Analysis: Democrats sweep Georgia executive offices

Recapping the two headline races here in Georgia, Democrats have taken back the governor's mansion for the first time in two and a half decades. And pollsters have some explaining to do. Keisha Lance Bottoms soundly defeated billionaire Rick Jackson. The current margin, something like 350,000 votes. Much bigger margin still in the Senate race. Senator John Ossoff crushing Mike Collins in his victory. Thank you. The spread is currently 18 points, just a huge, huge commanding lead, which is sure to tighten, but it hasn't moved much in the last hour or so that we've been monitoring this big of a lead. All right. And those are just two examples of a completely dominant showing by Democrats here in Georgia and across the country. Fox 5's Christine Spiro is with our political panel for one last take of what happened today. You know, Christine, there had been talk about whole ballot energy, but I got to believe there's still some surprise. Yeah, Russ and Courtney, we're here with Andre Washington and Ryan Mahoney to talk about all the big headlines here and analyzing what we saw today. First, let's talk about before we kind of get into the nitty gritty of the races. What is your overall feeling of how Georgia ran the elections this time around here in the midterms? Well, I'd be the first to give, not necessarily the first, but I would want to give credit to the Secretary of State's office for running an efficient election and having the races called as early as they have. The amount of early votes that they process in the time that they process is exceptional. And the fact that we got results, you know, in a way that we're able to kind of have clarity about what the next steps are is incredible. And so kudos to them and the staff and also, a special shout out to the election volunteers and workers and poll workers and stations because they do thankless work and they're out there and it's not a big money gig. They're just doing the work to ensure that our democracy functions in a way. And so I want to send a special shout out to them, especially the folks in Adamsville and my side of town over in Collier Heights. Should people be able to trust our elections? It's been the kind of hot topic and the lightning rod in some cases when people talk about it. Well, I think when you look at the turnout numbers, people do trust the elections and I've seen it in polling honestly for the last four or so years and I think it's one of those things as Georgians we can take for granted how awesome it is to be able to vote 15 to 18 days of early voting and then on election day to go. I had tons of conversations with my friends back home in New Orleans and they were like, you can vote how many days? I'm like, yeah, you can vote. 15 days early and people obviously got out and they did it and they trust the elections and it was great again to have a lot of these results come out before my bedtime. Now I am here but I would have been going to bed because staying up incredibly late just to see what happened is doesn't make the next day much fun. Yeah in this day and age you should be able to get results. That's right. Well it's fun for Democrats to stay up late. Tonight's a fun night. Yeah, can't relate to Ryan. I'm having a great time. Well let's talk about the fact that because we do see Now that it looks like the Democrats are going to flip both the House and the Senate. And we were talking back in the newsroom at how in these last couple elections we've seen such a swing, like a giant swing to the right. You know, when Biden was in office, it swung so far to the right where the Republicans won the White House, the House and the Senate. And now it's swinging significantly back to the left. What's your guys take on that with how the electorate has been? Moving in these big swings, I don't know. I think tonight is historic for a number of reasons because the swings that we've seen We haven't seen in recent history. We haven't seen Kansas have a Democratic senator We haven't seen places like Iowa and Ohio and South Carolina I you know I didn't think that I would look at the map tonight and see the eastern seaboard of the United States and Most of the Midwest and the South have Democratic senators. That is a wave election That is a mandate and that puts Republicans in a difficult position until maybe the year 2032 That means Democrats have time to put together an agenda and actually govern it. This is of epic proportions, this is far beyond what we normally see. Do you agree or believe that it's hard to come back from what we saw tonight? It is, but there's a through line here and a lot of times states sort of inoculate themselves from national politics, but you had a president that traveled around to swing states and said, pretend that I'm on the ballot. And they did. And they rejected him and they rejected his agenda. They rejected foreign wars and high gas prices. And so I think that's the through line here is that Trump was on the ballot in the minds of so many voters and he lost. And he needs to take responsibility for that. But based on his recent True Social post where he said, quote, I would have won in a landslide if I was on the ballot, he clearly wasn't paying attention to how his words have real impact. Well, there's no question that there are going to be investigations. With Democrats now having the majority in the House and the Senate, do you think that's the route Democrats should go full steam? What does the next couple of years look like? I think it should be a both-and when it comes to holding this administration accountable for actions that fall outside the step of the norms and being a check to this administration. I also think that the Democrats have the difficult task of catching the train when there's a bunch of landmines on the tracks because the worst parts of the big, beautiful bill, quote unquote, are embedded in the next six months. And so Democrats are going to have to act fast to provide relief to the American people because some of the most draconian cuts and impacts are on the way. We have to stop bad things from happening before they occur and then do our best to do a victory lap to say, hey, look what the worst of it didn't happen because we stepped in and hopefully the American people will recognize what we're doing. Ryan Mahoney, I know it's a tough night tonight as a Republican. Not ideal. Yeah. Honorary Washington, we appreciate you coming on as well and your analysis all throughout the evening. It's been so great to have Russ and Courtney. Well, thanks to all three of you. And we're going to continue our coverage tonight. We've listened to some of what the candidates had to say, but we've been recording all of it. We're going to give you a larger perspective in the next hour. Yeah. Stay with us. We'll be back with that in just a few moments.