By Elliott Brack
Editor and publisher, GwinnettForum
JULY 31, 2018 | Though Gwinnett residents may be tired of all the 2018 politicking, the November election is still before us. It’s not over yet, since so far we have mostly nominated political candidates for the General Election more than three months away.
There’s been much hullabaloo in the recent primary and its runoff, but so far locally the only persons to be elected who had competition are three new Gwinnett Judges.
Tracie Cason and Tracey Mason are now duly-elected Superior Court Judges, while Ronda Colvin-Leary got the nod from the voters for a State Court seat. We offer congratulations to all three new judges, and note, they are all female. Court diversity is improving!
(By the way, we again inject that election of judges during the primaries is a poor way to select people for the bench, since fewer people vote in primaries. Switching election of judges from the primary to the General Election is one of GwinnettForum’s Continuing Objectives. We look for this to be accomplished one day.)
Were we surprised at the outcome of the runoff primaries? Somewhat. While we thought that the race between Casey Cagle and Brian Kemp for the Republican nomination might be tighter, we were truly surprised at the overwhelming victory for Brian Kemp, who won with better than a 2:1 margin over the heavily-funded Cagle.
It even now appears that had President Trump not endorsed Kemp, he could still easily have beaten Cagle. Though many people dissect and pontificate about the election results, one thing is certain: you can easily lose your money betting on political races. One small incident can get the attention of the multitude and turn an election. But sometimes it is difficult to determine what small incident it was that the people turned on.
Again, it must be galling for Casey Cagle to have done so well in the first balloting of the primary—having a huge lead—-and then to do so poorly in the runoff. After all, he got 38.9 percent of the first vote, to Kemp’s 25.6 percent. That only proves again the adage that placing second in the first voting isn’t a bad slot. Add to Cagle’s frustration, he even lost the Hall County vote, his home county!
Voter apathy can be seen in the number of people voting in the primary runoff. Only 10 percent of the Georgia registered active voters cast ballots in the runoff for governor. And yes, that means that though Brian Kemp can claim victory with seven percent of those registered, a runoff win doesn’t even come close in the number of votes that should be cast in the General election.
And though Georgians in recent gubernatorial elections have sided with Republicans, a strong run by the Democratic candidate is expected. In other words, Brian Kemp is not assured of an automatic victory in November. We, and most Georgians, would be surprised if he lost, but yes, it could be possible.
The 2018 governor’s race could even boil down to not so much which particular candidate the voters like, but might turn on whether Georgians want to repudiate President Trump by electing a Democrat. We doubt it could happen, but that is why they have horse and political races, that is, to determine a winner.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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