With the election 30 days away, Georgia’s political candidates are battling to sway undecided voters.
U.S. Senate candidates Michelle Nunn and David Purdue and gubernatorial opponents Jason Carter and Nathan Deal hope to nail down the “50 percent plus one” victory edge Nov. 4. But polls show that no candidate has reached that threshold, making runoffs likely.
The national importance of the Senate race, which could determine whether the upper chamber remains Democratic, was highlighted by the news that presumed 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton plans to campaign for Nunn.
As the final stretch run begins, “there are slightly different dynamics for the Senate and gubernatorial races,” University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock III said.
In the Senate race, Nunn, a Democrat, and Perdue, a Republican, seek to replace incumbent GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss. Perdue, a former corporate CEO, and Nunn, who led the nonprofit Points of Light Foundation, are conducting their first political campaigns.
“There’s no incumbent, so they don’t have a public record to brag about or to hammer an opponent about,” Bullock said. “Both are trying to dig into their opponent’s past and criticize it.”
The strategy is different for Democratic candidate Carter in his campaign against Deal, the GOP incumbent. Carter, Bullock said, “has to make the incumbent’s record the true issue.”
Bullock said that “Jason Carter is trying to convince some segment of the electorate that they made a mistake four years ago” when voting for Deal. “He’s trying to hammer away at something the candidate has done or failed to do.”
Attracting undecided voters who have previously voted Republican is essential for Nunn and Carter.
“My sense is that Carter and Nunn have done well at motivating the base,” said Chris Grant, political science professor at Mercer University in Macon. He sees each as getting around 47 percent of the vote. With polls showing Perdue and Deal with roughly the same share, support for Libertarian candidates Andrew Hunt in the governor’s race and Amanda Swafford in the Senate race is expected to bring runoffs.
With Perdue not hampered by negatives surrounding Deal, Grant sees Nunn as having a tougher battle.
“Carter seems to be headed for a runoff,” Grant said. “Nathan Deal has folks mad at him.”
Grant sees Deal as potentially losing voters for a cluster of negatives: 2 percent for his performance in the Atlanta snowstorm, 2 percent for ethics problems, and 2 percent for “the sense he doesn’t get things done.” That aggregate 6 percent could carry Carter to the finish line.
“If Carter can convert those to Democratic voters, he wins,” Grant said. “He’s got to try to seal the deal with dissatisfied Deal voters who lean Republican anyway, and get them comfortable voting for him, show them that voting for him is not something they would regret later.”
Grant said high unemployment is a strong issue in central Georgia, which has more joblessness than metro Atlanta. He said that Deal appeared defensive in his efforts to cast doubt upon the recent report that Georgia’s unemployment rate is the nation’s worst.
Deal showed a “fortress” mentality that gave those struggling economically the message “I don’t care where you are,” Grant said. The governor’s campaign “doesn’t go on the offensive very much. They go on the defensive in their media.”
He said Deal’s pointing to the new jobs he’s brought to Georgia doesn’t resound in the central part of the state. He said the jobs “are all going to North Georgia. There’s nothing here. That makes middle Georgia more critical as a swing vote.”
There’s also a “general dissatisfaction with wages,” he said, which adds to the “perception that he doesn’t get things done.”
Grant concluded that “the perception in politics is a lot more important than reality.”
The campaign spotlight shifts to Middle Georgia Tuesday night with the Senate and gubernatorial debate at the Georgia State Fair in Perry.
Grant said his students who are campaign volunteers indicated that “both sides are actively recruiting folks to go to the fair. …they are both trying to to make a big show of it, for media optics.”
Debate sponsor 13WMAZ television has long dominated central Georgia ratings, Grant said. The Gannett station and CBS affiliate will broadcast the debate Tuesday night, with a rebroadcast scheduled later. The commercially telecast event is likely to draw a bigger audience than later debates to be shown on public television.
