First notice Atlanta is nowhere to be seen on the map of GA-01. Atlanta is four hours from Valdosta or Hinesville, five hours from Brunswick, and why would anybody go to Atlanta from St. Mary's when Jacksonville is next door? Forget what you think you know about Georgia, and let's look at the 2008 primary results for GA-01.
This has never happened before: Bill Gillespie drew more votes in his primary than Jack Kingston did in his. Jack won by 69% to 31% against Jim Nelson in the 2006 general election, by 72% to 28% over Don Smart in 2002, and nobody even ran against him in 2004. Jack used to say nobody could beat him unless they were even farther to the right. Well, things have changed. Bill Gillespie, a progressive Democrat, polled more than Jack Kingston in the primaries.
Below the fold we'll look at poor counties, rural counties like Berrien, counties near military bases, populous counties, and counties whose sheriffs endorsed Kingston.
The GA-01 counties with the highest percentages of people in poverty are Clinch (26.7%), Telfair (26.3%), Echols (25.7%), Atkinson (25.4%), Charlton (24.4%), Coffee (23.2%). They all had more votes for Bill than for Jack. Sure, all these races are affected by various local factors, such as a contested sheriff primary (Lowndes), but six out of six begins to look like a pattern. Maybe poor people really are voting for their own best interests this time.
+ | Jack | Bill | County | Seat | Comments |
---|
+ | 32430 | 32734 | Total | - | 868 | 662 | Appling | Baxley | Hatch Nuclear Plant, and very poor | + | 33 | 1057 | Atkinson | Pearson | 25.4% in poverty | - | 973 | 228 | Bacon | Alma | + | 833 | 853 | Berrien | Nashville | very rural, very white | + | 809 | 1270 | Brantley | Nahunta | - | 1771 | 368 | Bryan | Pembroke | Ft. Stewart, Richmond Hill, conservative Savannah exurb | - | 5737 | 541 | Camden | Woodbine | King's Bay Submarine Naval Base at St. Mary's | + | 266 | 632 | Charlton | Folkston | 24.4% in poverty, very rural | - | 2687 | 2317 | Chatham | Savannah | Hunter Army Air Base, conservative suburbs (SAV is in GA-12) | + | 30 | 952 | Clinch | Homerville | 26.7% in poverty (most in the district) | + | 113 | 4598 | Coffee | Douglas | 23.2% in poverty | + | 550 | 1990 | Cook | Adel | quite rural | + | 2 | 529 | Echols | Statenville | 25.7% in poverty, very rural, very white | - | 7651 | 1610 | Glynn | Brunswick | + | 313 | 882 | Jeff Davis | Hazelhurst | + | 39 | 1184 | Lanier | Lakeland | State rep Jay Shaw (D) endorsed and donated to Jack | + | 531 | 2730 | Liberty | Hinesville | Ft. Stewart | + | 111 | 1360 | Long | Ludowici | Ft. Stewart, "Democrat sheriff" endorsed Jack | + | 1273 | 4264 | Lowndes | Valdosta | Moody AFB, "Democrat sheriff" endorsed Jack | - | 944 | 559 | McIntosh | Darien | - | 1918 | 175 | Pierce | Blackshear | + | 31 | 1791 | Telfair | McRae | 26.3% in poverty | - | 3972 | 662 | Ware | Waycross | - | 904 | 658 | Wayne | Jesup | very active Gillespie volunteers there | + | 71 | 862 | Wheeler | Alamo |
(Source: Ga. Sec. of State, as found on Bill Gillespie's web site).
(Poverty percents are for 2005, from U.S. Census.) |
Disclaimer: I'm just a blogger, not privy to whatever strategic or tactical interpretations or decisions either campaign may have inferred from these figures. These are just my opinions.
There are exceptions to poor counties voting Democratic. Appling County went for Jack. I don't know why, but I suspect the huge lumber mill and the Hatch Nuclear plant may have had something to do with it. However, there are active Gillespie supporters there; we'll see what happens in Appling.
One commenter asserted that white people in Berrien County would never vote for a Democrat for their representative. Um, well, they did, more for Bill than for Jack. Same for Cook, Echols, Lanier, Clinch, Atkinson, and Coffee, all largely white rural counties. People drive from all those counties to shop at the mall in Valdosta or at the base exchange at Moody Air Force Base.
It's common wisdom that serving military and veterans vote Republican. This despite donations from in-country serving military running something like 6 to 1 for Obama over McCain. So let's look at the biggest military installation in the district: Fort Stewart. The two counties it affects the most are Liberty and Long. Both had far more primary votes for Bill than for Jack. It probably doesn't hurt Bill Gillespie that he's a retired Army Lt. Col. veteran of the Iraq war who later organized ROTC throughout the district and taught at local colleges. It sure doesn't help Jack Kingston that his party's president, with Jack's enthusiastic help, has overstretched the military and produced great disaffection in the ranks and in military families and surrounding communities.
Remember there are five veterans running as challengers for house seats in Georgia this year, and only one running as a Republican. That ratio may also indicate there's a high degree of military disaffection with Republican policies.
Lowndes County, home of Moody Air Force Base, also went strongly for the Democrat. Now this may have been partly because there was a hotly contested sheriff's race in the Democratic primary. However, I believe there were multiple Republican sheriff candidates, too.
Jack bragged in the Atlanta debate that several "Democrat sheriff"s had endorsed him. Two of them are from Lowndes and Long counties. Is Jack trying to shore up his support in counties he knows he's losing?
Lowndes is one of the three most populous counties in the district, the others being Glynn and Chatham, which both went for Jack. That may seem odd for Chatham, given that Savannah is its county seat. But Savannah got gerrymandered into GA-12 (which backfired; GA-12 is represented by a Democrat anyway). That leaves only the conservative suburbs of Savannah in GA-01. The presence of Hunter Army Air Base apparently couldn't outweigh the suburban effect. Similarly, Bryan County, home of Richmond Hill, a rich and conservative Savannah exurb, went for Jack.
The fourth major military installation is King's Bay Submarine Naval Station in St. Mary's: Camden County went heavily for Jack. It will be interesting to see if that changes now that Bill has TV ads saturating local cable and print ads in every newspaper.
The point remains that heavy military or veteran presence in a county doesn't necessarily make it go Republican; not this year, not in the counties most affected by Ft. Stewart or Moody AFB. Hunter Army Air Base is probably overshadowed by the Savannah exurb effect. Camden County is the anomaly. Still, remember Liberty county is more populous than Camden, and the populations of Long and Liberty add up to about 1.6 times that of Camden.
Lowndes and the surrounding counties probably balance Bryan and the GA-01 part of Chatham (hard to tell without digging up the numbers of registered voters in each county and in the pieces of Chatham and Lowndes that are in GA-01).
Glynn and McIntosh and maybe Ware seem to be the real swing counties, which may explain why the candidates seem to be spending so much time there. But that's getting into what the campaigns are doing now, and this diary is about what we can guess from the primary data.
The primary data seems to indicate that poor people may be voting for their own best interests by voting for the Democrat, that rural people are often voting for the Democrat, and that you can't automatically count veterans as Republican votes anymore: quite likely the opposite.
Revise everything you think you knew. Forget 2004. 2008 is a completely different year.
Formerly invincible Jack Kingston can lose, and Bill Gillespie can win this year.
Here are some more reasons Bill can win.
Besides, can Jack Kingston fly? I don't think so. But Bill Gillespie can!