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Wednesday, November 5, 2008
A map, an Obama mantra, and the case of the missing evangelical
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Spare thoughts on a few hours sleep:
— John Perry, the AJC’s data analyst, has put together this Georgia county-by-county map of the presidential contest. Counties won by Republican John McCain are in red, those won by Democrat Barack Obama are in blue. Click here for a larger image.
— You know that Democrat Jim Martin has reached out to the Barack Obama campaign for help in the U.S. Senate runoff. How badly does he need the president-elect? Martin invoked Obama’s name 12 times in his short statement today.
— Fivethirtyeight.com, a Democratic-oriented polling aggregate site, has this line today: “We’ve been getting emails from [Obama] organizers who had already purchased their plane tickets to come down to Georgia. It won’t be for a 60th seat, but it will be a seat nonetheless.”
— At his press conference, Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss expressed disappointment in GOP turnout on Tuesday. We’ve heard grumbling elsewhere about the lack of an effective Republican GOTV operation. But there is one piece of evidence that the GOP base stayed home.
Exit polling indicates that white “born again” Christians made up 38 percent of the Georgia vote. And yet, in the state Court of Appeals race, Perry McGuire —heavily supported by conservative Christians in past attempts at statewide office - came in next-to-last, with only 8 percent of the vote.
— You’re probably wondering why people are still walking gingerly around the U.S. Senate race results. Chambliss is 8,000 votes or so shy of declaring a 50-percent-plus-one victory.
My AJC colleague Mary Lou Pickel has posted this about uncounted absentee ballots in Fulton County:
There are a total of about 40,000 absentee ballots that have to be counted and 40 people are working on the process, [Fulton County election spokesman Mark] Henderson said. The county was processing the paper ballots it had already received on election night, but then “at midnight we were just bringing over the ballots we received yesterday,” Henderson said.
At this writing, Chambliss is 8,193 votes shy of escaping a runoff. In the last U.S. Senate runoff, in 1992, Democratic incumbent Wyche Fowler fell 34,744 votes short. And lost in a pre-Thanksgiving runoff. This year, runoff elections are scheduled for Dec. 2.
— A U.S. Senate runoff could have an impact on the 2010 elections. Over the next 28 days, Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss will be scouring the normal GOP sources for cash. Just as Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine are doing the same thing.
If they cede the next month to Chambliss, that leaves the two potential candidates for governor only a matter of weeks before the window closes again — no fund-raising is allowed during the winter session of the Legislature.
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Chambliss ‘in campaign mode,’ Martin asks Obama for help
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With votes still trickling in, Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss on Wednesday refused to concede that he’d been thrown into a U.S. Senate runoff — but acknowledged he was now “in full campaign mode.”
Meanwhile, Democrat Jim Martin has already reached out to the campaign of Barack Obama, wanting a little help from the president-elect in the form of a visit.
The pair held dueling press conferences shortly before noon.
“We’re in a runoff. The runoff race begins right now,” Martin said from downtown Atlanta.
Chambliss was at his Cobb County office. “I think the next four weeks are going to be highly interesting and highly competitive,” he said.
The GOP senator said he didn’t know how many votes are outstanding. Said Chambliss’ chief strategist, Tom Perdue: “We’re taking what we got overnight and going with it.”
Currently, Chambliss has 49.9 percent of the vote, according to Secretary of State Karen Handel. He needs 50 percent plus one to escape a runoff.
Martin now has 46.7 percent. Libertarian Allen Buckley won a crucial 3.4 percent of Tuesday’s vote.
Chambliss expressed disappointment in Republican voting strength on Tuesday. “There was great turnout in early voting. Frankly, I think it was fairly evident that there was not the expected turnout yesterday that a lot of folks thought would be there,” he said.
“Voter fatigue” with the presidential race, and the bitterness of the final weeks of the Senate campaign could have been among the reasons, he said.
“Certainly, everybody in Georgia was ready to get this race over with. It’s been the longest presidential campaign in my memory. And I do think the tone of the campaign probably may have even turned a lot of people off,” he said.
Who might come to Georgia to help campaign for him remains undecided. But national Republican organizations have already promised hefty financial support.
On Tuesday, Democrats increased their majority in the U.S. Senate to 56, with Chambliss’ race and two others still in question.
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Gingrich: ‘This was failure of GOP Congress, president’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One wonders if the race for chairman of the rudderless Republican National Committee has now begun.
This from this morning’s Washington Times:
“The first fact of the 2008 election is the failure of the Republican Congress and the Republican president,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “John McCain ran 24-plus points ahead of President Bush’s job approval - an amazing achievement. This was a performance election not an ideological election.”
The same article included this:
“Republicans [once] owned the military and the war issue, but you have so many younger people military dependents from all over the country stationed or living here in western Kentucky,” said Kentucky-based Republican campaign strategist Tim Havrilek, a conservative evangelical Christian. “Patriotism and the flag don’t cut it anymore, not with body bags being hauled off in plain view every week, military dependents feeling the squeeze of the economy just like everyone else, our military people going back to Iraq and Afghanistan five and six times.
“I’ve never seen more military people out working to elect a Democrat for president,” he said.
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Martin says he’s in a runoff — Chambliss says, ‘Not yet’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
During the pre-dawn hours, Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss slipped below the 50 percent mark, and the U.S. Senate race now appears headed toward a runoff with Democrat Jim Martin.
The Chambliss campaign said this morning that it’s not conceding anything, and will wait for a smattering of precincts, absentees and paper ballots to be counted.
The Democratic campaign says that it’s now in runoff mode. Martin has an 11:45 a.m. press conference scheduled.
Secretary of State Karen Handel has the race as follows on her web site:
Chambliss: 49.9%
Martin: 46.7%
Libertarian Allen Buckley: 3.4%
As of this moment, Chambliss needs to pick up 10,334 votes to clear the 50-percent-plus-one mark.
If there is indeed a runoff, early voting could begin as early as Nov. 17. The runoff election is Dec. 2
Handel’s office has already prepared the following timetable:
— Nov. 10/11: Expected certification of election results. Absentee Ballot production begins. Early voting can begin when ballot building for absentee ballots is completed.
— Nov. 17: Anticipated date ballots should be ready. Counties can begin early voting. While it is a county-by-county decision, there should be consistency state-wide.
— Nov. 24-26: Advance voting begins (week prior to Election).
— Nov. 27,28: State holidays for Thanksgiving.
— Dec. 1: No voting (state prohibition against ballots cast or issued day prior to election).
— Dec. 2: Run-off elections.
Other runoffs statewide include the PSC race between Republican Lauren McDonald (47.8 percent) and Democrat Jim Powell (47.3 percent), and a race for the state Court of Appeals, featuring Sara Doyle (22.5 percent) and Mike Sheffield (20.9 percent).
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Chambliss slips below 50 percent
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
6:30 a.m.: Republican Saxby Chambliss continues to cling to a slim lead in the U.S. Senate race. A handful of missing boxes in both Carroll and DeKalb counties may give us the answer of whether we have a Dec. 2 runoff. Democrat Jim Martin is at 46.8 percent.
Here are the latest numbers, with 96 percent of precincts reporting:
Saxby Chambliss — 49.8%
Jim Martin — 46.8%
Allen Buckley — 3.4%
FYI, Martin pulled 42.3 percent in the 2006 race for lieutenant governor.
12:48 a.m.: In the last 90 minutes, as the vote in metro Atlanta has rolled in, Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss has dropped from 55 percent to 51.2 percent.
In total votes, his lead has been cut nearly in half, and is now 187,513 ballots.
But even as the race tightens, the parties are breaking up. This is from my AJC colleague Stacy Shelton:
“Now that Obama has spoken, this place is clearing out. Martin is unlikely to come out again. He’s no longer here and the Park Tavern is getting ready to kick us all out.”
12:24 a.m.: Unless there are some last-minute swings in the vote-counting this morning, Tuesday didn’t bring much change at the statehouse, according to my AJC colleague James Salzer.
Rep. Jeanette Jamieson (D-Toccoa), a 24-year-old House veteran, lost to 28-year-old Republican business owner Michael Harden. Jamieson had been damaged by the disclosure that she owed the state more than $45,000 in back taxes.
Another North Georgia Democrat, Rep. Charles Jenkins of Blairsville, was also headed for a loss, and a third, Rep. Rick Crawford (D-Cedartown) may have held on by the skin of his teeth.
A few House Republicans were in tight races late, but there didn’t appear to be any major surprises.
Rep. John Heard (R-Lawrenceville) initially appeared to beat Lawrenceville lawyer Lee Thompson. But the latest Secretary of State count shows him losing the race. Also, Rep. Allen Freeman (R-Macon) was slightly behind former Twiggs County Commission Chairman James “Bubber” Epps with a few precincts yet to be counted.
Democrat Pat Dooley appears to have re-won a Cobb County House seat, besting Rep. Steve “Thunder” Tumlin (R-Marietta), according to totals on the secretary of state’s web site.
In the Senate, every incumbent with a challenger won handily.
12:15 a.m.: The 8th District race was the only U.S. House contest that Republicans held out hope of picking up this evening, but Democratic incumbent Jim Marshall of Macon appears to have the situation well in hand, leading retired Air Force major general Rick Goddard — 57 percent to 43 percent.
Marshall is even winning Houston County, home to both Goddard and Gov. Sonny Perdue.
11:42 p.m.: In the northern district Public Service Commission race, Republican Lauren “Bubba” McDonald has just slipped below 50 percent in the three-way race.
Which means, if things progress this way through the night, a runoff is in the offing.
McDonald’s at 49.8 percent, Democrat Jim Powell’s at 45.2 percent, and Libertarian Brandon Givens is at 5 percent.
11:42 p.m.: Democrat Jim Martin, the U.S. Senate candidate, will address his supporters at the Park Tavern in 10 minutes, we’re told. With 87 percent of precincts reporting, Republican incumbent Chambliss is more than 360,000 votes ahead, with a 55 percent margin.
Stay tuned. Okay, you’ve waited long enough.
“There are as many as 500,000 votes still outstanding. It’s going to be very close,” Martin said. “It’s probably going to be a long night.”
11:15 p.m.: On the top floor of the Intercontinental Hotel in Buckhead, there is a special suite for U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, his family and friends.
At about 10:30 p.m. there were about 25 people up there, including the Republican incumbent, his wife Julianne and their grandchildren, Parker, 10, and John Baker, 12 — all watching Fox TV political coverage.
“We’re getting hammered in the House. It looks like we’re going to lose 20 seats,” said Chambliss, who served eight years in the chamber.
Also there were Gov. Sonny Perdue and his wife Mary — And Chambliss’ mother, Emma, who is 91. This is the first time she has attended one of her son’s election night parties. This is, in fact, the first time she has lived in Georgia during one of his campaigns.
She moved here three weeks ago. “I couldn’t vote,” she told my AJC colleague Craig Schneider. “I just hope he’s going to win. That would make this an extra great night.”
But it looks like a long wait. Jim Martin, Chambliss’ Democrat rival, has headed over to the Obama party to shake a few hands — while he also waits to see if we’ll have a second round in the Senate race.
10:30 p.m.: U.S. Rep. John Lewis was just on ABC News:
”Earlier tonight, I was at Ebenezer [Baptist] Church speaking to a group — hundreds or thousands of citizens. When Pennsylvania went over to Barack Obama, I shouted for joy, and I didn’t know I could jump so high. I think I’m going to shed more tears before the night’s over.”
10:06 p.m.: An exit poll of Georgia voters says Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss may have escaped a run-off in the U.S. Senate race.
The poll, commissioned in part by the AJC, puts the race at: Chambliss, 50 percent; Democrat Jim Martin, 45 percent, and Libertarian Allen Buckley, 4 percent.
The survey has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.
Actual returns show Chambliss with a healthy lead — but the large metro Atlanta counties have yet to weigh in. CNN specifically has declined to call the race in Georgia. So has the Associated Press.
The same exit poll shows Republican John McCain winning Georgia with 51 percent of the vote, and Democrat Barack Obama at 47 percent.
9:52 p.m.: Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate, has apparently survived a tough race over Democrat Bruce Lunsford, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader
Says the newspaper:
McConnell, who led in most polls by slim margins down the stretch, seems to have benefited from a strong showing at the top of the ticket in Kentucky by GOP presidential candidate John McCain. He also relied heavily on his seniority and post as Senate Republican leader, which he molded into his major campaign theme…
The race will rank as Kentucky’s most expensive campaign in history and one of its most contentious. By October, McConnell had collected $17.8 million and Lunsford had amassed $7.1 million, of which $5.5 million came out of his own fortune.
9:40 p.m.: According to a final round of exit polls, the victory of Republican John McCain in Georgia may have depended on whether voters thought the economy to be merely bad — or something worse.
Sixty percent of Georgia voters polled named the economy as their No. 1 issue. But those voters split almost evenly between McCain and Democrat Barack Obama.
Of those who judged the economy as “not good,” 63 percent supported McCain.
Those who proclaimed the economy as “poor” went 67 percent for Obama.
Race, of course, can never be ruled out of Southern politics. Of white voters who identified themselves as Democrats, 21 percent voted for McCain. But only 3 percent of white Republicans crossed over to Obama.
Obama won the support of 62 percent who said race of the candidates was an important issue in the election. Of those who said the candidates’ race was not in issue, 54 percent cast ballots for McCain.
8:57 p.m.: Democrat Kay Hagan has ousted Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole in the U.S. Senate race in North Carolina — overcoming a last-minute charge by Dole that she took “godless money.”
Hagan leads Dole, 55 percent to 42 percent, with partial returns from 25 of 100 counties, according to the Raleigh News and Observer. The Associated Press and the major networks, based on returns and exit polls, have given the race to Hagan.
8:21 p.m.: Right now, Saxby Chambliss, the Republican incumbent in the U.S. Senate race, is running more than 4 points — in real votes — behind presidential candidate John McCain in Georgia.
One reason, according to early exit polls, may be the fact that Democrat Jim Martin is running slightly better among white voters than presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Martin is winning 27 percent of the white vote in Georgia, compared to 25 percent for Obama.
The difference could be crucial. Current exit polling shows Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss leading with 49 percent of the vote — not enough to escape a run-off. Martin is running at 46 percent, and Libertarian Allen Buckley at 4 percent.
Among other exit poll findings:
— Young voters, and also new voters, were seeking alternatives to Chambliss. Fifty percent of voters between 18 and 24 are choosing Martin. Among new voters, 58 percent are going to Martin.
—Buckley is showing strongest among new voters as well, at 12 percent. He’s getting 10 percent of those between 18 and 24. Chambliss is winning only 29 percent support from new voters, and 40 percent of the 18- to 24-year-old vote.
— Chambliss is running strongest among white men (72 percent) and among those who named terrorism (84 percent) and energy (74 percent) as their top issues. Martin did best among voters concerned about health care (66 percent) and Iraq (59 percent).
7:17 p.m.: Early Georgia exit polls show Republican John McCain with a slim 50 percent lead in Georgia, with Democrat Barack Obama at 48 percent, and Libertarian Bob Barr at 2 percent.
In the U.S. Senate race, the exit polls Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss headed for a run-off with 49 percent of the vote. Democrat Jim Martin is at 46 percent, and Libertarian Allen Buckley is making a big difference at 4 percent.
Margin of error is plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.
This may change slightly in a final wave of exit polling, but voters appear split by age and race:
— 53 percent of voters 44 and younger voted for Obama;
— 54 percent of voters 45 to 65 and 53 percent of voters over 65 voted for McCain;
— Only 2 percent of African-Americans voted for McCain;
— But 73 percent of white voters in Georgia voted for McCain;
— Late deciders were breaking toward Obama. Of those who decided in October, 56 percent picked Obama, compared with 47% of those who decided earlier.
— Independents were going for McCain 53 to 41 percent;
— Of those who identified themselves as evangelical or born again Christians (36 percent of voters), 84 percent voted for McCain. 11 percent for Obama;
— Obama is running up huge margins in the metro Atlanta counties of Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton, with 71 percent of the votes to McCain’s 23 percent, and in south Georgia with 52 percent to McCain’s 47 percent. McCain did best in north Georgia with 62 percent to Obama’s 35 percent, and in the Atlanta suburbs with 57 percent to Obama’s 41 percent.
— And new voters (12 percent of the total turnout) went heavily for Obama, 64 percent to McCain’s 35 percent.
7:10 p.m.: The Associated Press and other news outlets have called the first results of the election: John McCain is the winner in Kentucky, while Barack Obama has captured Vermont.
Eight electoral votes were at stake in Kentucky, while Obama picks up three from Vermont.
Democrats, meanwhile, have taken one Senate seat away from the Republicans, with Mark Warner defeating Jim Gilmore in Virginia to capture the seat that was held by the retiring Republican John Warner.
In South Carolina, meanwhile, Republican Lindsey Graham — a leading McCain ally and adviser — was re-elected to his Senate seat.
And in Indiana, Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels has been re-elected.
7:03 p.m.: The Associated Press reports that, nationally, Barack Obama was the overwhelming choice of the one in 10 voters who went to the polls for their first time Tuesday — a racially diverse group of mostly twentysomethings, half of whom call themselves Democrats.
One in five of the new voters was black, almost twice the proportion of blacks among voters overall. Another one in five of the new voters was Hispanic. About two-thirds of them were under 30 years old.
These first-time voters, a key element of Obama’s strategy, were turning out for him over Republican John McCain by about a 3-1 margin, according to preliminary exit poll results.
6:54 p.m.: The Fayette County Republican party was bothered by a bipartisan bomb scare today.
The county party received the suspicious package on Monday. But it wasn’t until this morning that GOP officials actually took a look at it and noticed that it came from someone calling himself “Michael the Archangel,” county chairman Josh Bonner told my AJC colleague John Hollis.
Local law enforcement authorities summoned the postmaster and an X-ray machine, to make sure the package wasn’t explosive. Upon opening it, police found threats against Barack Obama, who is not Republican.
Apparently, this Michael the Archangel had mailed similar packages to various GOP posts all across the country.
“It caused a lot of excitement in little ol’ Fayetteville,” Bonner said.
6:40 p.m.: Early exit polling has picked up on some basic differences between the 2004 vote in Georgia and today’s version:
— Whites made up 71 percent of the electorate in ’04, and African-Americans were 25 percent. This year, exit polling is showing 66 percent of voters are white, and 30 percent are black.
— The electorate is indeed younger this year. In 2004, 11 percent were under the age of 30. This year, that number has creeped up to 13 percent.
6:23 p.m.: Politico.com has named Cobb one of 25 counties in the nation to watch closely tonight:
Since 1976, GOP presidential nominees have averaged 62 percent in this populous Atlanta suburb. But polls show McCain running considerably behind that clip in Cobb. McCain isn’t a great fit in the socially conservative county, but there is another factor at play in driving down his numbers: Roughly a fifth of the population is African-American. Then there is the wildcard — the Libertarian nominee, Bob Barr, was once the local congressman.
6:07p.m. A first wave of exit polls has begun to give us a picture of Georgians who’ve cast a ballot in Tuesday’s election — whether today or in 45 days of early voting.
Georgia voters were most concerned about the economy: 60 percent picked it as the No. 1 issue. And 53 percent pronounced themselves “very worried” about the economy.
Terrorism was the first worry of 10 percent, as was health care. Nine percent were concerned with energy issues.
The Associated Press is also reporting that a majority of voters opposed the recent $700 billion financial bailout, with just four in 10 supporting it.
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