Karen Handel and Nathan Deal are the names most likely recognized by voters going to the polls today in Georgia’s primary runoff election, but their race for the GOP nomination for governor is not the only one on the ballot. Northwest Georgians will have to choose between Tom Graves and Lee Hawkins for the District 9 seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. There are runoffs for other state and local offices, as well. None, however, match the vitriol emanating from the Handel-Deal battle.
Handel, a former Georgia secretary of state, and Deal, a former congressman, emerged from a crowded field in July to win runoff spots. They’ve been moving to the political right ever since. Both have extolled their own conservative virtues and policies, and each has accused the other of lacking the proper conservative credentials. It remains to be seen if voters approve of such tactics.
Both Handel and Deal have trotted out heavyweights to support them. Sarah Palin, vice presidential nominee on the GOP’s 2008 ticket, stumped for Handel on Monday, telling crowds that a vote for Handel would show the “good old boy” network that there is a better way to govern. Palin is influential.
Many analysts believe Handel’s first-place finish in the July election was due, in part, to Palin’s highly visible support. The Deal campaign is not without its own high-powered GOP stars. Mike Huckabee, the former GOP presidential candidate, stumped for him on Sunday. Newt Gingrich has publicly backed his candidacy. Those endorsements carry weight in heavily conservative Georgia, too. The voters, of course, will decide which of the candidacies is most to their liking.
The winner faces Roy Barnes, a former governor and a formidable campaigner who won the Democratic nomination, in November.
The Graves-Hawkins race has been as bruising as the governor’s battle, but on a smaller scale. Today is the fourth time the duo has been paired on the ballot. They’ve faced off in a special election to fill the remainder of Deal’s term, in the runoff from that election, again in the election for a full term for Deal’s seat and now in the runoff from the latter. The winner today has no Democratic opposition in the November election.
Other runoffs are on today’s ballot as well. Democrats will choose a candidate for secretary of state. Republicans will name candidates for attorney general and commissioner of insurance. Winners face opposition in November.
There are local races – for Catoosa County Commission and for the board of education in Whitfield, Murray and Gordon counties – on the runoff ballot as well.
Runoffs typically do not attract the number of voters as general elections, but they are nonetheless important. Runoffs, like all elections, provide the chance for voters to participate positively in democratic government. They should not forfeit the chance to do so.