Campaign Diaries

Yesterday, voters went to the polls in Georgia and Alabama to select their parties’ congressional candidates, with only one competitive Senate primary 5 Georgia Democrats vied for the right to take on incumbent Saxby Chambliss. As expected, no candidate reached 50%, so the top two contenders move on to a runoff that will be held on August 5th: DeKalb County Chief Executive Officer Vernon Jones, who came in first with 41%, and former state Rep. Jim Martin, who got 35%.

The Georgia Senate race is not expected to be a top-tier race and Chambliss is heavily favored to win re-election. However, he is a freshman Senator and should not be considered completely safe. The DSCC is looking to expand the map further and it needs to put as many third-tier contests in play as possible to have a chance at reaching 60 seats. The Democratic candidates have thus been battling on the issue of electability. The DSCC favors Jim Martin but Jones responds that he is ideally placed to win the race because he is (1) African-American, so he can count on massive black support and (2) conservative, which is what a Democrat ought to be to win statewide in Georgia.

Yet, Jones might be a bit too conservative: he voted for George Bush in both 2000 and 2004, making him a super-Zell Miller! After all, even Miller supported Gore eight years ago. Can Georgia Democrats really nominate him? Well, they very well might: voters who are likely to be the most offended by the fact that Jones is likely to be to the right of a lot of Senate Republicans are African-Americans, and Jones did quite well in black-majority districts yesterday. If he can remain strong among the black vote on August 5th, it could be hard for Martin to claim victory, though what will determine the election is clearly the preference of voters who opted for one of the three other candidates.

Meanwhile, there were competitive House primaries in Georgia — though the incumbents triumphed in blow-outs. In GA-12, Democratic Rep. John Barrow faced a challenge on the left from state Senator Regina Thomas in a swing district that voted for Kerry by 1% in 2004. Some hoped that Barrow’s support of FISA would serve as a catalyst and that his views are too conservative for this divided district, but it was clear that this challenge was unlikely to succeed, simply because the race picked up too late and Thomas spent too little money. Incumbency is one of the biggest strengths in American politics and it takes a lot of time and effort to topple an incumbent.

That Barack Obama jumped in the fray, endorsed Barrow and cut an ad on his behalf (it was a surprise at first, but not so much now that we have seen Obama’s own FISA vote) only boosted the incumbent further. In the end, Barrow easily survived, 76% to 24% and he will now face Republican John Stone. Remember that GA-12 and GA-08 were the only two seats in which a Democratic incumbent came close to losing - and they really did come very close. Barrow is slightly more favored this year, but his general election will be much more competitive than the primary.

In GA-10, however, GOP Rep. Paul Broun’s primary challenger did everything a challenger has to do and much more since he had the support of the state’s Republican establishment! It is very rare for an incumbent to battle the establishment and is due to Broun’s stunning special election primary win last summer against the favorite, who was expected to coast to victory. Now, Broun was facing a high-profile candidate (the Republican state House Majority Whip) who out-raised him, was endorsed by local papers and ran a ton of advertisements. But here again the incumbent survived easily, beating Fleming 70% to 30%.

Take this as further evidence of how difficult it is to topple an incumbent in a primary. After all, Fleming lost to someone who has been in office for less than a year and by 40% despite having the establishment’s support and a well-funded campaign.

The Alabama primaries were runoffs held on the Republican side in AL-02 and AL-05, two unexpectedly competitive open seats held by Republicans and Democrats respectively. Democrats had selected their candidates last month and Republicans did so last night, as state Rep. Jay Love will face very conservative Democrat Bobby Bright in AL-02 and insurance executive Wayne Parke will take on (also conservative) state Senator Griffith in AL-05. Love in particular survived an expensive primary with only 54%, despite the support of high-profile House Republicans and the benefit of self-funding. The former seat leans retention (for the GOP) while the latter is a toss-up.