Georgia's Very Own Megathread!

[Adam Griffin]

I noticed that the DGA is doing paid advertising for Carter on Facebook. Where is the discussion, guys? Carter may prove (along with Nunn) to be the superstars of next year's elections.

I'm so happy - Georgia's finally going to get the national spotlight for its emergence as a future swing state and all of those juicy Democratic dollars!

Here's an article that I enjoyed. Don't get me wrong: each time right-wing hack pollster InsiderAdvantage releases a poll, I chuckle (like that one that showed Romney +18 in late September 2012), but this article does really discuss the perfect storm scenario well and compares the developing climate to the one that emerged in 2001-2002 when Dems were destroyed in Georgia.

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[Adam Griffin]

And for Nathan Deal, some news about his scandal?

Nothing new in the past two weeks, really - Jason Carter took a swipe at him in his press conference when he said "Georgia at its best always has an honest government that works for everyone and not just good political donors or well-placed friends". It was hilarious to see GAGOP spokeperson, Brian Robinson, make reference to Better Georgia (a progressive, non-partisan group) when it endorsed Carter:

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Jim Galloway from the AJC followed up with this:

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His PAC ("RealPAC"; Galloway misspoke), as you may have heard, was under scrutiny for raising hundreds of thousands of dollars without filing reports with the FEC for more than two years.

[Adam Griffin]

The entire government of the State of Georgia in one chart.

[Adam Griffin]

Deal: 44%
Carter: 36%

Ugh. Eight points down with 15-20% undecided = . On closer inspection, though:

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POLITICO obtained a copy of the survey, which was commissioned by the Georgia Democratic Party and the Democratic Governors Association to help recruit Carter into the 2014 gubernatorial race. It was conducted by the Democratic firm Anzalone Liszt Research, testing 600 likely Georgia voters between Oct. 14 and 20.

The poll found that the governor maintains a solid favorability rating – 49 percent positive, 31 percent negative – but by a 13-point margin, voters say they would rather vote for “someone new” over reelecting him.[/quote]

EDIT: But wait! Another good piece of info from the poll:

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http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/jason-carter-georgia-governor-race-99781.html
http://images.politico.com/global/2013/11/13/georgia_poll.html

[Adam Griffin]

Interesting poll. What's weird is that Deal has positive approvals but a majority also want a new governor?

I imagine the discrepancy would have to be the ones who are Republican but think Deal is somewhat of a RINO. They're not going to outright admit that they disapprove of him, but would love someone else from the Tea Wing to be Governor.

[Adam Griffin]

Interesting poll. What's weird is that Deal has positive approvals but a majority also want a new governor?

I imagine the discrepancy would have to be the ones who are Republican but think Deal is somewhat of a RINO. They're not going to outright admit that they disapprove of him, but would love someone else from the Tea Wing to be Governor.

But in the end they'll vote for him as the Republican nominee. Sorry, but I'm not getting my hopes up for this race yet.

I agree completely; the ones who think he is a RINO will still vote for him over any Democrat.

[Adam Griffin]

Is Carter giving up his state senate seat or is he just not running for reelection? You can't run for two offices at once, right?

I guess he must be, because yeah, you can't run for two in the same election.

[Adam Griffin]

http://zpolitics.com/don-balfours-selfie/

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[Adam Griffin]

The National Journal has a look at what Republicans can do to prevent future Akins; there's obviously lots of emphasis on Broun.

A great read.


...And Gingrey is imploding.

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Here

[Adam Griffin]

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http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/political-insider/2013/nov/19/rep-steven-smith-fake-ga/

[Adam Griffin]

How generous of Kingston to give Broun an opening!

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...and today:

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It's quite bizarre to see this. Of course Kingston was going to position himself as a "moderate" (no way he could out-compete Broun for the nutter vote; the only way to win is to beat Handel & Perdue and go to a runoff), but this seems like a losing issue for him. In addition to that, his campaign font/logo is ridiculous (and virtually unchanged from his past ten House runs):



Cooper font? Really?

I'm suprised everyone missed this, but Dalton mayor Cliff Pennington entered the GOP primary... He joins Schools Superintendent John Barge, and of course, Governor Deal.
http://www.gpb.org/news/2013/11/18/governor-nathan-deal-faces-new-challenge-from-right

Between Pennington and Barge, who has the better chance at defeating Deal?

Well, it's David Pennington, but he would have the better chance overall. Still, neither can win: an establishment Republican sits upon the bulk of the voters needed by either candidate. Pennington is the radical Tea Party mayor from my hometown, Barge is the actual moderate who disagrees with the Republicans wholeheartedly on education, and neither will be able to pull off enough voters to force a runoff.

[Adam Griffin]

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[Adam Griffin]

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/194542-georgia-gop-schedules-7-debates-for-crowded-senate-field

[Adam Griffin]

Another good quarter for Nunn, as she raised $1.6 million.

She is just raking in that dough over Kingston's comments. If the worst-case scenario for Rs isn't playing out, then Kingston needs strong fundraising numbers right about now. If that were the case, I would think the campaign would have already released the figures. It'll be interesting to see if even the Republican field combined is out-raising Nunn - I tend to think it isn't.

But...

[Adam Griffin]

A pretty boring map, but hey, it's my home and/or whatever.

[Adam Griffin]

Can you do one for the 11th?

Oh man, that'd be much more difficult. Unless you can get me shapefile or KML data for the congressional district at the precinct level, I'd most likely have to hand-draw the map. 11 has way more precincts than 14.

I could probably do one using this one, but obviously it doesn't look as smooth. I could be wrong, but eyeballing it made me think multiple precincts were split?

[Adam Griffin]

Another Republican is considering throwing his hat into the ring among others jostling on who is the most likely to unseat Rep. John Barrow.  Article is from late last week, but I don't recall seeing it posted anywhere.

Is there anyone in the race -so far- that Barrow needs to really worry about?  

Rick Allen would be his strongest opponent, but any of the candidates currently in or looking at the race would be better than the disaster that was Lee Anderson.

I'd agree, and Barrow needs to worry about any candidate that is not a complete nut-job and/or slacker. 2012 was 54/46 - some might say being on the ballot with Obama could have hurt him a bit, but he also had a good turnout from Richmond County to pad his numbers. Augusta blacks have pretty terrible mid-term turnout when compared to black turnout statewide, so it's worrisome. Barrow could lose 2-3 points if there's a significant shift in mid-term electorate, and another 2-3 points with a credible Republican challenger. Assuming Barrow doesn't do anything stupid (likely), his floor is probably 48%, but I don't see his ceiling being any higher than 51% without someone like Anderson. If the candidates are within one point of one another, then a recall is almost guaranteed and who knows how that turns out.

[Adam Griffin]

Boom. An empire-sized map for the Empire State of the South.

[snip]

A nitpick: Why is there a lack of data for several precincts in Chattahoochee County?  I've noticed the same to be true for the 2008 results in DRA.

The entire permanent population of the county resides in the southeastern quadrant of Chattahoochee; the remaining 3/4 or so is part of Fort Benning, along with four precincts in Muscogee that make up around 40% of that county's land area.

And/or it gets hotter than a hoochie coochie

[Adam Griffin]

Could there be much political fallout from the snowstorm? 63% in Atlanta disapprove of Deal's handling of it.

Yes, social media suggests the middle is blaming Deal profusely. Of course, InsiderAdvantage released another one of their excellent polls that shows only 15% of voters blame Deal the most.

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Also...

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[Adam Griffin]

Fourth quarter fundraising roundup

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[Adam Griffin]

In all honesty, though, what % is actually Deal's fault and what % is simply due to a lack of resources, something that no administration would have been prepared for?

It's a pretty complicated answer, but he had a lot to do with it being so bad. Other states moved quickly and had resources in place - Georgia didn't. On top of that, he was inaugurated in the midst of an ice storm in 2011 and made the pledge that snarled traffic and the issues that were happening would never happen again under his watch.

RedState is endorsing Loudermilk for CD11.

That's a shame. Loudermilk is really a terrible person from what I've gathered. I've heard personal stories from friends that would make your skin crawl and that are so out there that I don't even want to repeat them for fear of sounding crazy.

So in GA-04, what is Tom Brown running on against Hank Johnson?

As best I can tell, he hasn't really staked out any new positions or ones that would set him apart from Johnson. More than anything, I expect he wants to use his name recognition as sheriff of Dekalb to unseat a congressman that is traditionally thought of as being downright stupid. I got to see Johnson speak at Emory one time. He was all over the place, kept reading the same parts of paragraphs over again on his sheet of paper and was very uninspiring. Brown is much better at this.

[Adam Griffin]

With that commercial, I'd say we're seeing reverse psychology and someone in Broun's media is embracing it for the sake of winning the primary - a real win-win from the perspective of each. Personally, I think the McCaskill approach was better - maybe the new Pro-Nunn SuperPAC will make an investment in some air time! Go Broun Go!

[Adam Griffin]

Just wanted to share this: it's a map that compares the presidential and state house races in 2012 for HD 12 (Chattooga County & parts of Floyd County). Barbara Reece was one of two remaining Democrats out of the 35 or so districts in rural NGA; her district in 2011 was drawn just Republican enough to finally oust her. She still won Chattooga County with 58% of the vote (Romney won Chattooga with 69%). I've included % totals for each winning candidate for the precincts with the largest discrepancies. Chattooga is the last remaining Democratic bastion in rural NGA - only one Republican has been elected at the county level since Reconstruction (in 2012, and only because the presumptive Dem nominee dropped out the week before qualifying).

[Adam Griffin]

Georgians are looking at another Republican sweep of statewide offices in November, though we've got several Democrats holding judicial statewide offices in both the Georgia Supreme Court and GA Court of Criminal Appeals.

Today:

[Adam Griffin]

A new SurveyUSA/11Alive poll was released today, showing results for all contested statewide office primaries. It also shows that 6 in 10 Georgians still support keeping same-sex marriage banned, but 6 in 10 Georgians also support Medicaid expansion. Nearly 70% of Georgians support legalized or decriminalized marijuana.

Looking at some of these results, though, I tend to think it's garbage. There's no way Dr. Rad is in 4th place behind two joke Senate candidates, and I find it very difficult to believe that one ad had pushed Perdue into the lead - even if it was made by the same guy who gave us King Roy). Here's the full version; very familiar.

GAGOP Gov:

Deal 65%
Pennington 11%
Barge 8%

GAGOP Sen:

Perdue 29%
Kingston 19%
Gingrey 12%
Broun 11%
Handel 10%

GADEM Sen:

Nunn 49%
Robinson 14%
Miles 11%
Radulovacki 5%

GADEM SOS:

Carter 45%
Beckum 22%

GADEM Ins Comm:

Johnson 45%
Heard 29%

GAGOP School Supt:

Nobody over 10%
45% Undecided

GADEM School Supt:

Wilson 17%
Freeman 16%
Morgan 12%
Mays 11%
Dent 9%
Robinzine 5%*

*the dark horse in this race is Robinzine; keep an eye out for her


Should GA repeal its same-sex marriage ban, or should it be left in place?

Left in place 59%
Repeal 32%
Unsure 9%

Should Georgia expand Medicaid?

Yes 59%
No 32%
Unsure 9%

Will you sign up for coverage under ACA?

Yes 43%
No 42%
Unsure 15%

If not, why will you not sign up for coverage under ACA?

Too expensive 46%
Politically opposed 21%
Law will be changed/repealed 10%

Should Georgia keeps its marijuana laws as-is, change it to a civil offense with a $100 fine, or legalize marijuana?

Legal 37%
Civil offense 30%
Remain criminal 28%