By GottaLaff
Bleh:
Georgia Election Results
Unofficial And Incomplete Results of the Tuesday,
December 02, 2008
General Election Runoff
63% of precincts reporting :
| Chambliss (R) 778,004 | Martin (D) 505,484 | Totals 1,283,488 |
| 60.6% | 39.4% | 100.0% |
By GottaLaff
There is a major caveat, as you'll see in paragraph two:
The final Public Policy Polling survey in Georgia's U.S. Senate runoff finds "overwhelming support from white voters" likely to result in the reelection of Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) over challenger Jim Martin (D), 53% to 46%.
A big caveat: "Polling a special election is hard. You usually don't have a lot of precedent to base turnout projections on, and that makes it difficult to figure out ahead of time what the electorate is going to look like. Polling a special election over a holiday weekend is even harder. People are out of town, at the mall, and generally just harder to reach than usual."
The run off election is tomorrow.
By GottaLaff
If Barack Obama isn't coming to rain-soaked Georgia, his ground organization is very much here. In addition to the existing Georgia organizing infrastructure that has stayed on board, at least fifty outside organizers showed up in Georgia within a few days of November 4. The mission: to help Democrat Jim Martin in his U.S. Senate runoff against incumbent Saxby Chambliss. More organizers arrive each day. They're young -- but they're veterans -- and they've jumped right in.This is what we wanted to hear. Thank you, Sean Quinn of 538.
In other parts of the country, including northern and southern California, Obama organizers run phone banks into Georgia on Martin's behalf.
At the human level, there is almost a wistful, gravitational pull for many of these organizers in returning to a race. To work on the Obama campaign, these folks had to disconnect from their previous lives. [...]I love these people. I want to marry them. All of them.
While the pride is evident, conversations with many of these organizers reveals a strange sense of feeling lost, untethered from an all-consuming routine. So when organizers hear other organizers are coming to Georgia, it's a form of therapeutic reunion for many, much like a reunion of military veterans. Unless you've been through it, it's hard to explain.
The Martin campaign has 25 field offices in the state, which is the same number of offices Chambliss has. We visited the Savannah offices Friday night and yesterday, and the organizing edge goes to Martin. On Friday night, the Chambliss office was open but empty, and a couple of dialers worked on Saturday around noon.So what's the latest on the early voting?
Whatever turns out to be the case, at the close of early voting Wednesday, according to the Secretary of State's office 345,564 had voted, and 22.5% of those votes were African-American, an ominous dropoff from the 34.5% of black early voters for the general election.Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease.
Still, according to Georgia Democratic Party spokesman Martin Matheny, thousands of volunteers were hard at work across the state knocking doors in the rain and making phone calls on Jim Martin's behalf. The lines on Election Day will be much shorter than during the general election, given the much shorter ballot, and Democrats here think that most of its voters are going to turn out on Runoff Day itself.
By GottaLaff
The latest Research 2000 poll in the Georgia U.S. Senate run off shows Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) with a six point lead over Jim Martin (D), 52% to 46%.What happened to GOTV? This is not good news.
Key finding: "Research 2000 is speculating that the likely-voter model for the runoff election will be substantially different from the turnout model for the November election...if poll respondents mirrored those who voted on Election Day, the race would be a lot closer. However, the pollster is figuring that a lot of voters -- African-Americans in particular -- who voted for Obama in the general election will stay at home for the runoff."
By GottaLaff
(This is a really short video, about 25 seconds)
Oh that Saxby, always causing a ruckus. He's probably just upset about his name.
Here's another, slightly longer video (h/t: Jon Lester) to give you some background:Facing a runoff election in a few weeks — and recently hit with a subpoena to testify about his ties to the sugar company whose refinery exploded in February, killing 14 — the Georgia Republican has turned his frustration on the media, giving a light shove to a cameraman yesterday who appears to get to close to the embattled senator.
The Democrats are hoping to make the subpoena (not to mention the shove) an issue in Chambliss’s Dec. 2 runoff against Democratic challenger Jim Martin — which, by the way, can’t come quickly enough.
Wouldn't it be nice to pull Chambliss' seat out from under him?
In Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes the first day of early voting for the run off between Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Jim Martin (D) began yesterday with elections officials "across the region reporting steady voting -- and, in some places, lines."
In Minnesota, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports Al Franken (D) wants erroneously rejected absentee ballots to be counted in the state's official tally, which will be certified today. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) leads Franken by 215 votes. A manual recount is scheduled to begin Wednesday.
In Alaska, the Anchorage Daily News notes the vote count begins again with approximately 24,000 left. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) trails challenger Mark Begich (D) by 1022 votes.
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