With the engine cold, the choke is about 1/4" from fully closed. It is the stock exhaust manifold heat riser choke rod mechanism for the Holley 1920. The electric wire is broken off / gone.
There y'go, thought so. The choke needs to close. And that broken-off wire means even if your existing choke were working correctly, it would be slow to open and you'd waste a lot of gas. Do as I described in post #2 of this thread; get the № 1231 electric choke kit, install per included instrux, adjust with intel from the factory service manual + the carb info I linked you to + this article, and you're all set to go.