Slight exaggeration, last GA Democrat state office winner was 2006 election.
4 weeks ago
In reference to the Georgia PSC election, I commented on the previous thread about it, but a little more detail: The 5 PSC seats are titled District 1-5, but the elections are statewide. There have not been PSC elections since 2020 due to lawsuit(s) claiming that the statewide elections are discriminatory, as a result the two seats the Democrats just won will be up for election in one and five years, respectively, the normal term is 6 years. The last Democrat to win election to the PSC left office at end of term in 2007, and no Democrat has won a statewide election to any state office in over 20 years.
So to sort of answer Michael, while there are definite local issues regarding rate hikes, this is a big effing deal, especially given the 63-37 margins. Since the state turnover to Republican control in the aughts, it has been the general presumption that Democrats best shot at winning a statewide race is in presidential election years (which puts governor and other executive offices out of reach since they are scheduled in off years). So winning not just an off-year but odd-year election, where there were no other statewide offices on the ballot to drive turnout (and some/many jurisdictions may not have had any local races; locally we had unusually low profile mayor's race, Atlanta City Council President race and several other Council races, as well as judicial retention elections and one ballot initiative).
There were no personality/scandal issues weighing down the Republican office holders, it's understood that any Republican on that body will be in Southern Company's pocket, the only question is how deep.
Slight exaggeration, last GA Democrat state office winner was 2006 election.
In reference to the Georgia PSC election, I commented on the previous thread about it, but a little more detail: The 5 PSC seats are titled District 1-5, but the elections are statewide. There have not been PSC elections since 2020 due to lawsuit(s) claiming that the statewide elections are discriminatory, as a result the two seats the Democrats just won will be up for election in one and five years, respectively, the normal term is 6 years. The last Democrat to win election to the PSC left office at end of term in 2007, and no Democrat has won a statewide election to any state office in over 20 years.
So to sort of answer Michael, while there are definite local issues regarding rate hikes, this is a big effing deal, especially given the 63-37 margins. Since the state turnover to Republican control in the aughts, it has been the general presumption that Democrats best shot at winning a statewide race is in presidential election years (which puts governor and other executive offices out of reach since they are scheduled in off years). So winning not just an off-year but odd-year election, where there were no other statewide offices on the ballot to drive turnout (and some/many jurisdictions may not have had any local races; locally we had unusually low profile mayor's race, Atlanta City Council President race and several other Council races, as well as judicial retention elections and one ballot initiative).
There were no personality/scandal issues weighing down the Republican office holders, it's understood that any Republican on that body will be in Southern Company's pocket, the only question is how deep.