What If They Held A Primary And No One ShowedUp? A Tuesday Night Primer

By Matt Towery
CEO, InsiderAdvantage/Internet News Agency

(7/14/08) I’m more than used to the endless blogs that trash InsiderAdvantage polling, given the fact that we’ve polled hundreds of races over the years.

We’ve pegged upsets like the two McKinney defeats when no one else saw them coming, had John Linder defeating Bob Barr when the other pollsters had Barr the winner, and were the only pollsters to tell folks in 2002 that Perdue and Barnes were in a dead heat.

Same goes for this year’s presidential season, where we correctly called the Obama upset in Iowa, Huckabee’s upset win in Georgia and Clinton’s win in Texas, among others. The problem is, out of hundreds of races, these folks can only find one or two political contests where we did not poll the winner. Well, the record is out there and obviously we know our level of success. What allows us to be accurate is a great staff and a huge budget for polling and research. Now, I’ve gotten it off my chest and did the bragging. Here comes the big CYA!

Everything I noted above just sets me up for a potentially disastrous Tuesday! I can honestly say that this season has been the hardest to poll in Georgia I’ve ever seen. No one seems interested in these primaries, Democrat or Republican. This has required us to create all sorts of trick questions of respondents just to find out if they have the slightest clue about the election and might actually participate.

Let me make it clear, when voter turnout is as low as I believe it will be on Tuesday, anything can and will happen.

Here’s an example. Our survey of the U.S. Senate contest shows former state Rep. Jim Martin leading DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones, but with neither at a level to win without a runoff. Conventional wisdom would lead one to say: yes, that makes sense. Martin has spent a great deal of money on television and generally the candidate on TV wins. But the poll shows that Jones is winning a majority of the African-American vote. And many of the major Democratic contests taking place around the state are in areas where black voters make up a large portion of the electorate.

When we took away the possibility of respondents declaring themselves “undecided -- and nearly a third of the voters said they were undecided -- Martin’s lead increased, but so too did Jones’. Neither was at 50 percent.

But with turnout likely to be so crazy this year, I can see any number of scenarios in the Senate race and any number of other contests.

In the Democratic Senate battle, I think a straight-up win for either Jones or Martin is unlikely. But key races in communities where African American voters comprise a majority of the vote (Fulton County sheriff, DeKalb County CEO, state Senate in Augusta) could put Jones in the driver’s seat, perhaps even giving him a win without a runoff.

Then there are the other candidates. If metro Atlanta votes heavier, does that boost Dale Cardwell because of his past name identification from his days in television? Add to that his endorsement by the Macon newspaper. And what about Rand Knight. He has the endorsement of teachers. Will they turn out and vote and shake the thirty percent “undecided” his way?

Finally there is the Republican factor. There is little, if any, case for Republicans in Fulton or DeKalb to pick up a GOP ballot. With such low turnout, will they influence a Democratic race? We don’t know.

And what if Jones makes it into a runoff? Yes, the D.C. crowd wants Martin, but the most likely areas where runoff elections will be held will be in places like DeKalb and Fulton, where again African American voters will make up a majority of the vote. The now-infamous Jones mailer with Jones and Barack Obama on it may prove to have been much smarter than the pundits thought. And if Jones gets the nomination, Jones’ comment about Obama needing him may prove more than true.

Who knows. It’s a crazy election year. One thing we do know is that Saxby Chambliss, to his credit, is taking the race very seriously. He’s raised lots of money and he won’t be the typical GOP candidate who just assumes the state is Republican. That alone will make him more formidable.

As an aside, I watched the Democratic Senate debates and must admit that I was impressed by every single one of the candidates. They seemed sharp and credible.

I do suspect that Tuesday will be a night of either upsets or runoffs for some incumbents.

Usually when the public seems this disengaged, the folks who dislike an incumbent are more motivated to vote than those who like the person in office. I’m not saying we will see a boatload of upsets, but I do think some races will much tighter than folks think.

Based on some late minute polling I expect Lauren “Bubba” McDonald to win his PSC race and Doug Everett to be reelected as well.

We are making our list of the more compelling contests around the state. So on Tuesday you can follow Dick Pettys’ expert reports on InsiderAdvantage, and then join me and the WSB-TV news team as we provide what I promise will be an interesting hour of coverage starting at 11:00 PM.

Best of luck to all of the candidates and congratulations for, as I say, “wearing the pads and playing the game.”