Swing State Project

« Senate '06: Stem Cell Roll Call | Main | Blogosphere Day »

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

GA-04: Cynthia McKinney Losing Ground in Primary; Heading to a Run-off?

Posted by James L.

Before we get to that, lemme just rattle off the list of tonight's events:

1. With 50% of the precincts reporting, Ralph Reed is getting his ass kicked in the GA GOP Lt.-Gov. primary by a 56-44 margin. I guess corruption can beat some unbeatable politicians, after all.

2. George Wallace, Jr. is also on the receiving end of ass-kickery, losing his primary bid for Alabama Lt.-Gov by a 55-45 margin to Luther Strange. It's still pretty awful that 45% of Alabama Republican primary voters could vote for GW, Jr, though.

3. Like the polls predicted, Mark Taylor is beating out Cathy Cox in Georgia's Democratic gubernatorial primary, by a 51-44 margin with 54% of precincts reporting.

More interestingly, though, is the primary results of GA-04, with 28.74% 35.93% 59% 66% 80% of precincts reporting:

Hank Johnson (D): 48.82% (5,435) 46.21% (8,894) 45.3% (15,445)45.4% (16,273) 44.6% (19,904)
Cynthia McKinney (D-Inc.): 42.37% (4,717) 45.32% (8,723) 46.7% (15,910)(46.0%) 16,492 47.1% (21,027)
John Coyne (D): 8.8% (980) 8.47% (1,631) 8.0% (2,738) 8.7% (3,105) 8.3% (3,691)

I don't know much about Hank Johnson, other than the fact that he's a commissioner of a vote rich primary. If these results hold, this will be the second time that McKinney has been defeated in a primary; in 2002, she was ejected in favor of Denise Majette. I couldn't imagine Georgia's 4th giving her a third chance after this.

Update: With 36% of precincts reporting, McKinney is tightening the race big time.
Update II: Okay, with 59%, McKinney is taking the lead by 500 votes. Will it hold?
Update III: With 66%, it's tightening again. Interesting to note the slight spike in Coyne votes. I have a feeling we're picking up some of the whiter precincts in this update. Oh yeah, I should note that I'm getting these new numbers from the GA Secretary of State website. They seem to be updating faster than the AP, which is a first.
Update IV: Well, with 80% of precincts reporting, McKinney has gained a 1,100 vote lead. I'm pretty doubtful that Johnson can surpass that with only 20% of precincts to go.
Update V: As commenter Drew notes, Georgia requires 50%+1 for a candidate to win the nomination. We're likely heading towards a run-off. It's easy to say that "Johnson votes + Coyne votes = McKinney defeat", but it's never that simple in run-off elections. Just ask Ray Nagin.

Posted at 10:08 PM in 2006 Elections - House, Georgia | Technorati

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.swingstateproject.com/mt/mt-track-ssp.cgi/2455

Comments

Thanks for stealing my thunder. I was just gonna make what I hoped would be a shocking revelation about McKinney trailing on here..lol.

Seriously though, getting rid of McKinney would be second only to purging William Jefferson on the cut-out-the-cancer-o-meter. Although the Dems are unlikely to hail the defeat of McKinney on the grounds that it may alienate African-American voters, but it sure would be a good poke in the eye regarding the way voters in each party treat their bad apples. Democrats turn them out in primaries....Republicans dig in their heels and re-nominate them by landslide margins (DeLay, Ney, Burns).

Posted by: Mark at July 18, 2006 10:42 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

I've heard reports of Diebold problems in GA-04 before the polls closed.

Posted by: D in FL. at July 18, 2006 10:46 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

If No one pulls 50% in GA-04 is there a run-off?

Anyways, Cynthia is a black eye to Democrats, much like William Jefferson. God speed to whoever challenges her. I hope Mr. Hank Johnson wins tonight.

Posted by: trowaman at July 18, 2006 10:50 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

McKinney supporters have already set up the explanation for any loss: Diebold machines. The problems are (1) the Republican vote manipulators they talk about certainly have no interest in replacing McKinney with a saner Democrat, since she's such a great "evil" Democrat for them to rile people up about, and (2) if you're going to program the machines to steal votes, you don't show the voter that the vote is being switched -- you simply have the machine display one candidate on the screen and record the vote for another, with the voter never being the wiser.

Unfortunately if McKinney loses, her embrace of this excuse will discredit legitimate concerns about the use of unauditable voting machines.

Posted by: KCinDC at July 18, 2006 10:54 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Oops, might have spoken too soon. McKinney just surged ahead with 59% of the vote in. Johnson could still win, but it looks like he'd have a better chance getting his numbers in the Gwinnett or Rockdale County portions of the district that DeKalb County. Not often you hear that said about a Democratic candidate.

Posted by: Mark at July 18, 2006 10:56 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

With 80% reporting, she's now ahead by 1,123 (47.1% to 44.6%).

Posted by: KCinDC at July 18, 2006 11:31 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Reminder: in Georgia, victory is 50% + 1. Without that, the top two candidates go to a runoff.

Posted by: Drew at July 18, 2006 11:37 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Was McKinney's race on anybody's radar screen? I didn't even know she had a challenger.

Good luck to whoever it is. McKinney is awful.

Posted by: bosdcla14 at July 19, 2006 12:05 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Looks like the runoff will be August 8, the same day as the Connecticut primary.

Posted by: KCinDC at July 19, 2006 12:15 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Get her out of here. McKinney makes us look like fools.

Posted by: jkfp2004 at July 20, 2006 12:20 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Eh Ray Nagin I would like to forget about that guy. I don't i'm kinda neutral on this race because McKinney all and all has a good record. Than again she has done some stupid crap in the past. Anyway who cares i'm not from GA-04 and as long as the primary challenger is Progressive than I don't care who wins.

Posted by: D in FL. at July 20, 2006 12:51 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

D in FL, you SHOULD care who wins in GA-04. Cynthia McKinney's flagrant anti-Semitic commentary and disregard for basic decency leaves the entire party looking bad. Knowing how national politics go, any Democrat who behaves badly is going to be publicly skewered a million times more forcefully than a Republican who does the same thing. For the sake of the public image of the party, if for no other reason, we should all focus on kicking out McKinney!

Posted by: The Caped Composer at July 20, 2006 10:33 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

D in FL, thanks for mentioning Diebold, which is actually the company that all of Georgia has been pushed into accepting, as opposed to other companies like Triad, Sequoia, and ES&S, which are often the culprits in other states, even though it is Diebold that is most infamous for fraudulent polls.

The official policy of David of the Swing State Project seems to be that none of these elections are being rigged. It's kind of getting to a grating point with me, at this stage...

Posted by: progressivemuslimnj at July 20, 2006 11:18 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

So was Diebold manipulated in favor of McKinney or in favor of Johnson? Either way, you'd think the "culprits" would have got the job done before it could go to a run-off.

Posted by: James L. at July 20, 2006 11:42 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

I'm perfectly content to let voters in GA-04 express their will. They know quite well what they've got, and if they want to keep her, at least they return a reliable vote to the Hill against irresponsible military adventures overseas. There hasn't been anyone in Congress since Jeanette Rankin who so reliably opposed testosterone-poisoned foreign policy. I often wince when I read things Representative McKinney has said into a press microphone, but not so often when I read how she voted on the Floor. Which is more important?

Last word on the Georgia primary before I move on - the big news wasn't the specific results, but the abominably low voter turnout. This in a state with many bitterly-contested races. Not a good sign for a November avalanche. Sometimes I wonder if I'm losing touch with the fact that for many perfectly well-intentioned Americans, politics is not the all-absorbing interest that it is for me and for fellow blogospherians. I have co-workers who are surprised that I even know who's running for Congress in out-of-state races.

Posted by: Christopher Walker at July 20, 2006 04:58 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

The official policy of David of the Swing State Project seems to be that none of these elections are being rigged. It's kind of getting to a grating point with me, at this stage...

I don't ever recall discussing the f-word around here, but in any event, for the record, you're right: I'm not interested in any discussions of unsubstantiated theories about election fraud. Voter suppression? Sure, that happens all the time and is very real. And there's evidence of that every cycle: Too few machines, long lines, deliberately misleading flyers, etc.

But vote tampering? Again I say, I'm not interested in hearing about it unless you've got proof. Not broad circumstantial cases, not pure invective against Diebold, not results you don't like. If that "grates" on you, you are, needless to say, welcome to discuss your preferred topics at other locations of your choosing.

Posted by: DavidNYC at July 20, 2006 10:30 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

David,
These people have gone on and on about Cathy Cox calling her Cathy Diebold. If Diebold was manipulating votes then Cox would have won. They do have valid complaints, though. My husband went to vote in the Dem primary and they gave him a Republican ballot. It is creepy how there is no paper trail and how the cards that hold the votes are just tossed around. It would seem very easy to "lose" the vote if you had corrupt people running the voting.

Posted by: Ga6thDem at July 23, 2006 09:17 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Wasn't your husband a registered Republican for many years, though? Maybe the clerk's office was just slow to update their records. :)

Posted by: DavidNYC at July 23, 2006 09:41 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

They don't look at the records. You fill out a form and mark whether you want a D or R ballot. Somehow, they managed to get me the right ballot but messed up on my husband. He had to go back and tell them they gave him the wrong ballot.

Posted by: Ga6thDem at July 24, 2006 02:31 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment