Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for April 29, 2014

Franklin Delano Roosevelt made his fourth trip to Georgia on April 29, 1926, closing on the purchase of property at Warm Springs, Ga.

Dachau concentration camp was liberated by American troops on April 29, 1945. At least 31,951 inmates died there, more than 30,000 survivors were found on liberation day, and more than 250,000 passed through the camp and its subcamps.

Dobbins Air Force Base was dedicated on April 29, 1950, named for in honor of the late Capt. Charles M. Dobbins and in memory of the other servicemen from Cobb County. Dobbins was shot down over Sicily in 1943 and his family attended the opening of the base.

Hank Aaron hit his first home run in Atlanta against the Houston Astros on April 29, 1966, providing the winning margin as the Braves won 4-3.

Atlanta was selected as the host city for the 1996 Summer Olympics on April 29, 1988.

On April 29, 1993, Barry White guest-starred on The Simpsons. I guess that makes today “Whacking Day.”

Early Voting

As of yesterday’s Absentee Voter File, 23,349 Georgians had requested absentee ballots (not sure if that includes in-person early voting). Of those, 13,173 requested Republican ballots and 9,376 requested Democratic ballots; 800 ballots were non-partisan or had the field left blank in the file.

From Governor Deal’s desk

Last night, Governor Deal declared a state of emergency in order to prepare state agencies for possible operations in case of tornado or storm damage.

“At this juncture, we’ve declared the emergency for the entire state because it’s impossible to pinpoint where the weather will hit,” Deal said. “Georgia is threatened at least through tomorrow and perhaps into Wednesday. We’re prepared now and we’ll be ready for recovery should we, God forbid, experience tornado damage or flooding.

“The state is sending the latest weather information we have available to affected schools districts, so that they can make informed decisions as they plan for tomorrow. I recommend that Georgians download the Ready Georgia app, follow GEMA on Twitter and tune in to media reports as the weather develops.”

Governor Deal has also signed the state budget, which includes more than a half-billion dollar increase for education.

“Since taking office I have budgeted conservatively, downsized state government, implemented real tax reform and created jobs as we rebounded from the Great Recession,” Deal said. “It is through these measures that we now have the opportunity to fund our state’s top priorities. This year, more than 80 percent of new revenue receipts are dedicated to education, with 66 percent of those new revenues going to K-12 alone. Our schools are the front line in our effort to create prosperity. It is here we make our most strategic investment in the future.”

The additional funds for k-12 education will provide local school systems with both the resources and flexibility to address the most critical needs of their students and teachers. The budget also includes funding for a number of postsecondary education programs.

“We are putting our education where our economy is,” Deal said. “In order to fill the needs of a growing economy, Georgia needs more of our citizens to acquire education and skills beyond high school. The postsecondary degree programs included in this year’s budget will play a critical role in creating a trained and reliable workforce and attracting new investment. I commend the General Assembly for enacting a budget that will help keep us the No. 1 place in the country to do business and create jobs.”

Polling

SurveyUSA and 11 Alive dropped new polling in the Senate race yesterday.

The poll of 501 likely GOP primary voters ranks the candidates as follows:

26% David Perdue

20% Jack Kingston

15% Karen Handel

13% Paul Broun

6% Phil Gingrey

5% Derrick Grayson

1% Art Gardner

13% Undecided

 

The poll, by SurveyUSA, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5%.

Compared to an identical 11Alive poll five weeks ago, Handel has gained five percentage points. Paul Broun has gained three. Perdue has dropped two. Phil Gingrey’s support has dropped by half.

And SurveyUSA’s take on the results:

David Perdue is at 26%, down 3 percentage points from an identical SurveyUSA poll 5 weeks ago. Jack Kingston is at 20%, up a nominal 1 point from 5 weeks ago. Karen Handel has momentum, and is at 15% today, up 5 percentage points. Paul Broun is at 13% today, up 2 percentage points. Phil Gingrey, Derrick Grayson and Art Gardner are further back. A runoff is likely.

In the Republican Primary for Governor, Nathan Deal overwhelms 2 nominal challengers: Deal 64%, David Pennington.11%, John Barge 10%. These results are largely unchanged from 5 weeks ago.

In the Republican Primary for School Superintendent, 9 candidates battle for name recognition and voter share of mind, with any outcome possible. 43% are undecided. The top 5 candidates have between 7% and 10% support levels, just as they did 5 weeks ago. A runoff is certain.

6 months until the November General Election , a look at the likely Gubernatorial head-to-head match-up shows Republican Nathan Deal edging Democrat Jason Carter 41% to 37%. Libertarian Andrew Hunt today takes 9% of the vote. Deal leads by 15 points among males; Carter leads by 6 points among females, a 21-point gender gap. Deal leads 2:1 among GA whites; Carter leads 4:1 among GA blacks. Deal holds 79% of the Republican base. Carter holds 71% of the Democratic base. Independents split. Moderates break for Carter by 17 points.

We’ll be computing new GaPundit Polling Index numbers for both the Senate and Gubernatorial races today.

Huffington Post published some polling results that they say show Obamacare becoming more popular in marginal Congressional districts.

The poll, which was conducted by Democracy Corps in battleground congressional districts and shared in advance with The Huffington Post, shows 52 percent of respondents want to “implement and fix” the 2010 health care reform law versus 42 percent who want to “repeal and replace” it. Those numbers were 49 percent to 45 percent, respectively, in the firm’s December poll.

The favorable trend toward Obamacare has been witnessed not just in Democratic districts but also in Republican districts.

According to the findings, 43 percent of respondents in districts held by a Republican member of Congress now say they oppose the health care law because it “goes too far.” That number was 48 percent in December. Opponents still outnumber the 41 percent who say they favor the law. However, Democracy Corps also registers 9 percent of respondents in Republican districts who say they oppose the law because it does not go far enough, a group that ostensibly includes a chunk of voters who wanted a more liberal piece of legislation. (How big that chunk is, is unclear.)

In Republican districts that are the most likely to flip to Democratic control in the 2014 elections, the shift of opinion toward the Affordable Care Act is equally pronounced. Fifty-four percent of respondents from those districts now support implementing and fixing the law versus 40 percent who support repealing and replacing it. In December, those numbers were 48 percent and 44 percent, respectively.

Meanwhile, in Democratic districts, Obamacare seems headed to majority-support status. Democracy Corps records 44 percent of respondents in those districts as favoring the law with 44 percent opposing the law because it goes too far. Eight percent oppose the law because it does not go far enough — a portion of those likely Democratic voters who wanted either single payer or a public option. In December, those numbers were 42 percent in favor, 46 percent opposed and 6 percent who wanted the law to go further.

Yesterday, Nate Cohn wrote in the New York Times that white Southerners have begun supporting the Republican Party in numbers similar to those of African-Amercians and the Democratic Party.

From the high plains of West Texas to the Atlantic Coast of Georgia, white voters opposed Mr. Obama’s re-election in overwhelming numbers. In many counties 90 percent of white voters chose Mitt Romney, nearly the reversal of the margin by which black voters supported Mr. Obama.

While white Southerners have been voting Republican for decades, the hugeness of the gap was new. Mr. Obama often lost more than 40 percent of Al Gore’s support among white voters south of the historically significant line of the Missouri Compromise. Two centuries later, Southern politics are deeply polarized along racial lines. It is no exaggeration to suggest that in these states the Democrats have become the party of African Americans and that the Republicans are the party of whites.

But it is hard to know the extent to which racism is responsible for Mr. Obama’s weakness. After all, Mr. Obama is not the only Democrat to perform so poorly in recent years. Some white Democratic candidates, like Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, have done worse than Mr. Obama among Southern whites. And Mr. Obama’s losses are part of a longer-term trend. Mr. Kerry, for instance, performed worse than Al Gore, who even fared worse than Michael Dukakis among Southern whites.

The collapse of Democratic support among Southern whites threatens the party’s ability to control government and enact its agenda. Democrats will find it extremely hard to retake the House without reclaiming the majority white, Southern districts once held by the now vanquished group of Democrats known as the Blue Dogs. This November, Southern whites could easily deny Democrats control of the Senate by dismissing Democratic incumbents in North Carolina, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Campaigns and Elections

Photo of the day goes to the New York Times, which has a photo of a toddling Jason Carter running behind his grandparents on the White House lawn with the Marine One helicopter in the background. The Upshot discusses why political dynasties exist and the advantages that come with being part of a political family.

Georgia is likely to have a dual ticket of Democrats with famous family members: Michelle Nunn, the daughter of the former senator Sam Nunn and the party’s likely Senate nominee, and Jimmy Carter’s grandson Jason, the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor.

Other examples include Jeb Bush’s son George P. Bush, who is the Republican nominee for Texas Land Commissioner, and Debbie Dingell, the leading candidate to replace her husband, John Dingell, the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives.

America has a long history of political dynasties, including the Adams, Harrison, Roosevelt and Bush families, who collectively produced eight presidents, including two of the last four. This pattern extends well beyond the presidency. Consider the Kennedys: only John F. Kennedy became president, but he was the first of six Kennedys to serve in Congress. (On April 8, Ted Kennedy Jr. announced that he would run for the state senate in Connecticut.)

Just under 9 percent of members of Congress between 1789 and 1996 were related to a previous member of Congress, according to a 2009 study, including 7 percent of those who served after 1966. More recently, 12 percent of all House races without an incumbent candidate between 1994 and 2006 had a member of a political dynasty as a candidate, according to an article in Legislative Studies Quarterly by Brian Feinstein.

Mr. Feinstein found that being a close relative of a governor or a member of the House or Senate was associated with greater vote share and a higher likelihood of winning. That’s even after accounting for differences in candidate experience and fund-raising and the partisanship of the district, an advantage he attributes to having a strong “brand name” (he found no significant difference in political experience or fund-raising between dynastic candidates and others).

Despite never having held elected office, Ms. Nunn was recruited by Democrats to run for the Senate and has performed surprisingly well in polls, a result that is hard to imagine without her association with her father.

Jason Carter faces a far more difficult challenge in his campaign for governor in Georgia but is also getting family assistance in raising money, from his grandfather.

The Iowa Republican Party ousted Ron Paul supporters from its leadership, not because they were dilatory and pedantic, but because they harmed fundraising.

Jennifer Jacobs of The Des Moines Register said the party was trying to build a broader base, with less focus on “pet liberty-movement issues,” adding, “Big donors who closed their checkbooks may start giving money to the state party again.”

Here’s how bad the situation has been for the Iowa G.O.P.: The $129,843 raised in the first three months of 2014 is the lowest amount in a year without a presidential election since at least 2002. Last year, the party raised less than half of what it did in 2005.

The last individual contribution of $5,000 or more occurred a year ago, and the party has struggled to retain even longtime donors.

Of the four states with open Senate races this year (Iowa, Michigan, Georgia and West Virginia), only West Virginia’s state G.O.P. has raised less money this year.

By continuing under the leadership of Ron Paul supporters, Iowa Republicans risked having the state party sidelined, similar to what happened in Nevada in 2012. National Republicans, keen to re-elect Dean Heller to the Senate seat he had been appointed to in 2011, bypassed the state party. They funneled $638,000 to the Washoe County Republican Party to help Mr. Heller, who narrowly retained his seat.

The PBS NewsHour has unveiled its Senate rankings of the most likely seats to change party hands this year, with Georgia placing tenth. Their analysis has one of the most prescient statements I’ve read:

Nunn has tacked to the center so far while lamenting the lack of pragmatism in Congress. She has tried to talk locally, but national issues will creep in, including a local issue that’s become national news — guns. And Nunn has indicated she would support things like Manchin-Toomey background check bill.

Illustrating the ideological squeeze-play Nunn must execute to win in November, Stu Rothenberg discusses how narrow her path is.

Nunn has a terrific name in the Peach State and in Washington, D.C. Her father was (and is) a highly regarded pragmatic Democrat, and her association with the Bush family through her connection with the Points of Light Foundation is an asset.

To have a serious chance of victory, Nunn probably needs to run against a Republican who would have problems within his or her own party. Rep. Paul Broun, a libertarian-leaning Republican member of Congress with a penchant for saying stupid things — for example, that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are “lies straight from the pit of hell” — obviously would give Nunn her best chance for success, but he may not be the only Republican unable to hold the seat in the fall.

Interestingly, while the Club for Growth has endorsed four Senate candidates this cycle (in Alaska, Arkansas, Mississippi and Nebraska), it has not endorsed Broun’s Senate bid, even though the Georgia congressman has a 99 percent lifetime rating from the group. The conservative group knows his tendency for saying the outlandish could come back to haunt him — and the club.

So, while I continue to rate Grimes and Nunn as underdogs in the Kentucky and Georgia Senate races, I certainly see paths, albeit narrow ones, for victory for the two Democratic women in those races.

Meanwhile, Nunn is taking flak from the left for what is seen as adopting Republican ideas.

Her second ad, out Tuesday, edges a little further into red territory, adopting GOP talking points on the budget and Obamacare.

Perhaps most notable is her insistence that “no one in Congress should get a subsidy to pay for their own health care.”

Members of Congress don’t actually receive a special subsidy. Their insurance is partly paid for by their employer — in their case, the federal government — as it is for most working Americans.

The idea went nowhere in the Senate, where Nunn is trying to win a job, because her would-be future colleagues in the Democratic Party shot it down.

Another notion cooked up by the GOP that Nunn is promoting is the proposition that if Congress doesn’t pass a budget, lawmakers shouldn’t get paid.

It’s enough to make your head spin, but at the moment, Nunn’s “no budget, no pay” puts her in line with House Republicans and at odds with Senate Democrats.

The Georgia Senate campaign is being viewed as a bellwether for support of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s reelection to leadership.

A slew of Republican candidates running for the upper chamber won’t say whether they would back Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) if he bids for another term as GOP leader.

While Tea Party candidates often run against GOP leaders in Washington during primary contests, establishment candidates this year are leery of expressing allegiance to McConnell too.

Republican strategists say it’s a sign of the growing divide between party leaders and conservative voters, who have a history of roiling GOP primaries.

Karen Handel, a Senate candidate who hails from the party establishment as a former Georgia secretary of State but now draws support from Tea Party conservatives as well, indicated she would not support McConnell for leader if she were elected.

Pressed by The Hill this month whether she would back McConnell, Handel said Republicans “need new leadership” and that the minority leader’s voters “can make a determination for him.”

McConnell faces both a primary and a general election challenge this year.

Handel’s rival in the Georgia Senate primary race, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who has served more than 20 years in Congress, declined Monday to commit to voting for McConnell.

“Jack Kingston is focused on communicating his record and his vision to the people of Georgia so we can elect a proven, tested conservative to turn back [Democratic Leader] Harry Reid’s liberal agenda,” Chris Crawford, Kingston’s spokesman, told The Hill when asked whether his boss supports McConnell serving another term as leader.

Former United States Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), who came in third in Peach State GOP Presidential balloting in 2012, has endorsed the recent gun bill signed by Gov. Nathan Deal.

“I don’t think this is going to do anything to encourage some bad guy to cause harm in airport, but it is going to create an opportunity where if something bad maybe does happen in an airport, that maybe someone will be there to be able to stop it,” he said on “Face the Nation” on CBS.

“I think a well-armed family is a safe family,” he added. “A well-armed America is a safer America.”

“We’ll make a decision next year as to whether we run or not, but I’m going to stay very, very engaged and hopefully Republican candidates across the country will get this book, look at it and begin to talk to folks who should be voting for us, and should be helping us to change America but are not,” he said.