The polls close at 7pm ET in today's Georgia Senate run-off. As we anxiously await the results, I figured this would be a good primer. Here are the top ten counties for both Democrat Jim Martin and Republican Saxby Chambliss in terms of their margins of victory in each county on Election Day. Of course, with turnout lower for the run-off than on Election Day, the totals will be lower. But, to make up ground, Martin will have to win his counties by relatively larger margins and lose Chambliss' counties by relatively smaller margins.
Martin
County | Jim
Martin | Saxby
Chambliss | Martin
Margin | | Chambliss
County | Saxby
Chambliss | Jim
Martin | Chambliss
Margin |
|---|
| Dekalb | 233,727 | 65,531 | 168,196 | | Cherokee | 64,464 | 21,599 | 42,865 |
| Fulton | 249,201 | 131,438 | 117,763 | | Forsyth | 54,928 | 14,601 | 40,327 |
| Clayton | 76,122 | 15,893 | 60,229 | | Cobb | 162,249 | 129,133 | 33,116 |
| Richmond | 46,767 | 24,709 | 22,058 | | Gwinnett | 150,433 | 121,015 | 29,418 |
| Muscogee | 41,324 | 26,256 | 15,068 | | Hall | 39,539 | 15,250 | 24,289 |
| Chatham | 56,596 | 43,554 | 13,042 | | Columbia | 36,022 | 14,896 | 21,126 |
| Dougherty | 23,523 | 12,534 | 10,989 | | Coweta | 33,988 | 15,311 | 18,677 |
| Clarke | 26,202 | 15,279 | 10,923 | | Paulding | 35,242 | 17,335 | 17,907 |
| Bibb | 35,850 | 26,422 | 9,428 | | Fayette | 35,528 | 19,420 | 16,108 |
| Liberty | 9,810 | 5,108 | 4,702 | | Walton | 24,619 | 8,765 | 15,854 |
Note that Martin's top ten counties total 432,398, which was 24.6% of his 1,757,419 Election Day tally. However, Chambliss' top ten counties only total 259,687, representing only 13.9% of his 1,867,090 Election Day tally. This is, of course, due to Chambliss winning most of the smaller counties. On Election Day, Martin won 42 counties to Chambliss' 116 counties. With fewer counties to count on, Martin will be depending on his top ten counties even more than Chambliss is counting on his.
If you're looking for a bellwether, look to Mitchell County, which saw an Election Day tie between Martin and Chambliss, both candidates winning 3,821 votes, with 99 votes going to the Libertarian Allen Buckley. Speaking of Buckley, there are nine counties where Buckley exceeded 5% of the vote: Lumpkin (6.4%), White (5.6%), Haralson (5.6%), Gilmer (5.5%), Dawson (5.3%), Hall (5.3%), Barrow (5.2%), Pickens (5.2%), and Cherokee (5.2%). The largest of those nine counties are Cherokee and Hall.
Here is the link for the Georgia Secretary of State's Run-off Election Results page.
UPDATE: With 82% in, it looks well over. Martin is barely winning Fulton County; and, instead of winning Dekalb County by almost 4 to 1, Martin's only winning by less than 3 to 1. Meanwhile, Cherokee County went from a 3 to 1 win for Chambliss to a 4 to 1 win, and Forsyth County went from 3.5 to 1 for Chambliss to 5 to 1. Ugh. |
