With the clock down to 22 days and early voting underway, both sides are showing their final hands in Georgia's two biggest races.
Republicans are displaying a large cash advantage in an effort to avoid expensive runoffs. The Super PAC called Ending Spending and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have ponied up a combined $3.45 million in TV air time to boost David Perdue. The Republican Governors Association has dropped an additional $1 million on behalf of incumbent Gov. Nathan Deal.
The NRSC, which committed $1.45 million late Friday, was hoping to throw its money elsewhere, at least as of mid-September when its first Georgia buy was coming to a close. Here's the committee's finance chair, Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, as
:
"I don't think any Republican seats are in great danger. I think, in fact, Pat Roberts is doing fine, Mitch McConnell's doing well in Kentucky … in Georgia we're doing well, trending in the right direction," Portman told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor Breakfast on Thursday. "I'm hopeful that we won't have to expend NRSC resources in those states."
Democrats have their cash, but see outrage over voter registration as a way to stoke an African-American base. Witness former President Jimmy Carter's pulpit message on Sunday:
"We were blessed by the fact that there were very few Republicans," he said to laughter from the crowd at Mt. Zion Baptist Church, a mostly black congregation. "The point is, 12 years ago that trend was changed. And since then, the Legislature and the governor have been determined to put every obstacle in the way for African Americans, mentally retarded people and elderly people to vote."
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On that same point, the sole Democratic member of the State Elections Board, David Worley, over the weekend sent out a blistering endorsement of regime change that included this:
In recent weeks I've been there again as efforts to register nearly 100,000 new voters have been met with a spurious investigation based on a handful of questionable registrations, purely designed to discourage Georgians from exercising the most fundamental of rights. Forty thousand registrations are still in limbo.
I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of fighting these kinds of efforts. It's obvious that there is only one way to make sure that this kind of crap stops, and that's to elect Jason Carter [as] Governor. And there are a whole host of other reasons, from education to transportation to the environment, that we have got to make a change."
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Meanwhile, the Georgia GOP has taken aim at Jason Carter, the Democratic candidate for governor, on a new front with this mailer that hit households over the weekend:
The gist of the issue: The HOPE scholarship, as originally launched by Gov. Zell Miller in the ‘90s, was originally a means-tested program aimed at helping students from families that couldn’t afford college. Those restrictions were quickly lifted, assisted by a flood of lottery cash. Some Democrats, Carter among them, have argued for restoring at least a partial income-based cap.
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The one Georgia pollster who, weighting black and female voters at 2010 levels, had shown Democrats Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter ahead in their respective races for U.S. Senate and governor, now shows their Republican opposition dead even.
The Landmark Communications poll, commissioned by Channel 2 Action News, was released Friday. MOE was +/-3.1 percent. Get your crosstabs here. If you're Republican and still require something to worry about, note the significant advantage Democrats have built among voters in the 18-to-35-year-old category.
From the release on Mark Rountree’s website:
"Gov. Deal leads Sen. Carter among male voters by 12 points, 51-40%, while Carter holds an 11 point lead among women, 50-39%," said Mark Rountree, President of Landmark Communications. "There is a significant difference in how the genders will vote.
In the race for U.S. Senate, Republican David Perdue and Democrat Michelle Nunn are now tied 46-46%, with Libertarian Amanda Swafford taking 4% of the vote and 4% of voters saying they are undecided.
"David Perdue has made up significant ground against Michelle Nunn. There may have initially been some residual hard feelings from Kingston supporters after a very long primary and runoff season," said Rountree. "They were slow to back Perdue. But over the past month Republicans solidified behind Perdue and now support him 87-5% over Nunn, up from 78-11% in August."
"There is a major difference between men and women in the way they are voting for Senate," said Rountree. "Female voters are voting for Nunn by a 10 point margin 51-41%, while male voters are voting for Perdue by a 12 point margin, 51-39%."
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The polling gurus at Gallup find that given Georgia's close partisan split, we should plan for a few more weeks of fun beyond Nov. 4
Since neither major party has a clear advantage and the state requires a candidate to get more than 50% of the votes, it is likely that the races for both U.S. Senate and governor will be decided in December and January runoff elections.
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Some good news for Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed: As the weekend broke, David Jacobson at Moody's in New York called to say that the investor rating service had upgraded the economic outlook for Atlanta from "stable" to "positive." The city keeps the same Aa2 rating.
“The city’s reserves, we believe, are stabilizing at pretty good levels following a long series of declines,” said David Jacobson of Moody’s. “We think that future growth for the city’s tax base looks good. Things like foreclosures are rebounding.”
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Over on her education blog, the AJC's Maureen Downey reports that State School Superintendent John Barge has lost out on his bid to become the state school superintendent of Utah.
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We've spent some space here talking about the conflicting economic messages of Republican Gov. Nathan Deal and Senate hopeful David Perdue.
They collided at a Candler County GOP fish fry on Saturday night featuring Perdue and first lady Sandra Deal. And it was 12th District Congressional hopeful Rick Allen, taking on Augusta Democratic Rep. John Barrow, who reframed the argument. He began a brief speech by thanking the governor – in abstentia – and the Legislature – in the form of Sen. Jack Hill and Rep. Butch Parrish – for their work on bringing jobs to the state, particularly in manufacturing.
And Allen contrasted this with his vision of Congress:
"What I want to do is go to Washington and get Washington out of the way so the governor and Butch and Jack can create a lot more jobs in Georgia. Because it is amazing the resiliency of this state, of the job creators in this state under the circumstances that we've had to work under the last six years. The headwinds have been enormous and I congratulate every small business owner in here and worker in here for your resilience in this time."
Allen was upbeat as he worked the room, forecasting a victory with 58 percent of the vote -- which he based on GOP turnout from 2010 in the new district.
In addition, the National Republican Congressional Committee put another $70,000 into TV ads attacking Barrow, bringing its total to $1.62 million.
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Trying something new here at WSB Radio: Recording the Sunday morning political review around a real round table:
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Savannah, still basking in the news that its port was cleared for a long-sought deepening, just got another boost.
From the Wall Street Journal:
The cloak around the project even led one Wall Street analyst to scrutinize satellite photos of Gulfstream's Savannah, Ga. production facility for clues, highlighting the financial importance to parent General Dynamics Corp. of the project, code-named P42.
Gulfstream has become a master of building high-end business jets in secret, unveiling its flagship G650 and the smaller G280 well after it started manufacturing the first planes. The approach has helped it become the global market leader by revenue.
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Karen Handel shed more light on her endorsement of Gov. Nathan Deal on her Facebook site - and raises the specter of a mid-cycle U.S. Senate appointment.
"If the GOP loses the Gov's race, it means that the next chance for the GOP to win the Governorship would likely not be until 2022 … yes, 2022. We'd also have a D as Gov with R's in the majority of the legislature -- a recipe for the same kind of gridlock we have in Washington. There are also important judicial appointments. Two GA Supreme Court Justices will age out in the next 4 years. The Governor makes these appointments. Then there's the US Senate -- remember Zell Miller was a gubernatorial appointment."
And suddenly, the Johnny Isakson campaign team is shaking its head.
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Speaking of Karen Handel, you'll recall that, at the height of the Republican Senate runoff between Jack Kingston and David Perdue, Handel -- a Kingston ally -- tweeted the following:
The Tweet, as was intended, started a storm of rumors that Handel would be cutting an attack ad for Kingston on Perdue's tenure at the textile company, once headed by Perdue. In fact, Handel was just messin' with us. We're told that she was on her way to visit family in Maryland, and simply stopped by.
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Yes, that was Jason Carter who introduced Drive By Truckers at The Tabernacle over the weekend.
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Over in Texas, Democratic candidate for governor Wendy Davis goes there – eliciting much criticism:
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