Conditions aid GOP challenger, but Barrow has beaten tough odds before

Rick Allen has the numbers on his side.

The Republican businessman from Augusta seeking a U.S. House seat talks often of the data showing the 12th District’s Republican leanings after the Legislature redrew it in 2011 to be more hostile to Democratic U.S. Rep. John Barrow.

And a deeper look at the data shows that the district as currently constructed gave, on average, 57.9 percent of its vote to statewide Republican candidates in the 2010 midterm elections, compared with 39.5 percent for Democrats.

Yet since he first won the seat in 2004, Barrow has managed to survive biennial Republican assaults by playing up his centrist streak and votes against key Democratic priorities, along with a relentless work ethic in the district.

Barrow speaks of his own brand being more popular than either party. Allen’s candidacy relies on branding Barrow as just another Democrat.

“Republicans are coming home,” Allen told a few dozen men at a fish fry in rural and reliably Republican Coffee County. “Folks are saying they’re voting a straight Republican ticket: ‘I’ve had it with these Democrats. A Democrat’s a Democrat.’”

Allen, who owns a construction business, appears more at ease glad-handing his way through the 12th Congressional District than when he first ran for the seat in 2012. He lost a primary runoff that year to folksy state Rep. Lee Anderson.

In the general election Anderson’s verbal miscues were magnified, and he memorably refused to debate Barrow — almost unheard of for a challenger. Barrow won with 53.7 percent of the vote, outperforming President Barack Obama by 10 percentage points.

So Allen’s mere presence Sunday at a Georgia Public Broadcasting debate in Atlanta was a sign that this is a different kind of race for Barrow, as he’s facing a stronger foe and a midterm year when turnout tends to favor the GOP. Still, the incumbent used the forum to his advantage.

Allen attacked Barrow for not supporting a House bill that would have denied pay for members of Congress if they do not pass a budget, even though Barrow has sponsored a version of his own. Barrow asked Allen whether the challenger would have voted for that bill.

“I would have voted yes for that,” Allen replied.

“I’m so glad we finally have a position because let me tell you what that bill did that you just voted for,” Barrow shot back.

“What that bill did was it allowed Congress to not adopt a budget. It allowed Congress to keep on getting paid, and it allowed the debt ceiling to increase. That’s what the whole bill was all about,” Barrow said. “So you just endorsed as your first official position a bill to raise the debt ceiling.”

The "no budget, no pay" provision Barrow got Allen to support was tacked onto a House measure to increase the nation's borrowing limit. The House then fulfilled the requirement by passing a budget of its own — though it was never reconciled with a Senate version.

The two candidates have spent a lot of time bickering about the television ads that have deluged the district. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, for example, has launched assaults on Allen's business record that have been labeled distortions with a small kernel of truth.

“Frankly, yeah, I’m sick of it,” Allen said at Sunday’s debate when asked about the barrage of ads. “All of it is a bunch of lies, and we know why they’re doing it, because they want to keep their boy in Washington.”

Barrow claimed he had run an entirely positive campaign, but last week the incumbent launched his first attack ad on Allen, trying to get to his right on immigration, even as both have espoused a "seal the border, no amnesty" approach.

Allen has put in his own money and had outside fundraising help, including from former vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, but he has not come close to Barrow’s monetary advantage.

Both parties are spending freely, and the American Future Fund — a conservative organization tied to the billionaire Koch Brothers — dropped nearly $1 million on television ads attacking Barrow in the final weeks.

The incumbent has won wide acclaim for television ads that skewer Washington and tout his work for the district. In one ad a constituent tells the camera: “Anyone who said John Barrow isn’t getting things done is lying like a no-legged dog.”

Reprising a spot from two years ago, Barrow brought out a Smith & Wesson he says his grandfather used to stop a lynching, to point out his endorsement from the National Rifle Association.

At the Coffee County fish fry, one of the attendees asked Allen whether he is an NRA member. He replied that yes, he is a life member, but he was irked by the group’s endorsement of Barrow.

“He’s even got the NRA fooled,” Allen said. “I hate to say that, but I asked them. They said, ‘Well, he votes with us 70 percent of the time.’ I said, ‘Why do you want a “C” congressman when you can have an “A” congressman? I’m going to vote with you 100 percent of the time.’ But anyway, that’s what they said.”

Allen hitches himself to the statewide ticket, particularly U.S. Senate hopeful David Perdue, any chance he gets. After following Allen at another fish fry this month in Candler County, Perdue said: “This debt, the economy, jobs. Rick and I have the same basic speech.”

Barrow, meanwhile, presents himself as a man apart. You won’t find him at rallies with top-ticket Democrats Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter. He denounced a flier by the Georgia Democratic Party that used the unrest in Ferguson, Mo., to try to turn out black voters. He scoffed at the GOP attack that he voted with President Barack Obama’s position 85 percent of the time — which was taken only from the year 2009, of votes big and small.

“I’ve opposed the president’s position on Obamacare, on gun control, immigration reform, you name it,” Barrow said.

The numbers have never been this slanted against Barrow, but he has defied them before. He was living in Athens when he was first elected to Congress, and he has moved to Savannah and Augusta after redistricting efforts made his territory more Republican.

“Listen, I know how to talk to folks in such a way as to try and bring people together,” Barrow said at Sunday’s debate. “Whether it’s on an issue as divisive to some folks as gun control or immigration reform, I feel like I have the ability to bring folks together. That’s what’s needed.”

The view is different sitting in a porch swing overlooking a lake in Coffee County, in the midst of a day when Allen is cruising through the district’s small towns and just got word of Barrow’s first attack ad against him.

“He’s in trouble,” Allen said. “He’s got the wrong message, and people aren’t buying it anymore.”