Georgia Tipsheet

Democrat Michelle Nunn would make the general election contest to replace retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss a highly competitive one, registering in contention with four possible Republican rivals in a new survey released Monday by a local progressive advocacy group.

Better Georgia, the upstart activist organization that has busied itself with foiling Gov. Nathan Deal’s legislative agenda but shown new interest in the Senate race with the possibly that the progressive-favored Nunn would run, says the results of a recently-fielded robopoll places the Democrat neck-and-neck with the full slate of possible GOP contenders.

Nunn, the poll finds, would lead Karen Handel, the former secretary of state who is openly considering a bid, by 8 points in a hypothetical match-up and would tie with Rep. Phil Gingrey.

She fared slightly worse against Reps. Paul Broun and Jack Kingston, trailing the former by 3 points, slightly outside the 2.4 percent margin of error, and the latter by 6.

Another Democratic poll–Better Georgia bills itself as nonpartisan, though the group’s partisan leanings are no secret–released last week by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee showed Nunn trailing Kingston by a slim one-point margin. (Republicans criticized the timing of the survey’s release, which came amid Democratic concerns the party had squandered a rare southern pickup opportunity by failing to coalesce behind blue dog Rep. John Barrow, and for not disclosing Nunn’s numbers relative to the other possible GOP nominees.)

- James Richardson

A new survey of 450 registered voters in Georgia’s twelfth congressional district finds Democratic Rep. John Barrow coasting to a fifth term by 6 points.

The poll, commissioned by the progressive advocacy group Better Georgia, measured the widest spread to date between Barrow and Republican challenger Lee Anderson, 50 to 44 percent. Six percent of respondents remained totally undecided.

Republican mapmakers recently redrew the boundaries of Barrow’s east Georgia district to be more favorable to a GOP challenger, but Anderson hasn’t enjoyed the same level of generic partisan support as his party’s presidential candidate.

In spite of Anderson’s slide, the survey clocked Mitt Romney’s lead over President Barack Obama in double digits in the district.

Political handicappers point to Barrow’s slick advertising campaign–in which the blue dog has aggressively courted white conservative and independent voters with talk of gun rights and cutting government waste–as the cause of the GOP’ers erosion.

The Rothenberg Political Report, a nonpartisan campaign tracker, recently shifted the contest’s rating from narrow Republican advantage to lean Democratic.

- James Richardson

A progressive advocacy group dispatched a banner-towing aircraft overhead of Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd Stadium Saturday to protest changes to the state’s collegiate scholarship program.

“Gov. Deal broke Hope,” a red and black banner flying above downtown Atlanta read, a vague reference to the recent restructuring of the program’s performance standards.

While the banner included SMS opt-in instructions for supporters in the stands, the date on which it flew was strategically selected: the university’s president had invited state lawmakers to attend the game as his guests.

The group Better Georgia paid for the aerial advertisement. It orchestrated a similar stunt earlier this month for the University of Georgia’s season opener, a game at which the governor and legislators were in attendance.

- James Richardson