Leading up to Dec. 2nd's run off election, various polls showed Chambliss with a 4-7% lead over Martin. However, these poll results should have been immediately viewed as too optimistic, suggesting that Martin could even get that close. Chambliss had already beaten Martin by 100,000 votes on the Nov. 4th election. The only reason Martin could even challenge Chambiss was because of a high turnout of African American voters. On Nov. 4th African Americans made up 28% of voters, and they voted for Martin 93% to 4%. Make no mistake they primarily turned out to vote in order to elect Obama, which they did by a margin of 98% to 2%, and several of them didn't even bother to vote for a senatorial candidate.
With Obama securely elected as President, Martin had little chance to hope for the same kind of turnout among minority voters. With 99% of precincts reporting, Chambliss's 14% margin of victory should come as no surprise.
1 comment:
Tons of Obama field organizers booked tickets to Georgia to help out Martin, although it wasn't enough. I think the 14% margin is surprising given that the original race was within three percentage points. Runoff elections are all about getting out the vote and I expected the Obama organizers would provide significant support in this regard.
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