2010 Georgia Governor - Deal vs. Barnes

10/10/10 -- Sure enough, Barnes' numbers have remained mired in the low 40s, while Deal is starting to approach 50 percent.  This isn't over by a longshot, but it really looks as if Barnes is just the wrong candidate running in the wrong year.

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From January 12, 1872 through January 12, 2003, Georgia had nothing but Democratic governors. The state didn’t have a Republican base, and Democratic primaries were usually decided on a friends-and-neighbors basis, rather than on the basis of ideological or geographical splits, so the Republican Party had to be built from scratch. And so, the GOP grew in urban Atlanta, spread to suburban Atlanta, and only in 2002 broke through to the rural reaches of the state.

That year, Sonny Perdue ousted Roy Barnes, who had been mentioned as a possible presidential contender. Perdue is term-limited in 2010, and both Republicans and Democrats had high-profile fights for the nomination. For the Democrats, former Governor Barnes is making a comeback bid, and handily defeated Attorney General Thurbert Baker in the primary. On the Republican side, former Secretary of State Karen Handel lost narrowly to Congressman Nathan Deal.

The $64,000 question in the race is Barnes. Most polling has shown Barnes getting about 44 percent of the vote, close to the 46 percent he received in 2002, while the crosstabs tend to show Barnes has already solidified his Democratic base, while independents and Republicans are in flux. This probably leaves the Republicans with the most room for growth. There’s a reasonable chance that, come November, Georgians will ultimately remember why they fired Barnes in the first place (see also Ronnie Musgrove in the 2008 Mississippi Senate race).