Introduction
Georgia is a state located on the South East of the United States. The state was founded in 1732 as the thirteenth British Colony and derives its name from King George II of England (Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States. 2007). The state entered the union in 1778. Georgia is one of the biggest states in the United States south and its importance to the south has often been equated to the importance of New York to the North East. Atlanta is the biggest city in Georgia and is, in fact, the capital of the state (Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States. 2007). It houses most of the Georgia’s government and administration offices. Georgia has taken part in all the nation’s presidential election except the 1864 election, a time when the state had seceded from the national union together with several southern states (Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States. 2007).
Georgia has a population of around 9, 992, 167 million people which is the 9th highest in the nation (Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States. 2007). Being the 9th most populous state, the political importance of Georgia cannot be underrated. Presidential candidates know that Georgia has a lot of influence on the South and win there would enormously affect the final elections outcome. The state is home to a lot of conservatives and this is a characteristic that has huge political ramifications as the popular vote is usually towards conservative policies and candidates advancing conservative agendas (Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States. 2007).
Georgia as a state has a relatively minimal ethnic diversity with most of the people living in the state being either black or white. Most of the Caucasians living in the state are of Scot-Irish or English Descent (Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States. 2007). The number of people in Georgia who are foreign born has been increasing drastically from the 1990’s with most of them settling in the urban centers like Atlanta. However, the number of black people in Georgia relatively declined from the 1880’s to the 1990’s but recent years have seen the number of blacks living in the state start to rise and currently, blacks make up about 30% of the population (Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States. 2007). Atlanta is particularly a center for black excellence, with large black-owned businesses being located in this city. The city also elected its first black Mayor in 1973. The other minor ethnic group that makes up the population of Georgia is the Latinos who make up around 7% of the population (Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States. 2007).
When it comes to senatorial elections, the state has exhibited orientation towards the Republican Party once again just as the presidential elections. This was, for example, exhibited in the Senate elections held in the State in the year 2008. In this election, the incumbent senator Saxby Chambliss, a Republican first elected into the Senate in 2002 was seeking for a second term. He faced the challenge of a Democratic candidate, Jim Martin and another candidate, Allen Buckle, who was Libertarian. In the first vote, none of the two principal candidates, that is, Chambliss and Duke won a majority vote and the two, therefore, had to go for a runoff that Chambliss ultimately won.
The same trend was repeated in the Senate elections that took place in the state in 2010. This time, it was the other incumbent Republican senator, Johnny Isakson who was seeking for re-election. The other candidates were Mike Thurmond, a Democrat and Chuck Donovan, a Libertarian. This was a particularly interesting election as Thurmond was attempting to become the first African American senator from Georgia. The race was however won by Isakson. This meant that once again, Georgia had two Republican senate representatives, therefore, showing the state’s dominant orientation towards the Republican Party.
Georgia did not hold any senate elections in 2012 as both its senators were still serving their six-year terms. The State is however bound to hold senate elections this year.
The 2014 election promises to be a hotly contested election, and there are various factors that are bound to influence the outcome of the race.
Demographic wise, Georgia is currently at a tipping point (Cardenas, V., & Kelley, n.d). As mentioned earlier, the colored population in the state has been steadily increasing and the state is in fact one of the only 13 states in the US where people of color make up more than 40% of the population with blacks comprising about 31.5%, Hispanics comprising 8.8% and Asian Americans comprising 3.8% (Cardenas, V., & Kelley, n.d). The other crucial demographic trend that is likely to have an influence on the oncoming Senate elections is the large generation gap currently being experienced in the state. This is particularly in regard to race where data shows that the number of non-Caucasian youths is catching up with the number of Caucasian youths (Cardenas, V., & Kelley, n.d).
The demographic changes being experienced in the state are hugely shaping the state’s electorate especially in regard to the number of minority voters who are slowly rising steadily. For instance, blacks in Georgia made up 30% of all the eligible voters in the state of Georgia in 2008 while nationally, the percentage of black voters was only 12. This is likely to influence the 2014 election especially given that recent polls show a majority of the black electorate will vote for a Democratic nominee.
Economic matters will also play a hand. Issues of unemployment have continued to devastate the state. It is, therefore, quite likely that the candidate who advances the best policies in regard to issues such as these will have a better shot at clinching the coveted seat. In addition, the division of wealth and the relative contribution of each community to the state’s economy will also have an influence on the impending election. It has been shown that people of color in the state of Georgia contribute significantly to the economy of the state and this also likely to play a role.
As shown, Georgia has been a predominantly Republican state and if the election were to be based on this political trend, the Republican candidate would inadvertently win. There is however a lot of political upheaval in the state and it is highly unlikely that historical voting patterns will solely influence the senate election outcome. One political trend that will however be of influence is the state’s conservativeness.
Georgians will go to the polls on November 2nd to elect their senator to serve alongside, Johnny Isakson, who is currently in the fourth year of his second term. As mentioned earlier, this promises to be a hotly contested election.
The Republican candidate is David Perdue, a business who won the Republican runoff narrowly beating out his closest challenger, Jack Kingston after the incumbent senator, Saxby announced his retirement (Georgia elections, 2014). The Democrats are represented in the election by Michelle Nunn, a former CEO, who is also the daughter of a former senator, Sam Nunn (Georgia elections, 2014). The third candidate in this election is Amanda Swafford, who is running in the race as a Libertarian. Nunn and Perdue are however the primary contestants in this senate race (Georgia elections, 2014).
Both candidates have several strengths and weaknesses that will either aid or derail their chances. In regard to Nunn, one thing that she has going for her is her association to the former Senator, Sam Nunn. The fact that she has a familiar name and that her father is a figure who is known in the political arena is likely to be an advantage especially when it comes to voters who held her father in high regard (Catanese, 2014). Her father was the Senator of Georgia from 1972 to 1977 and also served as a chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (Catanese, 2014).
Gender might also work to her advantage with the state of Georgia eager to perhaps have a gender balanced representation at the Senate.
Perdue’s great experience in the business world is one of his major strengths in this election. His experience and management skills means that the people of the state might be able to trust him with management of the state’s resources and the agitation of policies at the Senate that will benefit the state of Georgia. Perdue also holds an advantage over his rival in terms of personal funding. Up to this point, Purdue has personally funded his campaign by around 1.9 million dollars which is one the largest personal funding from any Senate contestant (Highton, 2014).
Perdue’s business record has also however proven to be a liability. Aspects of his past work especially as a former C.E. O of a textile company firm that was declared bankrupt have been closely examined, and his skills have been questioned (Richter, 2014). In fact, Nunn has used this aspect to her advantage. She has used it to discredit Perdue while advancing her agenda at the same time.
Nunn has several weaknesses and disadvantages on her part with one of them being her unfamiliarity with the rural setting of the state. Nunn has been cited as an Atlanta city girl and has been accused of being unfamiliar with all parts of the state.
Some also see her as being too soft and liberal which could be a disadvantage in a conservative state like Georgia (Richter, 2014). In addition, her work at Points of Light has been scrutinized after it emerged that during her tenure, her group awarded $33, 000 in form of grants to Islam Relief USA (Richter, 2014).
One weakness however that both candidates share is their relative inexperience in politics with both candidates having no records of serving in any significant political post.
The senate race will be determined by several key issues that range from economics to health care. Unemployment is likely to be a key issue especially given that Georgia has the highest unemployment rates in America. Both candidates have to come up with strategies of how they are going to tackle this. David Perdue for instance has used his time at the private sector as a bargaining chip stating that most of the jobs in Georgia are likely to be created in the private sector and his experience in this sector has given him the skills and knowledge to do it for the state.
Nunn, on the other hand, has not yet come up with a viable solution of strategy in regards to unemployment.
However, she has been very vocal in advocating for an increase of the state’s minimum wage (Cassidy, 2014), something that Perdue is opposed to. Ms. Nunn has particularly pointed out that most of the people in the state who receive the minimum wage are women. This is an indirect accusation to Perdue that he may be having sexists’ tendencies. This is also an indication that gender will be at the center of this race.
The issue of LGBT right has also sprung up occasionally, and the two candidates will be seeking to appeal to the group. Nunn has claimed that she supports marriage equality although she has not explicitly come out to state that she supports gay marriage. Perdue has claimed that he personally supports same-sex marriage and if elected, he would not defend any lawsuit that might be advanced against the state’s ban on same-sex marriage in the future (Saunders, 2014). The third candidate, Swafford has come out and declared her unwavering support for marriage equality (Saunders, 2014).
Issues related to healthcare will also be quite influential in determining the outcome of the race. For example, Nunn is in the favor of expanding Medicaid into the state of Georgia and preventing the discrimination of those who have pre-existing conditions as well as allowing the youth to be covered by their parent’s insurance premises until they acquire the age of 26 (Grier, 2014).
Perdue on his part has advocated for the repeal and the subsequent replacement of the federal healthcare law (Affordable Care Act). He is of the opinion that rising costs of healthcare, limited health care access and unemployment in Georgia can all be attributed to the act (Picket, 2014).
Based on these opinions, it is accurate to say that Perdue’s policy is likely to appeal to more people and he might garner more votes because of this. In fact, polls show that support towards the Affordable Care Act has been decreasing among Georgian residents in the last one year.
The black vote is very instrumental in the state of Georgia. In fact, there is a high likelihood that the minority vote will determine the outcome of this race. The majority of the black vote is likely to sway in Nunn’s way, and if she convinces black voters to turn up in large numbers, she might clinch the seat (Cohn, 2014). In 2008, for instance, when President Obama was a presidential candidate, record numbers of black voters turned up and almost caused an upset in the senate race. Therefore, Nunn needs to appeal to black voters and convince them to turn up in large numbers (Cohn, 2014).
However, president Obama’s increasingly unpopularity especially among white voters could sway the vote in Perdue’s way. The approval ratings of President Obama have been dwindling in Georgia, and this is likely to work in Perdue favor (Kraushaar, 2014).
The Georgian senate election is too close to call. Opinion polls currently show that the candidates are tied neck to neck and the probability of one clinching the majority vote is unlikely and therefore, there is likely to be run off in January (Who Will Win The Senate, 2014).
However, I predict that come January, Perdue will slightly edge out Nunn with a margin of around 4%. This is likely to be the case because most of the Swafford’s voters will shift to Perdue because there is a significant similarity between the two candidate’s ideals.
In the overall Senate elections, my prediction is that most of the incumbent Republicans will retain their seats mainly due to a decrease in Obama’s approval ratings while some Democrats incumbents are likely to lose their seats. I predict that Republicans will retain all their 15 seats that are up for election while out of the 21 Democratic seats, about 7 will be lost to the Republicans.
References
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Cassidy, c. (2014, October 18).yahoo! news. Retrieved October 25, 2014, from http://news.yahoo.com/georgia-senate-bid-nunn-talks-economy-women-164915008--election.html
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Picket, K. (2014, October 8). Perdue, Nunn Spar At Rowdy Senate Debate.Breitbart News Network. Retrieved October 25, 2014, from http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/10/08/Perdue-Nunn-Spar-At-Rowdy-Senate-Debate
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