Georgia Senate runoff: Nasty, brutish — and long – Manu Raju – POLITICO.com

Republicans in Washington got the result they wanted in Georgia: Two candidates viewed as the strongest contenders to keep a Senate seat central to the fight for the majority.

But the runoff between Rep. Jack Kingston and businessman David Perdue will be nasty, brutish – and long. As in the lengthiest in the state’s political history — a nine-week intra-party slugfest at a critical moment in the battle for control of the Senate.

The “good part” of a longer contest is that it allows campaigns to restock their respective war chests for the runoff, said Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Republican who lost a three-week runoff in 1996 for the Senate GOP nomination.

“The bad thing is it’s nine weeks, and it’s really a third race,” Isakson said Tuesday. “Now you got a runoff that is the length of some general elections — endurance-wise, organizationally and cost-wise, it’s really going to put a burden on whoever is in it.”

The two men have engaged in a bare-knuckle fight over the past several weeks — with Kingston questioning Perdue’s Republicanism and business acumen and Perdue comparing Kingston to a crying baby causing the mess in Washington.

The runoff is bound to intensify those differences.

For the first time, a Georgia Senate runoff will be nine weeks long — rather than three weeks as it has historically been. That’s due to an Obama Justice Department lawsuit in 2012 arguing that the three-week runoff disenfranchised overseas and military voters.

The nine-week race ahead of July 22 is certain to not only be a bruising affair — but also entirely unpredictable. It will force the two candidates to run full-fledged campaigns. They’ll launch hard-hitting ads against one another and barnstorm to Republican strongholds mainly in Northern Georgia, courting the small set of activist voters who traditionally dominate runoff elections.

via Georgia Senate runoff: Nasty, brutish — and long – Manu Raju – POLITICO.com.