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

[Meeker]

I believe the winner will be a white, Protestant male over the age of 60 who attended the University of Georgia.

[Meeker]

Turnout is reported to be "low", whatever the hell that means.

[Meeker]

No exit poll was done, FTR.

[Meeker]

All coming in from small outlying counties

[Meeker]

We can start comparing the result of some of these outlying counties to their November results relatively soon, but precincts can be so polarized in this part of the country that I don't like to make judgments on counties without everything in.

[Meeker]

Folks, you have to understand that some of this weird movement occurs as black/white precincts come in, bumping the numbers around.

^^^

[Meeker]

Echols County goes from 69% Chambliss to 77% Chambliss.

There's like 12 people there though.

[Meeker]

Spanking. Absolute spanking.

You're aware that none of Metro Atlanta has come in yet?

[Meeker]

Spanking. Absolute spanking.

You're aware that none of Metro Atlanta has come in yet?

And it'll go down to what? 57% to 43%? Looks like my prediction.  

My point was that commenting on the margin right now is very silly.

[Meeker]

Spanking. Absolute spanking.

You're aware that none of Metro Atlanta has come in yet?

Gwinnett is about 40% in.  Some precincts from Cherokee, Paulding, Henry, Newton and Jasper are reporting.  There's nothing from Fulton, Dekalb or Cobb.

I meant "urban".

[Meeker]

Martin would need something like 65% of the remaining vote in order to win.

All about the historical margin at this point...

[Meeker]

Anyone know why Obama didn't campaign here?

Because he thought there'd be a result like this.

[Meeker]

CNN projects a Chambliss victory as well.

[Meeker]

Chambliss is basically the dictionary definition of an HP, but it's not really surprising that a state that produced the likes of Bob Dole and Mike Keller would re-elect him.

Have fun without having an power for the next few years Georgia!

[Meeker]

I believe the winner will be a white, Protestant male over the age of 60 who attended the University of Georgia.

I win!

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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?