This page for the 2020-21 Georgia Runoff. For the latest polling for the 2022 GA Runoff, please click here.
The 2020-2021 Georgia Senate Runoff Elections Forecast
By: Logan Phillips
Georgia is once again at the very center of the political universe in America, and is primed to single handedly decide the winner of the Senate with two historic run-off elections in January. Right now, Republicans control fifty seats to Democrats forty-eight, and only need to win one victory to secure the Senate. However, if Democrats can pull off the sweep, they will take the majority, with the 50-50 tie being broken by Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris.
Why Take My Word for It?
Race to the WH was one of the most accurate forecast in the 2020 election. We outperformed the gold standard, Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight, in predicting the final margin for states in the Senate and Presidential elections. We correctly predicted Biden’s win in Georgia, within 0.5% of the final result.
The Georgia Forecast, like the Senate and Presidential Forecast before it, was designed by Editor in Chief Logan Phillips, who previously studied Presidential Campaign Management at Columbia University with Karine Jean Pierre, who is now Kamala Harris’s Chief of Staff. Earlier, he interned on President Obama's Scheduling and Advance team in the White House, and organized for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign.
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How the Forecast Works:
Every update, I run 50-100k simulations of the forecast, and each simulation uses the projected margin for both Georgia races, and randomly has both candidates perform or underperform their projections within a reasonable range based on how much uncertainty there is about the outcome of the Senate race.
I determine the projected margin of victory based off the candidates performance across several indicators, listed in order of importance.
Head to Head Polling
Political Lean of Georgia (Slightly more Republican than the Nation at large)
The Results of the November Election (only for Ossoff v. Perdue)
Highest Elected Position Won in the Past
Fundraising
Favorability of the Candidates
In an effort to be transparent as possible, I show the impact of each part on the projected margin, right above the head to head polling.
The Update Log:
Finally, runoff predictions are a bit harder to make than normal elections, because the type of voters that decide to come out of an unusual election can vary dramatically year to year.
That’s particularly true in 2021, where we have a historically unprecedented situation - one state has two senate runoffs that will single handedly determine the majority party next year. I’m making adjustments as I go along to perfect the model - and you can read about them as they happen in the Update Log.
