GOP strategist breaks down Georgia voter turnout

Well, Georgians have less than 15 minutes now to cast their ballots in the midterm election. Polls open until 7 o'clock, of course. The state experienced record turnout for early voting. Let's bring in Ryan Mahoney, a Republican strategist. Our Democratic strategist tonight is stuck in traffic, and we all know what Atlanta traffic can be. But, Ryan, thanks for being here. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Even the Republicans concede that the Democrats probably have won the early vote. How confident are you that Republicans will win today, and how much do they have to win by today? Well, I'm confident they'll win today. I'm just not confident that there's enough votes out there for them to overcome the disparity from early voting. I mean, the number that we were looking at was 1.5 million votes today, and Republicans were going to need to get about 60 percent of those. The last report at 6 o'clock was 1.2 million voters had come and cast a ballot today. So very concerned that there's just not enough votes that are going to be left. To bring Republicans a victory, or frankly, to get them close in a lot of these races. Okay, well, on that subject, when the first votes are counted tonight, beginning at 7 o'clock, we're going to see either a blue mirage or a blue wave, because it's the early and absentee votes that are counted first. Where are you going to be looking as the night progresses to see whether the Republicans are going to make this up? Yeah, well, it's tough to look outside of the core four and not... Use that as the hint. So Atlanta is going to be huge. But also, I'll look to Chatham County, Richmond County, some of those. Larger metro areas outside of Atlanta, just as a signal, they usually reflect what you end up seeing the statewide total becoming. But then I'm going to look at rural Georgia. Did folks get out and vote en masse for the Republicans, or did they stay home? Because ultimately that's been the big issue. Republicans have had an enthusiasm gap, and we're going to see if that played out today. Ryan, as you know, four years ago in the midterm, some 200,000 people voted for the Republican for governor and the Democrat. For U.S. Senate, we're talking about Brian Kemp, of course, and Raphael Warnock. How many split voters are you expecting we're going to see in this election? And how many does Rick Jackson need to win this thing? Well, as a Republican, I'm hoping it's a lot. I mean, I think it's going to need to be somewhere between 300,000 and 320,000 split voters. That's a lot. That's a whole lot. And unfortunately, early exit polls show that that's not happening at that rapid of a clip. And so we're going to need folks that are voting. Right now and who voted earlier today to be making that split decision. Yeah. And all the data from the Secretary of State's office, Ryan, I was taken by the fact that 630,000 of the 2.8 million people who voted early didn't vote at all four years ago. That is a big number. I think Democrats have done a great job of motivating their voters, and they've used these previous elections to do that. And so folks who normally wouldn't be participating in a midterm election are now motivated and ready to go. Those are not Republican voters, those are Democrats coming out to say something very clearly about the Trump administration and Republicans. Wow. That's really something coming from a Republican strategist. You mentioned motivation. Is it really affordability, you think? Is that what's driving this? Or is it the president's popularity, a combination, something else? It's affordability. And this has been the issue for 18 months now. I mean, frankly, if you go back to why Trump was elected a second time, it's a rejection of Joe Biden's policies and his inability to tackle the affordability crisis. And so here we are again, and that's still top of mind. I mean, farmers down in South Georgia, their diesel prices are $6. Folks here in Atlanta and beyond are paying $4 for gas. It's hard to ignore that. And so they're taking it out of the ballot box on the politicians that are in charge. All right. 30 seconds left. Mike Collins says he thinks MAGA voters are going to take him across the finish line. Do you see any path there? Mike Collins will lose tonight by a record clip. The question is, can we keep John Ossoff from running away with this thing in double digits? Because that will impact the rest of the ballot. But Mike Collins will not win tonight. All right. Republican strategist Ryan Mahoney, thanks so much for your insights and for your straightforwardness from saying some things that you probably wish you weren't having to say on a night like this. That's correct. All right. Jonathan, over to you.