Georgia’s on Their Mind in Battle for Senate – US News

Three public polls taken over the past two weeks show Republican David Perdue and Democrat Michelle Nunn locked in a statistical dead heat. Portman, in an interview with U.S. News, acknowledges that Georgia – a reliably red state for more than a decade – is not quite in the bag yet for the GOP.

Nunn’s success will largely be determined by whether she can mobilize African-American voters, to the point that they make up nearly 30 percent of the electorate. In 2008, blacks made up 28 percent of the vote and the Democratic Senate candidate, Jim Martin, carried 93 percent of them – but in that year, Obama became the first black presidential nominee of a major political party, triggering a surge of African-American voters to the polls.

To win, Nunn needs heavy African-American turnout and improvement on Martin’s performance among white voters. In the 2008 race, Martin took 26 percent of the white vote, but trailed incumbent Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss by three points before losing the runoff. In the latest SurveyUSA poll, Nunn attracts 28 percent of the white vote and 87 percent of the black vote, hovering around the threshold she needs to convert a victory. Activists on the left have been busy registering black voters and are fighting with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office over its alleged failure to process tens of thousands of new minority voter applicants.

Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., whom Perdue defeated in the July primary runoff, says the Perdue campaign feels confident about getting to 51 percent on election day to skirt the runoff. But he admits Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns energized black voters and spawned a formidable Democratic get-out-the-vote organization.

“It’s message versus a machine and the Dems have a good machine, they have a historic machine,” he says. “Sunday voting and early voting is a factor and the Democrats know how to do it better than Republicans. I just don’t think you can take anything for granted this year.”

via Georgia’s on Their Mind in Battle for Senate – US News.