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A dead heat in Georgia: How the Peach State could be in play

June 19, 2008 — There are things no poll can measure at this stage in a presidential election campaign. What a poll can show is where the candidates stand in relation to each at the starting gun, and the latest InsiderAdvantage/PollPosition survey puts the race in Georgia in a dead heat as it begins.

That in itself is a huge shift from four years ago, when John Kerry never seriously challenged George W. Bush in Georgia. We can officially mark this week as the opening of the general election campaign in Georgia, because Barack Obama will be on the air Friday with the state’s first general election television ad. It’s part of an 18-state throwdown, meant to challenge John McCain very early in territory, like Georgia, North Carolina and Indiana, that Republicans haven’t had to fight very hard for in recent elections.

One thing this poll can’t reflect is how many and which of these Red State battlegrounds Obama will spend money to contest this fall, if the race tightens. Bush got 58 percent in Georgia in 2004, which ought to give pause to the Obama strategists. On the other hand, Obama’s winning percentage in the Georgia Presidential Primary was one point more than what he got in Illinois.

Obama’s campaign has shown a willingness to take Georgia seriously. Not only is the Democratic presidential candidate up on TV, he’s on the radio in the 12^th District in an ad for 12^th District Democratic Rep. John Barrow. It’s hard to imagine a Georgia Democrat in a Congressional race four years ago asking John Kerry to cut a radio spot.

This poll gives Democrats the split they’re looking for to seriously contest the state. A quarter of the white vote, plus an increase in African-American participation, plus a better than 5 percent showing by Libertarian home stater Bob Barr, would put Obama very close to McCain if the same balance held in the fall.

Another factor that can’t be measured at this stage is the continued effectiveness of the Republicans’ 72-hour turnout operation, something of a misnomer because it actually involves a very sophisticated model for broaden Republican turnout at every stage from early voting to election day.

Will McCain get Georgia Republicans fired up enough, or Obama get them frightened enough, to work as enthusiastically as they did in 2000 and 2004? That’s a big unknown.

But here’s an even bigger one: What payoff will the Democrats get from their voter registration efforts in which they’ve already invested some significant fieldwork?

The GOP turnout operation, even if we assume it’s going to show up, is a known quantity. The potential for a sharp increase in turnout among African-American and younger voters, is not yet known. Democrats have thrown around estimates with lots of zeros attached, but getting first-time voters to the polls is a lot more difficult than getting them registered to vote.

If Obama can add these new – and in this survey unpolled – voters, he could change the basic arithmetic of Georgia presidential politics. If not, this could be an election day in Georgia with more suspense but the same result as the last three. What this poll says is that it could go either way.