Georgia’s 3rd Congressional District may be safely Republican, but the July 26 GOP primary runoff to succeed retiring Rep. Lynn Westmoreland is anything but boring.
A few months ago, state Sen. Mike Crane, a vocal opponent of no-knock warrants, provocatively told a crowd that if police "come to my house, kick down my door—if I have an opportunity, I will shoot you dead. And every one of you should do the same." That’s not the kind of thing you can say and have it go unnoticed, and indeed, Crane’s opponent, dentist Drew Ferguson, was only too glad to call attention to these incendiary remarks. To that end, Ferguson recently ran an ad featuring a local sheriff who denounced Crane and declared that the senator's comments would get his officers killed.
Crane quickly went up with a spot in response denouncing Ferguson’s commercial, telling viewers that both his father and uncle were police officers. But Crane’s “some of my best friends are cops” routine did nothing to deter Ferguson, who released a new TV ad once again blasting Crane as reckless.
Ferguson’s new spot starts with a video of Crane’s infamous speech, before the narrator declares that “[p]olitician Mike Crane has threatened to shoot police officers serving a warrant.” Crane’s speech plays again, and the narrator says that local sheriffs are denouncing him. The commercial then shows a local reporter asking Crane, “You said you’d shoot and kill them,” before Crane interrupts by saying, “If I could.”
It’s unclear how much Ferguson is putting behind this commercial as Election Day approaches, but voters are almost certainly seeing more of his ads than Crane’s. From May 5 to July 6, Ferguson outspent Crane $370,000 to $200,000. Crane’s made up some of the gap thanks to help he’s been getting on the airwaves from the anti-tax Club for Growth. However, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an establishment group which often clashes with the tea party-friendly Club in GOP primaries, has started what Greg Giroux reports is a $650,000 ad buy to boost Ferguson. The commercial stars none other than Westmoreland, who praises Ferguson’s record as mayor of the small town of West Point. Politico also reports that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy has been raising money for Ferguson.
With all these advantages, Ferguson’s camp is arguing that it has a decided edge going into the final week. The campaign is out with a Meeting Street Research poll giving Ferguson a 45-36 lead; an unreleased June poll had Crane up by a much smaller 38-36 margin. The only other released poll was a Clout Research survey on behalf of the blog politics that put Ferguson ahead 41-35. Crane hasn’t offered any contradictory data, a silence that speaks volumes.