SHANNON McCAFFREY
Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA – After a bruising, three-week runoff campaign, voters returned to the polls Tuesday to select a Republican nominee for governor.
The race between former Congressman Nathan Deal and former Secretary of State Karen Handel featured brutal attack ads, dueling endorsements from Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich and tough talk on the campaign trail.
The winner of Tuesday’s runoff will face Roy Barnes, a Democrat running for his old job, in the November general election. The former governor locked up his own party’s nomination in the July 20 primary.
Polls were scheduled to close at 7 p.m. Eastern. Low voter turnout was expected.
Deal, 67, and Handel, 48, entered the runoff with little money, but moved quickly to raise donations and keep supporters fired up. Both candidates wooed voters from south Georgia, which had largely backed other Republicans in the primary.
On the campaign trail, Deal cast Handel as too liberal and said her campaign lacked substance. He also suggested Handel’s lack of a college degree sent the wrong message to Georgia students.
Meanwhile, Handel repeatedly assailed Deal’s ethics and labeled him “a corrupt relic of Washington.” During a televised debate, Handel called on Deal to stop “squealing” about negative attacks and put on “big boy pants.”
In the July primary, Handel and Deal were the top vote-getters in a crowded, seven-person field. Handel drew 34 percent of the vote to Deal’s 23 percent, both falling short of the 50 percent plus one of the vote needed to claim the nomination.
The third- and fourth-place finishers in the race – former state Senate President Pro Tempore Eric Johnson and state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine – did not offer their endorsements.
Deal and Handel did tap national political heavyweights to boost their bids in the campaign’s final days. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin headlined a rally for Handel on Monday in Atlanta. Former presidential contender Mike Huckabee appeared with Deal in Gainesville on Sunday.
A poll conducted in the days before the runoff showed Handel with a slight edge over Deal. The poll by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. showed Handel leading Deal 47 percent to 42 percent with 11 percent of voters undecided.
The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue, who is barred by term limits from seeking office, weighed in over the weekend and said the state’s fractured GOP will need some time to heal after the divisive primary and runoff campaign.
“I think the Republican Party wins with either candidate,” said Perdue, who has stayed neutral in the race.
Elected in 2002, Perdue was Georgia’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction.
Only those who cast a Republican ballot in the state’s July 20 primary or who didn’t vote at all were eligible to vote in Tuesday’s GOP runoff. Those who voted Democratic were barred from casting a Republican ballot in the runoff.
Twenty-two percent of active registered voters in Georgia cast a ballot in the July 20 gubernatorial primary.