Here’s why the GOP won Georgia | The Augusta Chronicle

When the votes were counted Tuesday, Republicans had trounced Democrats by wide margins in every statewide match-up, retaining control of every constitutional office and picking up a congressional seat from the South’s last, white Democrat, John Barrow of Augusta.

With victories by Nathan Deal and David Perdue, Republicans retain the keys to the governor’s office and both U.S. Senate seats.

Blacks have moved to the state, raising their share of the population and of those who are registered to vote in recent years, just as the pundits have been saying. But they haven’t propelled Democrats to parity with the Republican Party for several reasons.

First, Georgia Democrats fell far short of their own goals of registering a half-million blacks in time to vote. The Democratic-leaning New Georgia Project says it signed up 85,000, and the Democratic Party of Georgia never released figures for its own efforts, but the total number of registered voters wound up nearly 40,000 less than in the last election cycle.

Democratic political operatives had said such a high registration target was needed because blacks don’t turnout in nonpresidential elections. Experts estimated they needed 500,000 new black voters in order to get 200,000 to the polls, which proved to be the margin in the Senate and governor’s elections.

Looking ahead, the GOP feels optimistic. Isakson has already printed bumper stickers for his re-election campaign in two years. Rick Allen, who upset Barrow in the 12th congressional district, will have incumbency working for him, and the party held onto the seats of three congressmen who had jumped into the Senate race with Buddy Carter in the 1st, Jody Hice in the 10th and Barry Loudermilk in the 11th.

via Here’s why the GOP won Georgia | The Augusta Chronicle.