2010 Primaries Thread (It's all over now, baby blue)

[Bacon King]

I live in GA-07. Woodall's had an amazingly well-organized campaign throughout the district. I wasn't aware until this thread that people outside the district didn't know that.

For what it's worth, I voted for him, as did my entire family. Also, unrelated, but Hice is a horrible person.

[Bacon King]

Woodall: On the libertarian side of the GOP, if there still is one. A big issue for him is the Fair Tax; he ghost wrote much of Linder's FairTax Book and favors small government in general without making a fuss over social issues.

Hice: A Baptist pastor and religious talk-show host who emphasizes "bringing God back to America" and tons of even more extreme nonsense. Oh, and he's plastered interstate billboards across the district with this:

[Bacon King]

Also, read in the Georgia Megathread over in the Gubernatorial board- I totally called Ox in 4th

edit: here's a picture of one of the billboards

[Bacon King]

GOP Gubernatorial Primary map I just made!

Handel wins by carrying the Atlanta metro convincingly, and also performs very well in the Augusta area (by the looks of this I think she targeted that area specifically; in races like this Augusta would "usually" vote like Savannah [or sometimes Athens]. If so, a smart move on the part of the Handel campaign to keep Deal or Johnson from overtaking her). She also won Colombus as well as Macon and its suburbs, narrowly. She performed well in central Georgia generally.

Deal won his CD, and especially Hall county in a rout. He also seems to have done pretty well in the northern part of Broun's district that are pretty similar to Deal's territory.

Johnson wins the Savannah area, but surprisingly failed to gain traction in Augusta. Seems to have some appeal in the white farming areas downstate.

Chapman wins his home county and a bit more in the coastal area.

It looks like Oxendine basically won wherever the "don't vote for Oxendine" meme was too slow to reach. Case in point: 40% of the vote in the Okefenokee swamp, lol. Alternative explanation: all that money he spent on organization throughout the state for two years payed off in letting him win (most of) the areas none of the other candidates payed attention to.

Also, lol ray mcberry.

[Bacon King]

Also, worth noting that there's not really any effect from the Gingrich endorsement in any area he used to represent. His endorsement didn't really amount to much beyond maybe helping Deal a bit with the momentum shift.

[Bacon King]

Does OK have a runoff threshold of 50%, or is it one of those places with a rule of "no runoff if one candidate has >X% and at least Y% more than anyone else" or whatever?

[Bacon King]

I think Handel's going to win in Georgia; Deal could win, though. It largely depends on if he's managed to get the support from Oxendine and Johnson voters. Handel's campaign did an amazing job at messaging before the primary, basically making a case of "it's Handel against these three guys who are all the same"; if that didn't sink in to Johnson/Ox voters, maybe her Deal-specific attacks won't either.

I also wonder what's going on downstate right now. If Deal can win Chatham and Houston counties (and their environs), he'll win.

Also, everything I'm seeing on the ground is making me very fearful of Hice winning here in GA-7. I hope not; I hate that guy.   

[Bacon King]

A few predictions before polls close

Senate District 47: Ginn 60%
GA 7: Hice 53%
Governor: Handel 55%
Insurance Commish: Sheffield 60%
PSC: Douglas 53%
Attorney General: Olens 54%

[Bacon King]

Verily: it's open, GA don't even have partisan registration.

Also, look at the results so far for Deal in Gwinnett- he's holding even; pretty promising for him.

[Bacon King]

GA should be rural vs. suburban/urban.  If it's anything else, I'll be surprised.

Deal being the rural guy and Handel being the suburban/urban gal?

That's what he's getting at, yeah. I don't think it'll be so
cut and dry though. I wouldn't be surprised if Handel won rural south GA by a mile.

[Bacon King]

There's not really an urban/rural dynamic; in the first round Handel was "urban/suburban" and won the Atlanta area because of support in her political base of Fulton County plus extremely effective campaign concentration in the rest of the Atlanta media market. Deal was "rural" because his campaign focused on running up the vote in his own congressional district in the mostly rural north. Extrapolation from the votes then to the runoff now is very misleading. Also note, btw, Johnson won both "urban/suburban" and "rural" areas throughout the southern part of the state.

This election has many more dimensions at work.

[Bacon King]

Handel's going to win this with about 54% percent it looks like.

[Bacon King]

For the record, Handel went out of her way to be as much of a homophobe as Deal in the campaign, mostly to mitigate the damage her old pro-gay positions would have caused.  

Also, while endorsements are usually overrated, Palin did help her win a bunch of former Ox supporters who were abandoning his sinking ship before the first round.

[Bacon King]

I agree with BK. The Palin endorsement helped Handel tremendously.

And, yeah, Handel has pretty clearly taken the side against gay marriage.

and everything else, too.

paraphrasing Handel from the second-to-last debate: "yes, when I first ran to head the Fulton County government I gave money to the log cabin republicans and got endorsed by them, but that doesn't matter because when I was in office I made sure same-sex partners didn't get benefits, and I'd veto anything like it as governor"

[Bacon King]

GA-09 once again called for Graves.

lol at Lee Hawkins.

"At this point, I'm just running to beat him."
-Hawkins in a July debate on Gainesville's NPR station

[Bacon King]

Actually, what the Georgia gov map almost looks like at a glance is "McCain + Romney = Handel" and "Huckabee = Deal", with a couple obvious exceptions. Of course, don't read into this that Huckabee's endorsement meant anything at all, because it definitely didn't.