Two Senate races are Special Elections which means there will be 33+2 Senate seats up for election in this cycle. The current appointees in both Specials are republicans and every republican Senate seat is an invitation to Democrats to flip it blue!
Central to understanding Senate Special Elections is how US Senate vacancies are filled and it’s a fascinating process with a number of state variations. Thirty-seven states require that vacancies be filled by gubernatorial appointment. The two states with which we’re concerned here — Arizona and Georgia — are both included in that thirty-seven.
Therefore, when a US Senate seat falls vacant the respective Governors choose a replacement. In Arizona Governor Doug Ducey filled the vacancy left by the passing of John McCain with a temporary replacement until Martha McSally was available, and in Georgia Governor Brian Kemp filled their vacant Senate seat with Kelly Loeffler.
Side note 1:
The reason Martha McSally wasn’t available to be appointed in September 2018 was because she was on the ballot for the seat vacated by the retirement of Junior Senator Jeff Flake. McSally lost that race to Kyrsten Sinema. You wouldn’t think losing a senate race would qualify you for a senate seat but Governor Doug Ducey thought otherwise. Temp-senator Jon Kyl filled the 4 month gap and resigned at the end of December so McSally could take over.
Side Note 2:
Trump told Brian Kemp he wanted Doug Collins appointed to the vacant Georgia Senate seat and apparently Collins thought he was going to get it until Kemp announced Loeffler as his chosen one. Collins never got over it and he’s challenging Loeffler for the seat in November.
Back to the main story. The next step in the process is decreed by the US Constitution.
U.S. Constitution, 17th Amendment
“When vacancies happen in the representation of any state in the Senate, the executive authority of such state shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, that the legislature of any state may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.”
In short, gubernatorial appointments are place-holders until the next national election which will be a Special Election for all unelected appointees.
In some cases the Special Election may also correspond to the End of Term election. The latter is determined by the class to which the senate seat is assigned.
That both McSally and Loeffler occupy Class 3 Senate seats is pivotal to the similarities in their races as a side-by-side comparison illustrates.
Where these two Senate races are essentially the same:
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both appointees were seated in the same 2019-2020 term —
McSally on the first day of the term and Loeffler halfway through;
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the first elections for their Senate seats will both be Special Elections held this year;
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both their senate seats are Class 3 with next End of Term elections slated for 2022.
But there is one critical difference between the two: the type of Special Election. Arizona held a primary on March 17 for their Special Senate election while Georgia opted to have a Louisiana-type jungle primary on GE day instead.
In Arizona, Mark Kelly won the Democratic primary to become McSally’s main challenger. The latest polls posted by FiveThirtyEight show Kelly has a handy lead just 16 days before early voting begins on October 7. (To see a larger view of this page, click on this link.)
If Mark Kelly wins, he will be seated by November 30, thereby reducing the GOP majority to 52. That may make a big difference in the battle to add a new Justice to SCOTUS.
Can we pull off the same result in Georgia? Unfortunately not. With 8 splitting the Democratic vote and only 6 splitting the republican vote, it’s going to make it hard for a Democrat to claim a place in the January run-off and well nigh impossible to win the jungle primary outright. The best hope might be if 7 of the 8 Democrats dropped out of the race in order to give the one remaining candidate the best chance of making it to that all-important run-off while the top two republicans, Loeffler and Collins, duke it out for second spot.
According to this March 20 article in Atlanta Magazine, the Democrat with the best chance is the Rev. Raphael Warnock.
In late January, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, became the first Democrat to enter the race. Warnock has no political experience but boasts name recognition due to his religious influence in metro Atlanta and beyond—he led the prayer service at former President Barack Obama’s second inauguration—and was mentioned as a potential opponent in 2016, when Isakson last ran for office. Warnock claimed the support of Stacey Abrams almost immediately.
Recent polling confirms that Warnock is the leading Democrat in this race and is consistently polling in the top three.
Now one thing we do have is people power so let’s use it. If we all go in hard with a mass messaging campaign — phone, fax, email, letter writing and social media — to the seven other democrats running:
- Deborah Jackson
- Jamesia James
- Tamara Johnson-Shealey
- Matt Lieberman
- Joy Felicia Slade
- Ed Tarver
- Richard Dien Winfield
so That Rev Warnock is the only Dem left in the race, we can make a real difference.
This is not a big ask and it could help flip another senate seat. Why would anyone not want to be a part of that effort?