Election night has drawn to an end, let’s look at the results.
Nathan Deal defeated his two opponents in the primary, winning with 72% of the vote. We said yesterday that Deal’s camp would likely be pleased with anything over 70%, so this result sets him up nicely for a general election against Jason Carter that could get downright nasty.
David Perdue will face Jack Kingston in the runoff for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. Kingston received a tremendous outpouring of support from Southeast Georgia, which kept him up with Perdue for much of the night before the votes from the northern part of the state came in. Karen Handel didn’t quite get the votes she needed from the metro area, and ended the night in third. It remains to be seen if she will throw her considerable political machine behind one of the two men who defeated her, but as our own Matt Towery said tonight on Fox 5’s election coverage, don’t be surprised if you see her go over to Kingston. The Perdue/Kingston matchup is a particularly interesting one, as it pits a ‘Washington outsider’ in Perdue against the ‘establishment candidate’ in Kingston. Both candidates have big money and big organizations, so expect a lot of attention to be paid to this race in coming weeks.
Michelle Nunn held up her end of the bargain, easily winning the Democratic primary to face the winner of Perdue/Kingston in November.
Speaker of the House David Ralston won his much publicized re-election bid with relative ease, fending off the Debbie Dooley-led Tea Party and candidate Sam Snider.
In the State School Superintendent race, Mike Buck and Richard Woods will square off for the Republican nomination, while on the Democratic side Valarie Wilson will face Alisha Morgan. Now that the fields have been whittled down, look for more coverage of the race and more information on the candidates.
In the Congressional races, Buddy Carter will face Bob Johnson in Jack Kingston’s vacant 1st District seat, while Mike Collins and Jody Hice drew to a near tie and will go at it again in the runoff in District 10. Barry Loudermilk received an impressive 39% of the vote in the 11th District primary and will face Bob Barr. In the 12th District Republican primary to see who gets to face old GOP nemesis John Barrow, Rick Allen managed to win with over 50% of the vote, avoiding a runoff.
We will have more insight into these races and more in coming days, so stay tuned.
