SAVANNAH - Gubernatorial candidates Roy Barnes and Nathan Deal spent the final Friday before Election Day trolling for votes along the state's 100-mile coast, a region where Barnes, the Democrat, carried when he won the 1998 governor's race but where Republicans have since gained momentum.
About 70 supporters joined Barnes in Savannah for a rally Friday beneath the gnarled oaks in Johnson Square - the same spot where Deal stumped for votes just two days earlier.
"This election is going to be very close - one vote in every precinct in Georgia could be the difference," said Barnes, who's seeking a comeback as governor after losing the job to Sonny Perdue in 2002. "I need you, I want you and I've got to have you."
Deal, meanwhile, headed to St. Simons Island with other Republican candidates for a meet-and-greet shrimp boil for football fans headed to the Georgia-Florida football game Saturday.
Deal's campaign argues the former GOP congressman has pulled ahead of Barnes. Deal spokesman Brian Robinson said Friday the biggest challenge will be finishing above 50 percent to avoid a runoff because of a third candidate on the ballot, Libertarian John Monds.
"In a race where we are looking to get a majority because of a 3rd party, that's where it could provide the cushion for us," Robinson said of the Georgia coast.
University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock said Barnes needs to perform well Tuesday in the six-county coastal region to challenge Deal in an election cycle where Republicans are favored to make gains nationally because of voter angst at Democrats in Washington.
In past elections, Georgia's coastal counties - Chatham, Bryan, Liberty, McIntosh, Glynn and Camden - have accounted for nearly 5 percent of the statewide total.
It's a diverse region both racially and in terms of industry with two booming seaports, a lucrative tourism trade and large military bases, as well as jobs dependent on fishing and agriculture.
By the numbers, neither political party has a lock on the coast. Barnes beat GOP opponent Guy Millner by more than 5,000 votes here when the Democrat won his gubernatorial election in 1998.
Four years later, Republican Sonny Perdue narrowly won the coastal counties by a scant 124 votes, though Perdue's coastal margin in 2006 jumped sizably to 19,000 votes over Democratic Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor.
"What you're seeing is the shift that saw the state turning red" as Republicans dominated Georgia politics over the past decade, Bullock said. "If Democrats can't do better in South Georgia to add to the urban votes they're getting, they're not going to win."
Republicans aren't taking anything for granted. It's been a long, bruising campaign and Barnes has repeatedly accused Deal of ethical lapses and business deals that sank him deep into financial debt. Deal has fired back, saying Barnes, an attorney, has profited from legal cases argued before judges the Democrat appointed as governor.
"It's going to be a close vote," said Frank Murray, GOP chairman for Chatham County. "Normally everybody says it isn't going to matter what happens here because it's all decided up around Atlanta. But this is one time that the coastal area is important. It's going to be a close vote."
Chatham County Democratic chairman Tony Center says his party's supporters are working hard to energize voters for Barnes and other Democrats on Tuesday's ballot.
But Center says Democrats aren't feeling the same excitement they did when President Barack Obama ran two years ago. He said the question for Barnes will be how much those voters get fired up - "whether it's the pilot light or a big flame."
"We've been working eight hours a day, phone banking and going door-to-door," Center said. "Every group that leans Democratic, every one of them are out there trying to figure out how do we get these people to vote."
The coast is far from both candidates' home bases north of Atlanta, but Deal may have an edge in terms of support from two coastal Republicans who were his rivals for the governor's office in the GOP primary - Eric Johnson of Savannah and Jeff Chapman of Brunswick.
Johnson, former GOP leader of the state Senate, has helped Deal raise money in southeast Georgia and tried to rally support for him through online social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
"I don't think there's any doubt this year that Nathan's going to run well in coastal Georgia," Johnson said.
Friday
October 11th, 2024
6:28PM
