NEW: Yet Another Ratings Change Moves Georgia Senate Special Election Closer to the Democrats

Loeffler and Collins continue their brutal back-and-forth intraparty firefight as polling shows Democrats gaining in race

ATLANTA — Today, with unelected “political mega-donor” Senator Kelly Loeffler and Congressman Doug Collins still trapped in an expensive and brutal intraparty fight, the Cook Political Report became the latest political prognosticator to shift their rating of the Georgia Senate special election in favor of the Democrats.

Cook’s Jessica Taylor cited “the battle royale” between Loeffler and Collins that has “forced both candidates to run as far to the right as humanly possible” as boosting Democrats’ chances in the race. Their brutal back-and-forth leaves both Republicans in a situation “that’s not a recipe for winning a statewide race in a rapidly changing Georgia.”

Polling backs up Republicans’ struggles, showing both Loeffler and Collins trailing or tied with Democrats in head-to-head match-ups and each of them scoring underwater favorability ratings with Georgia voters — in Loeffler’s case by double-digits. Now, as Republicans’ “nasty fight” continues, both Loeffler and Collins are headed in the direction of a scorched earth campaign against each other right when their party can least afford it.

“Georgia Republicans are in dire straits in the Senate special election, and they know it,” said Alex Floyd, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Georgia. “That’s why both Senator Kelly Loeffler and Congressman Doug Collins are spending the final weeks before Election Day racing to the right and attacking each other in the most brutal terms possible — leaving Georgia Democrats as the only winner of their toxic intraparty feud.”

Read more about the Cook Political Report’s latest ratings change in Georgia:

Cook Political Report: Three Weeks Out, Three Rating Changes Toward Democrats Add To a Growing Edge in Battle for Senate Control

• Today we are also moving the Georgia special into the Toss Up column.

• The battle royale between the two that national Republicans had feared would come to fruition has indeed forced both candidates to run as far to the right as humanly possible. In Loeffler’s case, she’s even run a series of bizarre TV ads where she boasts she’s “more conservative than Atilla the Hun.”

• The extreme right positions Loeffler has been forced to take just to edge Collins out has made her virtually unrecognizable to the type of candidate Republicans had surely hoped they were getting when Gov. Brian Kemp appointed her to the Senate — one who would appeal to white suburban women Republicans are rapidly hemorrhaging in the Atlanta suburbs.

• It’s going to be very hard even to attempt to pivot back to the center in just two months for Loeffler, and if Collins is in the runoff he certainly wouldn’t even try to pivot. 

• That’s not a recipe for winning a statewide race in a rapidly changing Georgia. So this race now joins its other Peach State counterpart in the Toss Up column.

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