On Tuesday, voters in Georgia go to the polls for primary runoffs in contests where no candidates took a majority in the May 22 primary. The bitter GOP race for Georgia governor takes center stage, while Democrats will also choose their nominees in a pair of suburban Atlanta House seats.
Our guide to the key races to watch Tuesday is below. Polls close at 7 PM ET, and we'll begin our liveblog then at Daily Kos Elections. You can also follow our coverage on Twitter as well.
● GA-Gov (R): Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle led Secretary of State Brian Kemp 39-26 in the first round in May, but very little has gone right for him since then. In June, defeated primary candidate Clay Tippins released a recording of a conversation with Cagle where the lieutenant governor admitted to supporting what he outright called a “bad” bill solely to stop a super PAC from backing another candidate, Hunter Hill. Tippins later dropped another recording where Cagle dissed Republican primary voters for being too extreme and driven by identity politics. Unsurprisingly, Tippins and Hill endorsed Kemp.
Polls heading into the final weeks showed a tight race, and termed-out Gov. Nathan Deal threw his support to Cagle. However, Kemp received a much more meaningful endorsement days later when, rather unexpectedly, Donald Trump took his side on Wednesday (follow by a Mike Pence Rally on Saturday). It's not clear why the White House decided to involve itself, though Trump may see a kindred spirit in Kemp, who used one TV ad to brag about his "big truck, just in case I need to round up criminal illegals and take 'em home myself."
A pair of polls conducted largely before Trump's surprise advocacy gave Kemp the edge: SurveyUSA found Kemp ahead 40-34, while Opinion Savvy found him crushing Cagle 55-37. Whoever emerges with the GOP nod will face former state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, who decisively won the Democratic nomination in the spring.
● GA-06 (D) (48-47 Trump, 61-37 Romney): GOP Rep. Karen Handel won the most expensive House race in American history last year by a 52-48 margin against Democrat Jon Ossoff, and prominent gun safety activist Lucy McBath and businessman Kevin Abel are competing to face her this fall. In May, McBath led Abel 36-31.
McBath has the support of Atlanta Rep. and civil rights movement hero John Lewis, and the gun safety group Everytown For Gun Safety has run digital and radio ads to support her. However, Abel outspent her $231,000 to $125,000 from May 3 to July 4 (which the FEC defines as the pre-primary period). Abel has argued he’d do a better job appealing to moderate voters in this historically Republican area, while McBath, who got involved in gun safety efforts after her 17-year-old son was murdered by a gunman in 2012, has portrayed Abel as out of step with the Democratic Party.
● GA-07 (D) (51-45 Trump, 60-38 Romney): GOP Rep. Rob Woodall has never faced a competitive general election, but Democrats hope that Trump, who performed very poorly here in 2016, will help them put this suburban Atlanta seat into play. In May, Georgia State University professor Carolyn Bourdeaux narrowly outpaced businessman David Kim 27-26. Kim, who has been self-funding much of his campaign, outspent Bourdeaux $460,000 to $351,000 during the pre-primary period.
Kim has run ads criticizing Bourdeaux for serving as director of the Georgia state Senate’s nonpartisan Budget and Evaluation Office during a time when the GOP legislature made cuts to education and healthcare. Bourdeaux, who has the support of neighboring Rep. Hank Johnson, went up with her first TV spot during the final week of the contest.
