Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections for May 23, 2018

Serial bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were shot to death near Sailes, Louisiana by a group of LA and Texas state police on May 23, 1934.

On May 23, 1954, the NAACP petitioned the Fulton County Board of Education to desegregate after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

Former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter won the Virginia Caucus on May 23, 1976, gaining 24 delegates. On May 25, 1976, Carter won the Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky Primary Elections for President.

On May 23, 1990, the NFL announced that Atlanta would host the 1994 Super Bowl.

Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections

Governor Nathan Deal appointed Lewis R. Lamb to a vacancy as District Attorney for the Southwestern Judicial Circuit, which includes Lee, Macon, Schley, Stewart, Sumter and Webster Counties.

Click here for last night’s election results.

Today’s edition will not just recount the results, but will discuss ten things that caught my eye last night while obsessively refreshing the results page.

1.) Democratic turnout in the Primary election at the top of the ticket was 552,750, more than 90% of the number of GOP ballots cast, 606,161.  Looking back to 2014, the last off-year statewide primary, the Dems then numbered 328,710 versus the GOP’s 605,355, or roughly 54% of GOP turnout. So the number of voters pulling a GOP ballot was remarkably consistent, the Democratic ballots increased dramatically. That’s your blue wave right there.

Looking at Gwinnett County is also a startling result: more Gwinnett voters chose Democratic ballots (40,538) than Republicans (36,164) despite David Shafer’s LG campaign being the only Gwinnett-based campaign for Governor or Lieutenant Governor. Compare that to the 2014 General Primary Election when 40,845 Gwinnett voters chose GOP ballots in the Senate race against 12,325 Democrats.

2.) Josh McKoon’s third-place finish in the Republican Primary represents the limits of what huge popularity among people who attend Republican Party events can help you achieve in the face of pretty massive funding from other candidates.

3.) It was clear to me that Stacey Abrams (76.44%) was going to beat Stacey Evans (23.56%), but I had no idea how resounding it would be.

4.) Yesterday, a friend of mine who is a longtime Democratic operative said that the main dynamic they saw was “women are angry” about how government is working. It’ll probably be a few days before we have demographic information for the primary, but the Public Service Commission races on the Democratic side saw the well-funded Lindy Miller taking 65.46% against two male opponents, and Dawn A. Randolph taking a staggering 78.59% against Doug Stoner. While Miller was well-funded raising over $400k, Dawn Randolph had barely raised the qualifying fee and probably had almost zero budget.

5.) As follow up on the PSC races, women running on the Democratic ticket for Congress ran the table, leading every single race that had a female candidate.

District 6 -Lucy McBath 36.26 against three male candidates

District 7 – Carolyn Bourdeaux took 27.32% to lead a field totalling three women and three men and the three women combined for 51% of those votes

District 10 – Tabitha A. Johnson-Green took the nomination without a runoff

District 12 – The male Francys Johnson took the nomination without a runoff against guys named “Robert” and “Trent.”

6.) Incumbent State Legislators losing their primary:

SD 5 – Curt Thompson (D)

HD 1- John Deffenbaugh (R)

HD 28 – Dan Gasaway 49.46 (R)

HD 83 – Howard Mosby (D)

HD 87 Earnest Coach Williams (D)

HD 131 – Johnnie Caldwell (R)

HD 153 – Darrel Ealum (D)

HD 180 – Jason Spencer (R)

7.) State legislators forced into a primary runoff:

HD 19 –Paulette Rakestraw (Runoff) (R) 43.99

8.) A very close call for Democratic Senate Majority Leader Steve Henson, who won with 50.42 percent of the vote (6918 votes) against Sabrina MacKenzie’s 49.58% (6803 votes).

9.) Former legislators making a comeback:

HD 105 – Donna Sheldon – Runoff (R) [note: a different district than Sheldon previously served in]

HD 133 – Vance Smith (R)

HD 138 – Mike Cheokas (R)

10.) Matthew Gambill’s 87.43% in the House District 15 Republican Primary is the most-lopsided win I think I’ve ever seen in an open seat state legislative race.