ATLANTA (AP) – For Democrats in Georgia, the goal was simple: increase the share of minority voters on Election Day while pulling in more white support than years past.
The results of Tuesday’s election, however, proved a sobering reality. Neither Michelle Nunn nor Jason Carter was able to exceed President Barack Obama’s 45 percent of the vote in 2012 – despite their family connections to rural Democrats who once dominated Georgia politics and an expensive effort to build up the party’s base.
“It was a bad night to be a Democrat,” said GOP strategist Chip Lake, noting Republicans again claimed every statewide office. “Republicans were unified against this president and the direction he’s taken the country.”
Exit polls show Republican David Perdue defeated Nunn for Georgia’s open U.S. Senate seat and Republican Gov. Nathan Deal beat back Carter’s challenge with the help of an electorate that was largely unhappy with the direction of the country and worried about the economy. Perdue also won a whopping 74 percent of the white vote, according to the exit polling conducted for The Associated Press and television networks.
While Democrats sought to expand the electorate and benefit from a large minority registration effort that signed up nearly 120,000 new voters, the number of ballots cast was essentially the same as 2010.