Two long time lawmakers unseated

The two longest-serving members of the state Senate lost primary campaigns Tuesday night and another top senator was drawn into a runoff.

State Sens. Steve Thompson, D-Marietta, the chamber’s most senior member, and Don Balfour, R-Snellville, the longest-serving Republican, were both unseated Tuesday, according to unofficial election results. They were two of just a handful of incumbents to lose.

Tea Party forces campaigned hard against Balfour and State Sen. Jack Murphy, R-Cumming, chairman of the Senate Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee. Murphy will face former business owner Michael Williams in a runoff.

But the tea party’s big fish got away. House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, easily beat back a challenge from Gilmer County High School coach Sam Snider, who lost 35 percent to 65 percent.

Tea party leader Debbie Dooley targeted Ralston with a series of television ads that portrayed him as soft on child molesters and financially unethical. Dooley, from Gwinnett County, even moved into the 7th District for several weeks to work the campaign. In the end, the efforts of Dooley and others likely narrowed Ralston’s margin of victory, but he won all three counties in the district handily.

Dooley and the tea party had more success in Balfour’s race for Senate District 9.

Balfour on Wednesday blamed his loss on last-minute and unfair negative campaigning. The Waffle House executive was acquitted last year of charges that, as a lawmaker, he improperly billed the state for some travel expenses. But he said voters in his district were bombarded last weekend with fliers that included the mug shot from his arrest and headlines about it.

The fliers also brought up his ownership of a “luxury” condo in Atlanta, which he said, in reality is an 800-square-foot studio apartment that he stayed in when General Assembly business required him to be in Atlanta from early morning until late at night.

“My mama taught me a half truth is a lie,” he said. “The headlines were true at the time. But they are not the whole story. They are not half the story.”

The flier was paid for by the Dooley-backed Gwinnett Integrity Project. Dooley said she was surprised, but pleased, by the outcome in Balfour’s district.

His opponents, former Gwinnett County Commissioner Mike Beaudreau and former Lawrenceville City Councilman P.K. Martin, will face off in the July runoff.

Thompson, the veteran Cobb County Democrat whom many expected not to run this year, lost to Michael Rhett, an Army reservist. Unofficial results show Rhett winning by about 150 votes.

Thompson said he was urged to run again by party leadership, who valued his institutional knowledge. He knew, however, that his district’s minority population was increasing and that Rhett, who is African-American, could pick him off.

“If anything, I’m proud of the (support from) minority voters,” Thompson said Wednesday. “We must have done well to come that close. I’m grateful for that.”

Meanwhile, two tea-party backed candidates lost re-election bids.

Rep. Charles Gregory, R-Kennesaw, lost to attorney Bert Reeves, and Rep. Sam Moore, R-Ball Ground, finished third, outside the runoff. While both had tea party support, both were also targeted for defeat by a new coalition of business leaders, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce.

Reeves, a Cobb County attorney, said Gregory’s history of voting against nearly every measure had marginalized the incumbent and voters wanted a new direction.

“My messaging was simple — I will represent the people in the district with consideration for what is in their best interests, not an ideology where one opposes everything on principle,” Reeves said Wednesday.

In North Georgia, Ralston faced a barrage of negative advertising from Dooley and Republican activist Ray Boyd. In remarks to supporters Tuesday night, Ralston said his re-election is a victory for his community and a rejection of outsiders Dooley and Boyd.

“But let there be no mistake – the message has also gone forth from Georgia’s hilltops tonight – down through its valleys, across its cities and plains and to its coasts – in a loud, clear, and unmistakable way: Georgians have said they are too busy reaching for the next level of greatness to wallow around in the cesspool of anger and bitterness and negativity,” he said, according to prepared remarks.

Ralston was unavailable for comment Wednesday.

Dooley, however, said Ralston was significantly “weakened,” by their efforts.

“If Sam Snider did that well his first time out, in two years the vote count will significantly increase,” she said.

In other legislative races: