SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) – The U.S. House lost its last white Democrat from the Deep South on Tuesday as Rep. John Barrow of Georgia fell to a Republican challenger after serving in Congress for a decade.
Republican businessman Rick Allen denied Barrow re-election to a sixth term in eastern Georgia’s 12th District, with unofficial returns showing Allen with nearly 55 percent of the vote. With Barrow’s defeat, the racial divide between the two political parties in the South grows more pronounced. Now all House Democrats from the five Deep South states – Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina – are black.
Barrow told supporters Tuesday night in Augusta that he tried to find middle ground to break the “culture of gridlock and paralysis” in Washington and put his constituents above Washington partisanship.
“Every time I went to vote, every time I was on the job I tried to do whatever I thought they would want me to do,” Barrow said. “Today they’ve chosen new representation, and I respect that.”
Barrow had been a top target of the national Republican Party since he was first elected in 2004 in an upset victory over GOP Rep. Max Burns. Georgia lawmakers redrew Barrow’s district after the last census to give Republicans a big advantage, requiring Barrow to win crossover support from conservatives.
It was a difficult balancing act. For example, Barrow voted against the Affordable Care Act when President Barack Obama pushed it through Congress in 2010, but he later voted against Republican efforts to repeal the law. Still, Barrow was re-elected in 2012 with nearly the same 55 percent support that Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney received in the district, which includes the cities of Augusta, Statesboro, Vidalia and Dublin.
Barrow tried to win by the same playbook this year. His campaign ads criticized Obama and Washington Democrats while touting Barrow’s endorsement by groups that typically back Republicans, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Rifle Association.
Allen and the National Republican Congressional Committee capitalized on voters’ unhappiness with Washington and hammered Barrow with ads that linked him to Obama. Barrow fought back, but got tripped up by his own words when he declared in a TV commercial: “I don’t vote 85 percent of the time with anybody.” Republicans pointed to a 2012 fundraising memo in which the congressman said: “I have supported the President and the Democratic leadership 85 percent of the time.”
Allen’s campaign pressed its argument that Barrow wasn’t independent, just two-faced.
“He couldn’t really say who he was,” Allen said Tuesday night after Barrow conceded defeat. “And we pretty much identified who we were. I’m a conservative businessman and I know how to create jobs and how to grow the economy.”
Outside groups poured $7.4 million into the race, mostly on attack ads against both Barrow and Allen. Democrats tried to paint Allen as a businessman who enriched himself at taxpayers’ expense, citing $184 million in government contracts awarded to his construction firm over an extended period. Those ads claimed some of Allen’s projects were funded by tax increases – without mentioning the money came from penny sales tax increases approved at the polls by voters.
Voters like Allen McClure, a 64-year-old retired teacher from Statesboro, decided it was time for a change.
“Rick Allen is a fresh face,” McClure said. He called Barrow “a classic politician who’s going to do and say whatever it takes to get re-elected.”