Georgia Senate runoff could break spending records

Georgia’s high-profile U.S. Senate runoff could burn up more than $15 million in its four-week sprint to decide a winner, possibly surpassing the money the campaigns spent in the general election.

The campaigns of Democrat Jim Martin of Atlanta and incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Moultrie disagreed Saturday on who is raising and spending the most campaign money.

But both agreed that their Dec. 2 runoff could break post-election spending records.

The runoff is luring big dollars and big-name politicos to the state for both candidates. Former President Bill Clinton comes to Atlanta on Wednesday to campaign for Martin, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will be in Gwinnett County on Sunday to campaign for Chambliss.

Attending a barbecue in the North Georgia mountain town of Ellijay, Chambliss said his campaign has budgeted $4.5 million for the runoff — but that does not count the money the National Republican Senatorial Committee and independent political groups are pumping into the race.

“We think the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will drop $1 million a week in Georgia for Jim Martin,” Chambliss said in an interview. “We will not be able to match that.”

Martin’s campaign, however, called Chambliss’s remarks “laughable” and predicted Chambliss’s campaign, the NRSC and surrogate groups backing Chambliss’s runoff bid could outspend Martin by 3-to-1.

“His (Chambliss’s) side alone could spend more than $10 million,” said Martin spokesman Matt Canter in an interview. “You’re not going to see that kind of spending on our side.”

The race has been thrust into the national spotlight as Democrats try to get a 60-vote, filibuster-proof majoring in the Senate. Only three Senate races remain to be decided after the Nov. 4 general election, and two of those — close contests in Minnesota and Alaska — might have to be resolved in the courts.

That, said University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock leaves the Georgia as the last race where both parties, and the surrogate groups that support them, can burn up mountains of campaign cash.

Throw in the drama and heated rhetoric of a possible Democratic “supermajority,” and the scene is set for a major spending spree.

“If the surrogate groups come in and dump large amounts of cash, the runoff could cost more than the general election,” Bullock said. Much of that, he said, will be spent on television attack ads.

Campaign spending totals are not yet complete for the general election, but it appears that the two senate campaigns went through at least a combined $15 million.