Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidates Karen Handel and Nathan Deal have 19 days to convince voters they should be the Peach State’s next chief executive.
If the run-up to Tuesday’s primary was any indication, their runoff contest could get pretty negative.
That battle may help former Gov. Roy Barnes, the Democratic nominee. He won Tuesday’s vote with about 66 percent of the vote and didn’t run a single negative TV ad in the process.
“The fact that Republicans are going to have a battle royale for the next three weeks where they are going to bloody each other up, that works to Roy’s advantage,” said Dr. Charles Bullock, a University of Georgia political science professor.
Republicans say no matter what, Mr. Barnes faces a tough sell in Georgia. He lost the governor’s race in 2002 to Republican Sonny Perdue.
“The conventional wisdom is that these runoffs run up your negatives and tear the candidates down, but that’s not always the case,” said Brian Robinson, Mr. Deal’s spokesman. “The runoff allows the majority of Republicans to pick the best candidate to beat Roy Barnes in November.”
In a new Rasmussen poll conducted a day after the primary, in a hypothetical match-up, Mr. Barnes gets 44 percent of the vote if Ms. Handel is the Republican nominee and 43 percent if Mr. Deal is his opponent. Ms. Handel earns 45 percent of the vote against Mr. Barnes while Mr. Deal picks up 49 percent.
But that’s fresh off the Republicans’ highly publicized campaign, before they meet again in debates and unleash their runoff advertising blitzes.
Mr. Deal and Ms. Handel are due at their first two-person debate Saturday in Dalton, Ga., and their spokespeople are each predicting negativity from the other side.
“Nathan Deal ran an extremely negative campaign in the primary, so you can assume he will engage in more of the same,” said Handel spokesman Dan McLagan.
Mr. Deal’s spokesman says the Handel camp is guilty of going negative, too.
“Going back more than a year, her message has been a purely negative message,” Mr. Robinson said. “You have to be negative when you don’t have any ideas.”
Mr. Barnes’ campaign didn’t engage in the back-and-forth about who benefits from the runoff.
“The focus of Roy’s campaign has not changed with the results of Tuesday night,” spokesman Chris Carpenter said. “He continues to campaign throughout Georgia about jobs, education and transportation.”