Graves claims victory in 9th district race

Riding a wave of tea party support, Republican Tom Graves won the special election runoff on Tuesday night for the 9th District congressional seat in North Georgia.

Graves, a real estate developer and former state representative from Ranger, had 56.5 percent of the vote, with 99 percent of precincts reporting. Republican Lee Hawkins, a dentist and former state senator, had 43.5 percent of the vote.

Graves portrayed himself as the more conservative candidate in the race, though the two Republicans largely mirrored each other on the issues. Both have vowed to protect Second Amendment rights, replace the federal income tax with a national sales tax and repeal the national health care reform law.

Outside observers saw the race as an early test of tea party strength in Georgia. Graves won the endorsements of the Atlanta Tea Party Patriots and FreedomWorks, the latter a conservative group that is assisting the tea party movement. He also received some hefty financial backing from the Club for Growth, a Washington-based group that supports some of the same conservative principles as tea party activists, including lower taxes.

"As many would say, this might have been a test of the tea party, and, if it was, I would say the tea party has passed the test," Graves said. "You combine the tea party along with our support with the Republican base and grassroots and it makes for a winning combination."

Julianne Thompson, an Atlanta Tea Party organizer, praised Graves' Tuesday night victory.

"We hope that he is the first in a long line of tea party-endorsed candidates that will win public office and turn things around in Washington, D.C., as well as in the state of Georgia," she said.

The winner will serve the remaining six months of Republican Rep. Nathan Deal’s unexpired term. Deal, who held the seat for 18 years, resigned in March to focus on his campaign for governor.

Graves won the following counties in the 9th District: Dade, Murray, Pickens, and White. Late Tuesday night, he was leading in Catoosa, Fannin, Forsyth, Gilmer, Gordon, Union, Walker and Whitfield counties. Hawkins was leading in the following counties: Dawson, Hall and Lumpkin.

Meanwhile, Graves and Hawkins both were preparing to run in the July 20 GOP primary for the next term in office. Several other Republicans also have qualified to get on the July 20 ballot.

The race between Graves and Hawkins turned ugly in recent weeks when the news media reported on a lawsuit the Bartow County Bank filed against Graves and state Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers. The bank said the two owed $2.2 million for a loan now in default. The bank also alleged Graves was "insolvent" in June of last year and that he fraudulently transferred two properties -- including his residence in Ranger -- to a trust in an attempt to frustrate the bank's efforts to collect on the debt.

Graves and Rogers were members of a limited liability company that took out the bank loan to buy and renovate the Oglethorpe Inn in Calhoun. They said they don’t owe the money because they transferred ownership of their company and the inn to another man, John Edens. An attorney for Graves denied the bank's fraud allegation, asserting the properties Graves transferred were not used as collateral for the loan.