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Georgia governor's race 2010 won't be south of the 'Gnat Line'

August 30, 2010 — It has become conventional wisdom that the race for governor between Republican Nathan Deal and Democrat Roy Barnes will be decided by how voters who live in South Georgia cast their vote. I don’t buy it.

Certainly every vote counts and the area stretching from Macon to the Florida line is important in many ways. But those who have run modern gubernatorial races in Georgia know all too well that the population shift and political changes in this state make metro-Atlanta and the emerging exurban counties the true centerpiece of a victory by either camp. Here are the positives and negatives of this reality for each candidate.

Roy Barnes: It’s true that the change of the Georgia flag which Barnes pushed through during his term in office solidified much of South Georgia into support for the then- relatively unknown GOP candidate Sonny Perdue in 2002. But as early as 1994 Republican candidates for governor had started to take this region in general elections. In 1994 GOP nominee Guy Millner carried virtually every South Georgia county. To be fair, Miller had proposed a flag change as well, but it had long been abandoned.

Barnes’ strategy of traveling again and again across South Georgia may well push his numbers higher, but it is unlikely that he will carry the “below the gnat line” vote - a vote that increasingly makes up less and less of the overall percentage of voters on election day. Suppose Barnes exceeds his 2002 performance in South Georgia by as much as seven points. We are still talking about relatively small counties where even the largest of its metropolitan areas—Savannah/Chatham County—supplied only about 54,000 total votes in the last gubernatorial contest.

Should Barnes shift his strategy and run as a candidate “from metro Atlanta,” he could potentially find political gold in these much larger metro counties where, our polling indicates, the greatest percentage of Georgia’s large contingent of voters who don’t identify with any political party can be found. A 10 percent increase in votes from those areas would make Barnes’ race a potential winner, regardless of a less-than-spectacular performance in South Georgia, where our polling also shows President Obama to be the least popular among white voters.

Any Barnes victory actually hinges on the same scenario which allowed Zell Miller to narrowly avoid defeat to Millner in ’94. That would include a higher-than-expected Barnes performance in his home county of Cobb, a stronger showing in a demographically changing Gwinnett, and carrying more voters than usual for a Democrat in outlying metro counties ranging from Fayette to the south to Paulding to the north and west.

Then of course there is the issue of African-American turnout. Many of the pundits believe Barnes must see an election day in which African-Americans make up at least 25 percent of the total vote in order to have a shot at winning. That is highly unlikely to occur, but then again, the pundits are wrong. If Barnes can push the African-American vote to anything between the 21-22 percent levels, a huge surge among independents in the greater metro-Atlanta area could make the election razor thin. Only then will his efforts “below the gnat line” help.

If anyone doubts my analysis then simply look at the change in the Barnes campaign ads that feature the candidate. Gone is the “Matlock” look and slow southern drawl. Barnes is now in dark suits and when he speaks, he speaks in the more sophisticated/businesslike manner that those who knew him as governor recall. That, my friends. is called going for the independent vote.

Nathan Deal: Ironically Deal - who like Zell Miller, is a north Georgia mountain man - will likely carry the “below the gnat line” vote no matter what tactic Barnes takes. Areas such as Perdue’s own Houston County have shifted massively to the GOP side of the political world in Georgia. Only Southwest Georgia, particularly Albany, remains a stronghold for Democrats in statewide races (Taylor nearly doubled Perdue’s numbers in Dougherty County in 2006). But all of the major centers of voter population in the “gnat line” zone combined barely equal the power of two of the major metro Atlanta counties.

If Deal can hold his own, his strategy is far less dependent on whether he carries a Lowndes county (Valdosta) by 5 percent less than did Perdue when Barnes was defeated in 2002 (we are talking a swing of less than a thousand votes) versus the risk of allowing Barnes to increase his numbers by say 10,000 votes in Cobb, 10,000 in Gwinnett and 15,000 in Fulton over his 2002 levels—not to mention making gains in counties ranging from Fayette to Cherokee. Five percent shifts in these more populous counties to the north would bring much more to the Barnes campaign and, without some of these shifts taking place, Barnes cannot win.

Deal’s secret weapon is the fact that North Georgia, which stubbornly in many areas remained Democratic long after Millner swept much of South Georgia in 1994, has gone solidly GOP. With the perfectly situated home base of Hall County (Gainesville), the crossroads to the more northern counties in the state, Deal could potentially blow the doors off of many of these counties and swamp any “below the gnat line effect” from Macon south.

Deal’s problem is that Barnes has been aggressively on the attack since the day Deal won the nomination. While the Deal campaign works to replenish its coffers, Barnes, like a consistent boxer, has thrown punch after punch in an effort to amplify on the alleged ethics issues brought up by the Karen Handel campaign. What toll this might take on independent voters is hard to say. But unanswered attacks presented in the more reasoned and less bombastic form than Handel’s ad group used, might begin to seep into the political mind of many of these swing voters if Deal fails to punch back hard…and soon.

For Deal, the region “below the gnat line” is icing on the cake in this race. He will almost assuredly carry it in total or at the very least any losses can easily be overcome with North Georgia votes. For Barnes, an increase in “gnat line” performance certainly helps give him a better chance, but it must be followed up by a head-turning effort in suburban and “exurban” Atlanta.

Our poll has this race closer than does other polls. In the end we will be watching for several things including party and demographic intensity/likelihood to vote as well as which candidate can move independent voters … primarily located above the “gnat line.”