that after the election sometime I can't remember the exact date off the top of my head but unfortunately the way things are scheduled the discussion was on the 8th we have the Georgia Political Science Association conference later that week so it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to try to put in that discussion event later on that week because there may be people I know John is going to be a GPS I might be a GPS I don't know about Matt but we will so we're going to have to have that the following week which I think is the I think is what I put down but we'll have announcements and things like that posted and of course there will be the slides and all that stuff in our lobby and things like that so before we adjourn I'd like to thank Dr. Haverly, Matt Haverly and Dr. John Hull for their joining us as well as thanking Dr. Beek for his introduction and our colleagues Dr. Matrock and Dr. Slotovic for joining us as well and I hope that you guys have watched this again for some reason we'll have that posted to YouTube later on it takes a while for it to upload and stuff so I probably won't have it posted today but keep it out for it next week the websites for getting registered to vote and finding voter registration information in other states are posted in the chat so you may want to scroll through those or you can just email us be happy to share those and we'll have a great evening Thanks everybody, thanks Matt Thanks John, thanks Chris, thanks everybody for coming Have a great evening Thanks YouTube and we will stop recording