WUGA's Grady College Intern Alex Vanden Heuvel has prepared several, in-depth assessments of key races in the Georgia July 24 Primary Runoff. WUGA's Martin Matheny will host primary runoff returns in these and other races Tuesday evening beginning at 7pm. Tune into 91.7 and 94.5 FM.
Voters may be glad for a brief rest from political campaigning before the November general election campaigns begin in earnest, but unfortunately for those who are sick of politics, Georgia has several key statewide races that will be campaigning throughout July for the July 24 runoff election. In accordance with Georgia election law, if a major party candidate does not earn over 50% of the vote in his or her primary, the candidate is forced into a runoff with the second place candidate.
Along with a small handful of state legislature runoffs in both parties, Republicans in Georgia have runoffs in the three highest ranking statewide offices, while Democrats have one statewide runoff and two Congressional nomination runoffs in competitive Atlanta-area seats:
Republican Governor
The biggest race in July will be the runoff for the Republican nomination for Governor to determine who will face Democrat Stacey Abrams.
Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle came in first from the May primaries, with 39% of the vote. He’ll be facing Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who earned about 25.5% of the vote.
Cagle has largely campaigned as an experienced and qualified successor to outgoing Governor Nathan Deal, while Kemp has cast himself as a conservative outsider in a series of memorable and controversial television ads. Cagle came in first thanks in large part to his strong showing with voters in the Atlanta metro core counties as well as the I-985 corridor going through Cagle’s hometown of Gainesville and extending to the border with North Carolina. He also did well in regional hub cities and their surrounding areas in places like Columbus, Augusta, Albany, Rome, and Savannah. Kemp tended to do much better in more rural areas, especially those around his home in Athens. He won a block of 14 counties extending from Newton and Butts in the southeastern Atlanta metro area through Clarke County to Elbert and Lincoln on the border with South Carolina.
Locally, he won over 50% of the vote in Clarke and Oconee while narrowly losing in Jackson and Barrow. Kemp also won 16 counties in south Georgia, particularly in the southeastern region around Camden County.
The biggest story of this race has been the secret recordings of a May 24 conversation between Casey Cagle and Clay Tippins, which Tippins subsequently leaked to the press; Kemp’s campaign also released a second part of the recording later on in the race. In the recording, Cagle admitted to supporting “bad public policy” to prevent the candidate that ultimately placed third, Hunter Hill, from receiving significant support in the race. A major strategic component of this race is winning over voters from the three eliminated candidates. Hunter Hill came in third, earning over 18% of the vote; he did well in the Atlanta metro area and coastal Georgia. Clay Tippins came in fourth with just over 12%, coming in second or third in many of the counties in the Atlanta and Macon areas. Finally, Michael Williams got 5% of the vote, doing well in northern Georgia and getting about 10% of the vote in his home of Forsyth County.
Kemp would in particular be well served by picking up as many of the three candidate’s voters as he can to bolster his weaker numbers in the Atlanta metro area. The good news for Kemp is that he has been endorsed by Hill and Tippins has said that he is against Cagle (even though the recording leaks would be evidence enough of this). Williams is also ideologically more similar to Kemp than Cagle, so Kemp can probably count on these voters to switch as well.
Cagle will be bolstered by his initial lead, his strong fundraising numbers, and the fact that he has been endorsed by Governor Nathan Deal, one of the most popular governors in the country by approval rating. But his struggles during the primary and the runoff have caught up with him. Even worse for Cagle, President Donald Trump endorsed Brian Kemp on Twitter on July 18; Trump’s endorsement has been a major factor in GOP primaries thus far.
One warning sign for Cagle could be his election day turnout numbers from the primary, which indicate a possible lag in voter enthusiasm. In his stronger counties like Fulton, Cobb, Muscogee, Richmond, and other urban or suburban counties, Cagle usually ending up losing around 3 or 4 percentage points on election day compared to his proportion of the early vote, where the other candidates usually increased in their share of votes on election day. In exurban and rural counties, it is even more pronounced, with Cagle losing as much as 9 or 10 percentage points on election day. Part of this could be chalked up to Cagle’s popularity amongst Republican voters over 65 or under 30 in the polls, but that can’t account for it all. Polling over the period of this primary runoff has seen Cagle’s lead diminish as Kemp climbs, with the most recent one showing Kemp ahead for the first time in the race.
A poll conducted by the UGA School of Public and International Affairs from July 5 to July 12, had Kemp at 44 percent and Cagle at 41 percent.
Ultimately, this race will probably fall along a rural versus urban paradigm. A Cagle win could very well result in him winning the 25 or so most populated counties in Georgia while Kemp wins the other 125 plus. A Kemp win will require energized turnout in rural areas, which is possible given the numbers shown in the May primaries; he’ll also need to do a little better in suburban areas.
Even though Cagle had a healthy lead in the first round, this race is by no means a cakewalk.
Republican Lieutenant Governor
Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth) barely missed the 50% benchmark to avoid a runoff, earning 48.9% of the vote statewide. In the other runoff slot, Rep. Geoff Duncan (R-Cumming), scraped by former Sen. Rick Jeffares (R-McDonough). Jeffares’ strong performance in his former district’s counties (Henry, Newton, and Butts) and Southeast Georgia in counties along the Altamaha River like Telfair, Wheeler, and Toombs could not compensate for Duncan’s slightly better numbers in the Atlanta metro area as well as Duncan’s strong numbers in his home base of Forsyth County.
While Shafer’s leadership roles in the Georgia Senate and his more moderate platform made him the favorite of many elected officials and party figures, Duncan’s aggressive outsider messaging carved out a niche for him in the race. Shafer’s numbers exceeded 50% in the Atlanta metro area and other more urbanized areas with more white-collar GOP voters, including counties around Athens, Savannah, and Columbus. Shafer’s numbers lagged in northern Georgia, where Duncan usually did better, and in the Augusta area moving southward, where Jeffares tended to do better. In Clarke County specifically, Shafer 55.3% of the vote. He earned roughly 54% in Oconee, Oglethorpe, and Madison counties, and almost hit 60% in Barrow and Jackson counties.
Due to the fact that Shafer was already a percentage point off from winning outright, he has the upper hand heading into the runoff. If turnout drops in rural areas, the result would push Shafer north of 50% even without any Jeffares voters switching over; and Shafer is already in a good position to pick up Jeffares’ voters in the southern counties in Atlanta’s metro area, due to the fact that Jeffares has endorsed Shafer. Shafer has also been endorsed by former gubernatorial candidate Michael Williams, whose district in the state senate essentially covered Forsyth County completely. This may be a good boon for Shafer, because Williams’ voters may have otherwise voted for Duncan by default as the other hometown candidate. That being said, Duncan has persisted in the polls as the race has progressed.
Rosetta Stone Communications conducted a survey of likely Republican runoff voters on June 7th, where Duncan was down in a poll against Shafer 19 percent to 46 percent. In the poll conducted by UGA SPIA for the AJC, Shafer was at 35.4 percent and Duncan was at 31.4 percent. If Duncan can continue to capture momentum, and if Kemp wins his runoff, there is a significant chance that Duncan could come out on top.
If Cagle wins, Shafer will almost certainly win as well. Kemp and Duncan tend to share voters, as do Cagle and Shafer. The first pairing has voters that tend to live in exurban or rural areas, and tend to be more socially conservative, whereas the second pairing draws better numbers for suburban and urban areas where Republican voters tend to be more focused on economic issues.
The GOP Gubernatorial runoff could very well impact the outcome of this race. If Brian Kemp wins on the back of heavy rural turnout, Duncan could win by taking advantage of that and by picking up almost all of Jeffares rural and exurban support, which is a long shot given Jeffares’ endorsement of Shafer.
If Casey Cagle stays in front by taking advantage of higher turnout in urban and suburban areas, Shafer will be in a very strong position to win. Whoever wins faces Democrat Sarah Riggs Amico, a business executive from Cobb County, in November.
Republican Secretary of State
Of the three Republican runoffs, this race features the closest first round margin between the first place finisher and the second place finisher.
In first place was Rep. Brad Raffensperger (R-Johns Creek), who earned roughly 35% of the vote in the first round. In the runoff he faces David Belle Isle, the former Mayor of Alpharetta who received about 28.5% of the vote. Belle Isle saw his strongest support in Fulton and Forsyth Counties, along with strong numbers in the Augusta area, the coastal counties, and the Highway 84 corridor running from Bainbridge to Valdosta. In these areas, he usually earned over 40% of the vote as opposed to the low 30s or 20s seen in other parts of the state. Raffensperger’s best numbers were seen in an arc across the state roughly following Highway 129/441. From Georgia’s border with North Carolina through Athens, onto Macon and Warner-Robbins, and ending in Albany, he earned between 40%-50% of the vote in virtually every county. Raffensberger also did well in the western metro Atlanta area in Cobb, Douglas, Paulding and Carroll counties. In Clarke County and all of the surrounding counties, he got at least 44% of the vote, with a 49% high mark in Oconee and Madison counties.
The game in the second round could be winning over voters left over from Sen. Josh McKoon (R-Columbus) and Rep. Buzz Brockway (R-Lawrenceville), who finished with 21% and 15% of the vote, respectively. In particular, McKoon’s number were very strong in the counties ranging from the southern portion of the Atlanta metro area to Columbus. For example, in Columbus-Muscogee County, McKoon earned almost 70% of the vote; he won 11 counties in a stretch from Coweta County to Stewart County, which is around a 45 minute drive south of Columbus. The interesting twist is that Brockway was seemingly the most centrist candidate, and McKoon was probably considered to be the most right-wing option. How will Belle Isle and Raffensperger distinguish themselves to win over the Brockway and McKoon voters? One policy difference between the two comes down to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Chris Christie v. NCAA, which ruled that there can be no federal ban on states permitting gambling.
One lesser-known duty of the Secretary of State in Georgia is to serve as the boxing commissioner. In a statement given to GeorgiaPol.com, Belle Isle opposed legalizing gambling or making Georgia more friendly gambling-centered sports like boxing and horse racing. In response to the same question from GeorgiaPol, Raffensperger also opposed casino gambling, but said that he would be open to boxing if the free market created an economic opportunity.
The Rosetta Stone Poll on June 7 had Raffensberger with a healthy lead at 41.5 percent with Belle Isle at 24.4 percent. The Secretary of State runoff doesn’t fall on the lines with Kemp and Cagle as neatly as the Lieutenant Governor’s runoff does, so the winner of this race will be less dependent on those other races. Time will tell if Raffensberger can use his initial lead from the first round to launch himself through the runoff. Given that both are from neighboring cities in northern Fulton County, what strategies will they undertake to appeal to rural voters in order to win the primary?
Whoever wins will also need to work that angle in the general election, because he’ll face former Congressman John Barrow in the general election, who represented a large portion of rural eastern Georgia in Congress.
Democratic State School Superintendent.
This race is the only race that Athens-area Democrats are eligible to vote in, and it could come down to which candidate does a better job turning out their supporters from the first round.
Because this lower ballot race is the only statewide runoff for Democrats, the outcome is going to be heavily influenced by other local runoffs going on in certain parts of the state, because turnout outside of those areas will most likely be very low compared to the May 22 election.
Coming in first place was Otha Thornton, a consultant and military contractor from Bryan County. Among other things, Thornton served as the President of the National Parent Teacher Association from 2013 to 2015 and was awarded a Bronze Star for his actions as an U.S. Army officer during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He earned roughly 44% of the vote in the first round, doing particularly well in the coastal counties around his home and areas with a higher percentage of black voters voting in the Democratic primary, such as Southwestern Georgia and the Augusta area.
Thornton will be facing Dr. Sid Chapman in the runoff. Chapman worked as a teacher for several years before becoming the President of the Georgia Association of Educators, which is an advocacy and professional organization for teachers in Georgia. He earned about 36.5% of the vote in the first round, his areas of strength being northern Georgia and central Georgia, where white voters make a higher percentage of the Democratic voting bloc. His connections from the GAE also seemingly paid off to create a strong base for him to work from, because he also won some rural counties with larger percentages of black voters such as Washington and Wilkinson counties, where Thornton would have been expected to do better if the trends held across the board, as well as additional counties heading into Southeastern Georgia.
Thornton and Chapman were within striking distance of each other in the metro Atlanta area, and that’s where things become really interesting. Even though Thornton earned more votes in Cobb and Fulton counties as a whole, there is a clear dividing line where Chapman does better. For example, in Fulton County Chapman won the vast majority of precincts starting in the whiter, affluent Atlanta neighborhood of Buckhead and continued his winning streak in precincts throughout the Sandy Springs corridor and North Fulton, where there are more white Democrats. On the other hand, Thornton won almost every precinct south of Buckhead going into Atlanta itself and Southern Fulton County, where cities like College Park, South Fulton, Union City, and Fairburn have majority African-American populations.
A similar trend is noticeable in Cobb County, where Chapman wins virtually every precinct in East Cobb, while Thornton won most of the precincts in cities like Smyrna, Mableton, and Marietta that have larger African-American communities than East Cobb. Clarke County itself was split down the middle. Chapman won Clarke County by just 28 votes over Thornton. Chapman won Jackson, Oconee, and Oglethorpe Counties while Thornton won Barrow and Madison Counties.
All of the Athens-area counties were decided by a single digit percentage margin, making Northeastern Georgia a sort of swing area in this race. Just like in the northern Atlanta suburbs, Clarke County precincts with higher proportions of black voters tended to be more favorable for Thornton, while whiter precincts trended towards Chapman. The twist here comes with what runoffs are occurring for Democrats, and where those runoffs are located.
There are two Congressional runoffs: in the Sixth District between Lucy McBath and Kevin Abel to determine who will face Rep. Karen Handel, and in the Seventh District between Carolyn Bordeaux and David Kim to see who will challenge Rep. Rob Woodall in November. The Sixth District covers East Cobb, North Fulton, and Northern DeKalb, which is an area that Chapman did very well in; the Seventh District includes southern Forsyth County and Northern Gwinnett, and also has a lot of precincts with higher numbers of white Democrats. The Sixth District’s population is only around 15% black, compared to the state population of 31%, while the Seventh District’s population is only about 21% black according to 2010 Census data.
Another mark in Chapman’s favor is that his work with the GAE makes him more familiar with teachers and teacher’s organizations throughout Georgia, who are organized and much more likely to come out and vote in the State Superintendent runoff than the typical voter.
Can Thornton use his lead in the first round to his benefit and turnout his voters again, despite the fact that many of them will have nothing else to vote on in the runoff? Or will Chapman be able to ride the coattails of higher turnout in areas that he did well in? The winner will face incumbent State Superintendent Richard Woods of Tifton in the general election.
The runoff election day is July 24, and early voting begins July 2. It is too late to register to vote in the any of the races, with the deadlines for both statewide and federal races being in the early summer.
