Julian Bene

There's a big difference in incomes, percent college educated and race between D11 and Ds 2,5 & 6. Typically, we'd expect lower turnout from D11 for that reason.

Is there any historical analysis that relates early vote totals to final totals? I'd assumed that if one district's early turnout is higher than another's its total turnout would be higher, also.

How does D 11 get such high turnout? Compared to broadly similar (is this true?) districts 12, 10, 4 and 3.
This is where the Atlanta machine lives, right?

District 2 is way up on 4 yrs ago. Hope that means Kelsea has a chance. District 5 also way up.
This high turnout from progressive districts could be good for Rohit & Royce, locally, and Peter & Alicia statewide.

PSC seats are elected statewide: gerrymandering impossible. Candidates for each PSC slot must reside in a specific district, causing frequent fights over where they really reside. GOP has redrawn districts to keep strong candidates off ballot.
2 Dems out of 5 on PSC won't cause abolition.

Track record Exhibit A: Andre pours $58m (and counting) of TAD money into rat-infested, obsolete 2 Peachtree tower to convert to affordable homes. Now begging MARTA to move into it.

Extending TAD slush funds means hiking taxes, because that money would otherwise return to schools, county & city.

The track record is one of the biggest arguments against TAD extensions. Many projects were advanced recklessly at extraordinary cost with marginal benefit, and of course Dickens’s habit of canceling or downgrading widely popular transit projects undermines public trust in ANY future agenda.

Too right. No commitment to any project.
Plus the amount wasted on projects that were later canceled.
Exorbitant Beltline trail construction costs justified by "We're engineering in for transit". Whoops, we're not putting transit there.
No accountability, so the public have no idea of the waste.

Hate to break it to you, but there is no mayoral election this year in Atlanta for bolts to bother with. There's a coronation.

But, with standard Trumpian incoherence, he and his boy Miran are screaming for huge cuts in the Fed rate. That hardly protects the moneybags of rich assholes against inflation.
It would however further boost the wealth of risk-on portfolios, before the inevitable crash.

It is NOT a $224M incentive, FFS! It's at most a $10M tax break over 10 years. Which won't happen because the developer is weird and won't get this thing done.
Even if he builds the hotel, Fulton values hotels at half what they're worth, so the tax break would be $5M. NOT $224M!!!!

In Georgia, we only do Corporate Welfare. Sorry, kids.
#GApol

In case anyone was wondering, this gentleman is absolutely right.
I spent many years consulting to biotech pharma firms. They won't funnel their enormous profits into the basic research that the NIH has hitherto funded. That research may improve our health but not their share price.

The Emma Thompson clip with Stephen Colbert would amuse you - it did me - if you haven't seen it.

It passed 5-2. No word yet on who the prudent 2 were.

They're betting she'll win and they want the plum committee slots from her.

We could take bets on whether the project will get done. There's no tax break unless it does.

4 Fulton #GApol data centers worth a total of $3.7 Billion are appraised by the county at an absurd $143M. They're under-paying school, city & county tax by $46M/yr.
Many hyperscalers coming to S Fulton will also escape fair tax unless residents put heat on their county commissioners.

A better question. Do you know someone who isn't getting an affordable apartment because Fulton under-taxes trophy towers and data centers by half a billion a year?

Yes, Google AI wrongly answers that the last DAFC break for data centers was Musk's $10M break for X's new AI equipment at the older QTS data center, Jan 2024.
In fact it was the "$75M" break for Project Steamboat, a Microsoft hyperscaler in Union City, June 2024.

But Data Centers!!!!!!

Even those announcements seem to have petered out.
When was the last DAFC tax abatement granted for a data center?
(Didn't intend to cue an AI question that it would probably answer falsely.)

Zuckerberg appoints former metaverse executive to boost AI efforts Vishal Shah takes on key role after Meta AI video service Vibes overshadowed by OpenAI’s Sora

AI has peaked
www.ft.com/content/89a0...

They were afraid Eating Babies would score well, what with Rs ending SNAP and all

There had been enough scandal at and after the end of Kasim's term to create a big Stop Kasim push. He had the machine to work his side. I would have expected all that to drive much higher turnout than this year. So far, I'd be wrong.

A pol who has been working against the public interest for years finally has to face voters.
Quelle surprise: his Georgia-Power funded campaign waves the race card!
Let's hope voters realize that racism is the last refuge of scoundrels.
#GApol

Compared to the Kasim-Felicia-Andre contest - 3 pols with contrasting track records and a history of rivalry - don't Marci's pitiful attacks on Rohit seem unlikely to inspire high turnout?

It's interesting that a highly-contested race for mayor in 2021 had fewer early votes than this year's mayoral snoozer.
Hoping the difference is that voters are mad about their electric bills and tossing the PSC bums out.

If residents understood that it's not just *using* their taxes this way, it's *hiking* their taxes by $5-$8 Billion, we know what they'd say.
You siphon those taxes from APS, County & City funding and tax hikes to make up for it are inevitable.

Extending the TADs wouldn't be worth $5 billion (or $8 Billion as they're now signaling) if they re-set, would it?
It's Andre's gigacash grab. No point in being reasonable about it.

D2 with Kelsea fits. But unchallenged incumbents in D5 (prog) and D6 (not prog) have no GOTV efforts.
PSC reform & Rohit may be key drivers of turnout in E Atl?

2025 v 2021 comps need to account for contested districts in 2021, e.g., Jason D's & Antonio L's insurgencies in D4 & D12.