Perdue win validates anti-Obama strategy

ATLANTA (AP) - In his bid for the U.S. Senate, Republican David Perdue pressed a one-track strategy of hammering his Democratic opponent as a lackey of President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.<br /> <br /> Michelle Nunn countered with promises of bipartisanship and "common-sense" moderation, casting Perdue as certain to fellow Republicans like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz into government shutdowns and continued gridlock.<br /> <br /> Perdue's strategy prevailed Tuesday in GOP-friendly Georgia. Instead of demographic shifts and an ambitious Democratic turnout effort ushering in a new era of two-party parity, white voters handed Perdue a comfortable victory in what had been forecast as a nail-biter - and possibly a runoff - whose outcome helped determine control of the Senate when the new Congress convenes in January.<br /> <br /> With similar anti-Obama themes helping Republicans sweep nearly every competitive Senate race nationally, Perdue, 64, stands as one of at least seven freshmen in a newfound Senate GOP majority forged by campaigns also anchored with anti-Obama themes.<br /> <br /> The unofficial count showed the former Fortune 500 CEO with 53 percent of more than 2.45 million votes cast, compared to Nunn's 45 percent. Libertarian Amanda Swafford had less than 2 percent. Exit polls suggest Nunn won an overwhelming majority of support from black voters, but won less than three out of 10 white voters, many of whom disapprove of or even despise Obama.<br /> <br /> Perdue called on his campaign strategy one more time Tuesday as he celebrated with supporters.<br /> <br /> "I think Georgia made it loud and clear tonight that we are going to stop the failed policies of President Obama and Sen. Harry Reid," he declared at a hotel in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood.<br /> <br /> The returns also suggest that many Georgia voters have bigger qualms about the president than they do about Perdue's business record. As Perdue and Republicans spent millions calling Nunn a "rubber stamp" for the White House, Nunn and Democrats countered with a deluge of advertising casting Perdue as a wealthy CEO who mistreated his employees and sent jobs overseas.<br /> <br /> Perdue said in an interview that his "grassroots" efforts countered the attacks.<br /> <br /> The first-time candidate will assume office in January.<br /> <br /> "I have a set of priorities that I have talked about for the last year and a half: get after the spending; try to get this economy going by addressing the tax problem, the regulatory problem and our energy problem; and then term limits," he said. "Some of these are not going to be very popular in the Senate, and I recognize that."<br /> <br /> Several miles south at a downtown hotel late Tuesday, Nunn told a more somber crowd that she had no regrets about her effort.<br /> <br /> "At our best, we not only accept the electoral results, but we practice the art of bridge-building and reconciliation, and so I offered David my strongest possible support as he works to unite Georgia and to build bridges across party lines," she told them.<br /> <br /> For Georgia Republicans, Perdue's win comes alongside a convincing win for Gov. Nathan Deal over Democratic challenger Jason Carter and a second consecutive sweep of down-ballot statewide offices from lieutenant governor to labor commissioner.<br /> <br /> Democrats had hoped 2014 would prove Georgia was poised to become a genuine two-party Southern battleground, like Virginia and North Carolina. Voter registration groups collected more than 100,000 applications and national Democrats helped finance an intricate field operation intended to turnout voters.<br /> <br /> Even in defeat, Nunn framed the outcome as a success.<br /> <br /> "We have changed politics in Georgia, not just tonight but for the future," she told supporters. "We have reminded people of what a two-party system looks like."<br /> <br /> But the numbers looked more like the same GOP-dominated landscape, even if it's the same story of Georgia at least being more competitive than other Deep South states where Obama is deeply unpopular among whites.<br /> <br /> A strategy memo from early in the Nunn campaign set a target of 1.38 million votes, and, indeed that likely would have been enough. But she got 1.15 million votes, and the resulting 53-45 percent split almost mirrors Republican Mitt Romney's win over Obama in the state two years ago. It's also not far off of the margin retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss registered in 2002 when he defeated incumbent Max Cleland, a Democrat.<br /> <br /> Nunn's aides said privately that they needed black voters to cast at least 30 percent of all ballots and then get about 30 percent of the white vote. Exit polls suggest she nearly hit the first target but garnered less than a quarter the white vote, a dynamic that was obvious early in the evening when lopsided margins started coming in from rural counties.<br /> <br /> By late in the evening, it became clear that not even strong turnout in the Democratic bastions of Fulton and DeKalb counties could make up the difference.<br /> <br /> "We just didn't make the electorate large enough for us to win," said Nunn's campaign manager, Jeff DiSantis, after his boss had left the stage.