Poll: Name the winner in the great Georgia U.S. Senate runoff

[Meeker]

Al is largely correct. From my experiences during the cycle, the Obama turnout machine that the media likes to talk about and that the Obama camp likes to subtly hint about isn't really that great - they had a LOT of organizational and bureaucracy problems. Granted I never saw the operations in the swing states (which could've been much better I suppose), but overall they aren't the impressive behemoth that they're sort of assumed to be.

So to tie that back into Georgia, the Obama machine may have been worth an extra 1-3% of the black vote for Martin, but there was no way they were going to be able to drive up turnout to November 4th levels. If Martin really wanted to win this runoff he probably needed to get the blacks angry at the whites for some reason or another. I can't really see a way for him to get blacks to turnout besides that.

[minionofmidas]

(snipped true parts) If Martin really wanted to win this runoff he probably needed to get the blacks angry at the whites for some reason or another. I can't really see a way for him to get blacks to turnout besides that.

That would have destroyed him. He needed White votes too anyhow - he was caught between a rock and a hard place, tried to balance things (had to, of course. No other choice) and failed.

[Meeker]

(snipped true parts) If Martin really wanted to win this runoff he probably needed to get the blacks angry at the whites for some reason or another. I can't really see a way for him to get blacks to turnout besides that.

That would have destroyed him. He needed White votes too anyhow - he was caught between a rock and a hard place, tried to balance things (had to, of course. No other choice) and failed.

Oh it probably would've been a disaster. I think that the off chance that it would work is really the only scenario under which Martin could've even had a shot at winning though. Maybe have some 527's do it under the rug towards the end. Again, probably wouldn't've worked, but if it did...

Anyways, Martin needed to either strongly appeal to black voters and drive up their turnout, or switch and attempt to strongly appeal to white voters and cut into Chambliss's margin (something which would've also been a miserable failure). Any balancing act was, of course, doomed to failure. I don't think it's really possible to run a campaign that appeals to both Southern Blacks and Southern Whites these days. Gotta pick one and run with it.

[minionofmidas]

Anyways, Martin needed to either strongly appeal to black voters and drive up their turnout, or switch and attempt to strongly appeal to white voters and cut into Chambliss's margin (something which would've also been a miserable failure). Any balancing act was, of course, doomed to failure. I don't think it's really possible to run a campaign that appeals to both Southern Blacks and Southern Whites these days.

Obama did in North Carolina.

Of course, local on the ground dynamics look quite a bit different in NC than in GA...

[Meeker]

Anyways, Martin needed to either strongly appeal to black voters and drive up their turnout, or switch and attempt to strongly appeal to white voters and cut into Chambliss's margin (something which would've also been a miserable failure). Any balancing act was, of course, doomed to failure. I don't think it's really possible to run a campaign that appeals to both Southern Blacks and Southern Whites these days.

Obama did in North Carolina.

Of course, local on the ground dynamics look quite a bit different in NC than in GA...

Mhmm.

Obama didn't really appeal to Southern Whites so much as Northern Whites who happened to be living in the South. That analysis may be simplistic though.

[minionofmidas]

Anyways, Martin needed to either strongly appeal to black voters and drive up their turnout, or switch and attempt to strongly appeal to white voters and cut into Chambliss's margin (something which would've also been a miserable failure). Any balancing act was, of course, doomed to failure. I don't think it's really possible to run a campaign that appeals to both Southern Blacks and Southern Whites these days.

Obama did in North Carolina.

Of course, local on the ground dynamics look quite a bit different in NC than in GA...

Mhmm.

Obama didn't really appeal to Southern Whites so much as Northern Whites who happened to be living in the South. That analysis may be simplistic though.

No, it goes much deeper than that. Georgia gets a lot of northern immigration too, ye know. But fewer of them are White Democrats - more are Conservative Whites, and more are Black.
Then, Georgia's declining bits are both more rural than North Carolina's, less hard hit by economic woes, and less traditionally Republican - in NC, Republicans basically are defending shrinking ground in some of those old mill towns the way Dems are in rural places elsewhere.

[rbt48]

It might be impossible to even get close to reasonably accurate answers to these items, but I'd be curious to hear results:

1.  Percent turnout for black voters in GA for the Nov 4th election.
2.  Percent turnout for all other voters in GA for the Nov 4th election.
3.  Percent turnout for black voters in GA for the Dec 2nd election.
4.  Percent turnout for all other voters in GA for the Dec 2nd election.

My hunch is that 2 and 4 are much greater than 1 and 3, respectively.  Also, I'd guess that 1 is much greater than 3.

[minionofmidas]

It might be impossible to even get close to reasonably accurate answers to this items, but I'd be curious to hear results:

1.  Percent turnout for black voters in GA for the Nov 4th election.
2.  Percent turnout for all other voters in GA for the Nov 4th election.
3.  Percent turnout for black voters in GA for the Dec 2nd election.
4.  Percent turnout for all other voters in GA for the Dec 2nd election.

My hunch is that 2 and 4 are much greater than 1 and 3, respectively.  Also, I'd guess that 1 is much greater than 3.

If Blacks made up 30% of the vote in November, 1 and 2 were probably right around equal. 4 was higher than 3, obviously, but closer to 3 than to 1 and 2 - total turnout was about  60% of November levels.

[Sam Spade]

Did anyone actually believe Martin would win after failing to do so on election day besides Lief?

I thought Obama's previously amazing turnout machine had an inside gut draw (1-8 is what I said, but I should have given it worse odds) at being transferable to a non-Obama candidate. 

The odds were more accurately about 1 in 1 million.

I want to see what the turnout in blacks was, but I can't see the Obama turnout effect among these folks being more than 5-7 points max (probably less than 5 points actually considering all the undervotes).  As for youths, maybe a couple of points?  Others?  The Republican/Democrat difference among these folks is usually not great.

The rest of the movement has to do with strong Republican turnout in the GA suburbs in my book.  And also that Martin looks like O in the white areas, which may just be turnout, but could also be something more problematic.

[Sam Spade]

There's really only one surprising feature to last night's result; Martin's all-too-obvious collapse with rural white voters.

No kidding.  I thought his name started with an O looking at the results there.  Something to watch for this upcoming Saturday in LA-04 in my book.

[minionofmidas]

There's really only one surprising feature to last night's result; Martin's all-too-obvious collapse with rural white voters.

No kidding.  I thought his name started with an O looking at the results there.  Something to watch for this upcoming Saturday in LA-04 in my book.

as in, if anything looks like that, Fleming has won.

Then again, Fleming could do a quite bit worse and still win... and anyhow, Martin did a quite bit worse than Obama too (would need to check county by county whether that's everywhere though)

[Meeker]

Is there anyway to tell whether the shift in rural areas was due to voters shifting from Martin to Chambliss or rather Martin's voters simply not caring enough to show up?

[Sam Spade]

Is there anyway to tell whether the shift in rural areas was due to voters shifting from Martin to Chambliss or rather Martin's voters simply not caring enough to show up?

You'd have to go precinct by precinct, and even that wouldn't be 100%.  Still, if there are Martin voters in these rural areas (and I'm thinking white people - look up north) who didn't show up for the runoff, how can we be so sure that they're going to show up to any other races in the next few years?  After all, this runoff's turnout was quite similar to mid-term turnout in 2006.

It's kind of like six of one and half-dozen of the other - and another reason why I'm interested in LA-04.

[Dan the Roman]

There's really only one surprising feature to last night's result; Martin's all-too-obvious collapse with rural white voters.

No kidding.  I thought his name started with an O looking at the results there.  Something to watch for this upcoming Saturday in LA-04 in my book.

It may well be his strategy. Childers and Cayazou both ran purely after rural whites in their districts, and let the inevitable GOP attacks on Obama bring out the black vote, while publicly disassociating from him. Martin on the other hand, went all out for Obama which did not bring out blacks any more than they otherwise would have and turned off whites. He might have been better going after rural whites, and letting the inevitable attacks on Obama bring out blacks.

[minionofmidas]

Oh well. Let's compare some data...

statewide...

McCain 2.049 mio votes, Obama 1.844 mio votes, other 35k votes
Chambliss 1.867 mio votes, Martin 1.757 mio votes, other 128k votes
runoff (note: 97% reporting) Chambliss 1.221 mio votes, Martin 906k votes - less than half Obama's total. "You'd think his name begins in an O" is doing him some quite undeserved honors.

Some random counties...

Fulton, DeKalb, Clayton summed...

Obama 609k, McCain 212k, other 7k
Martin 559k, Chambliss 213k, other 23k. Yeah, Chambliss did marginally better than McCain here - more evidence of McCain's lack in metropolitan appeal
runoff (2 precincts out) Martin 314k, Chambliss 146k. Turnout held up better than statewide. For both candidates actually (Martin at 56% against 52% of his raw vote, Chambliss 68% vs 65%). I think this is probably important.

Fannin County (random rural Republican place in the north. Sam said to look north.)
McCain 7.8k, Obama 2.6k
Chambliss 6.5k, Martin 3.1k, other 500. Ah yes, Martin outpacing Obama.
runoff: Chambliss 4.2k, Martin 1.5k

Martin won a grand total of eight more counties than Obama in the first round. He must have won fewer in the second, but I was too lazy to count'em out.
If things were all about turnout by race, anyhow, one would imagine an above-average swing in places with sizable numbers of Blacks and Whites. So I went me with Obama's narrowest county wins. Problem was none of them was wholly in yet. Baker (in the deep south) isn't completely in yet, which in a small county (6 of 7 precincts reporting) can foul up results something bad. Martin is still barely ahead right now, though. Wonder if that'll change. Chattahoochee with 2 out of 3 precincts reporting (much of it is covered by an army base. But the populated parts of the army base are over in Muscogee County.) is just worthless.

Newton County is one of those outer metropolitan Black-trending counties...
Obama 20.8k, McCain 20.3k
Martin 20.2k, Chambliss 18.2k, other 1.2k. McCain metro weakness not in evidence this far out.
runoff: Chambliss 12.2k, Martin 10.3k. Hmmm... in line with state.

For a more definitely rural close county... argh. All the closeish Obama counties seem to have an unreported precinct. Eventually settled on Wilkinson. Which didn't vote for Obama.

McCain 2349, Obama 2298, other 23
Martin 2403, Chambliss 1980, other 73 - yeah, here we are on "Martin outperforming Obama" turf.
runoff: Martin 1310, Chambliss 1298.

So, conclusion: I'm not all that much wiser than I used to be.

[Franzl]

Chambliss 56.5-43.5

I'm pretty happy with my prediction. Congrats to Phil, though.

[Bacon King]

Chambliss with 57.5%

BAM!

[Keystone Phil]

Chambliss with 57.5%

BAM!

Wow. I doubt it stays at 57.4% (still 3% left to report) but that's an excellent call.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's a small group of counties in the far north of Georgia that I've kept half an eye on for a few years now (Rabun, Towns and Union. Would be Fannin as well, but it's political traditions are (at least in terms of their magnitude) unique). For those interested, this is the land of Deliverance and Zell Miller.

Presidential:

Rabun: McCain 5,487 (72.2%), Obama 2,001 (26.3%)
Towns: McCain 4,292 (74.8%), Obama 1,391 (24.2%)
Union: McCain 8,013 (75.3%), Obama 2,486 (23.4%)

First round, Senate:

Rabun: Chambliss 4,418 (60.5%), Martin 2,530 (34.7%)
Towns: Chambliss 3,559 (64.8%), Martin 1,689 (30.7%)
Union: Chambliss 6,483 (63.4%), Martin 3,292 (32.2%)

Second round, Senate:

Rabun: Chambliss 3,057 (72.4%), Martin 1,164 (27.6), one precinct (out of 11) not in yet.
Towns: Chambliss 2,560 (73.6%), Martin 918 (26.4), one precinct (out of 6) not in yet.
Union: Chambliss 4,624 (74.9%), Martin 1,547 (25.1%), one precinct (out of 13) not in yet.

In percentage terms, Martin seems to have run a little ahead of Obama but a little behind Majette (!). In 2002, Cleland broke 40% in both Rabun and Towns.

[Lincoln Republican]

Wow, Saxby Shameless brings out the absolute worst in Republican partisans.  And not much better sentiments in Democratic partisans either.

This horrible thread alone is almost grounds enough to have the man expelled from the Senate.


Yah, it often happens that when a candidate expected to win handily is forced into a second round, he does worse than anyone predicted there. Right after election day, it seemed possible that that would happen here. But it became obvious pretty quickly that it wouldn't, that it would be all about race and turnout. Still about a point or three more Republican than I would have thought likely.

Hey, I made this thread.

[rbt48]

I'm confused as to why it is taking so long for the GA SOS to release the results for the last 98 precincts.  The first 3176 were out in 12 hours or so.

http://sos.georgia.gov/elections/election_results/2008_1202/003.htm

         Chambliss   Martin   Totals
   3176   3274   1,221,119   905,727   2,126,846
         57.415%                  42.585%