With a controversial mail appeal, Georgia Democrats are using the recent unrest in Ferguson, Mo., to try to get their supporters to the ballot box this fall.
The flyer urges African-Americans to vote “if you want to prevent another Ferguson,” and shows images from the protests that followed the shooting death of black 18-year-old Michael Brown at the hands of white police officer Darren Wilson.
The majority-black Missouri city’s elected leaders are almost entirely white, the mailer points out.
In Georgia a record five African-American women are on the ballot for statewide offices, though the party's candidates for governor and U.S. Senate — Jason Carter and Michelle Nunn — are white. The Republican ticket is all white.
After appearing on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's website Tuesday, the mailer drew national attention and Republican condemnation.
“It’s despicable,” said Gov. Nathan Deal.
“It is really regrettable that anyone would resort to scare tactics to try to get people to vote. Georgia is not Missouri. Georgia has elected more African American leaders - mayors, county commissioners, et cetera - than any other state in the country. We have a long history of good race relations, and I cannot understand why the Democrat Party of Georgia would try to destroy it.”
Asked about the mailer on Wednesday, Nunn spoke about the “tragedy” of Ferguson.
“There needs to be a conversation and Ferguson really does force us to have that conversation and gives us a chance to talk about equal treatment under the law and how we are investing in our young people,” she said. “And are we equitably applying our justice system across the board. …
“As it relates to voting, our message has been that everyone needs to have their voice heard. We have richer and more vibrant communities and a more dynamic democracy when everybody participates.”
Democratic Party Chairman DuBose Porter said the situation in Ferguson easily applies to Georgia because of the state’s struggling economy.
“Well, not just police violence but the circumstances to put people in the conditions that they’re in,” Porter said, when asked about linking voting to police violence. “That’s what we need to change in Georgia because that’s what you have. You have situations, you have communities that can explode like that because you’ve taken the opportunity away from them.”
The strategy was not composed on the fly: During a Democratic National Committee meeting in Atlanta in August, party officials discussed the need to use Ferguson to inspire the base.
Republican candidates have engaged in their own quiet pitch to black voters, who tend to vote for Democrats in overwhelming numbers. A flyer that proclaimed Deal’s criminal justice overhaul was “restoring fairness” to Georgia’s prison system landed in mailboxes of minority voters over the weekend.
It’s part of the Deal campaign’s attempt to blunt Democratic support among minority voters in the last weeks of the race. Democrats hope to push black turnout to roughly 30 percent of the electorate in order to break Republicans’ statewide winning streak.
Staff writers Jim Galloway and Nicholas Fouriezos contributed to this article.
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