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since 1983, but Miracle Rankin and
Jen Jordan ran as a team against
incumbents Charlie Bethel and
Sarah Warren. Bethel narrowly
escaped with a 43,000-vote margin
while Warren buried Jordan beating her by 358,000 votes. Why the
difference? Rankin benefited from
the black woman tsunami. Warren
helped her case with television ads
and social media activities.
The Democratic primary contest that drew the fewest voters
was PSC Post 5 for which just over
1,000,000 votes were cast. Had
Rankin or Jordan matched that vote
total; they would have won. Instead,
Bethel got 57,000 more votes than
were cast in the GOP gubernatorial
primary while Warren ran more
than 200,000 votes ahead of the gubernatorial vote. In the absence of a
party cue, voters with little information often vote for incumbents.
Primary results underscore the
difficulty confronted by candidates
from the Georgia coast. U.S. Rep.
Buddy Carter excelled with the
voters who he has represented for
the last 12 years winning 23 counties in southeast Georgia but only
one elsewhere in the state. Another
third-place finisher, lieutenant governor candidate Blake Tillery, comes
from southeast Georgia. With most
voters living in the Atlanta media
market, candidates from the coast
have found success elusive.
THE KEYS TO SUCCESS
Primaries attract far fewer
voters than general elections.
Primaries tend to be dominated by
ultra-committed Republicans and
super Democrats. This year’s primary marked the second time since
Georgia became more red than blue
that Democrats outvoted Republicans. The margin was 148,000 in the
gubernatorial contest. Democratic
participation was more consistent
up and down the ballot. The range
in Democratic turnout was 81,000
with every contest having at least
a million participants. On the GOP
side, the range was 156,000 with
only 777k voters in the PSC District
5 contest. These results reveal an
enthusiasm gap. The only other year
since 2010 when Democrats benefited from an enthusiasm gap was
2020, and that November Democrats had their best year since 1998.
Republicans turned out at
much higher rates than Democrats
in the runoff, but that was because
the Democratic nominations for
senator and governor had already
been decided. Winning a nomination is a cause for celebration. But
the ultimate goal is general election
success. When the choices of candidates were made in smoke-filled
rooms, electability was a major
concern and was cited by Kemp in
his endorsement of Dooley for the
Senate. Electability is overlooked
by many voters.
Rural Georgians support Republicans while Democrats have to
run up their vote totals in a few urban counties if they are to be competitive. This decade, the swing
voters have been college-educated
whites, and they are concentrated
in urban areas. Democrats supported by 40 percent of this group have
a good chance of winning. Jackson
did well in the counties where
these swing voters are concentrated, Collins did not. Trump’s endorsement of Collins helped in the
runoff; it may handicap him with
swing voters in November.
As a purple state, Georgia’s
statewide elections will be competitive this fall, especially the ones
that have no incumbent. Republicans continue to enjoy a slight advantage, but the president’s party
struggles in mid-term elections and
Georgia Democrats are now strong
enough that any missteps by GOP
candidates could prove costly.
Charles S. Bullock, III, is the Distinguished
University Professor of Public and International Affairs. He is co-author of The Three
Governors Controversy, a study of the
unique 1946 gubernatorial selection process.
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