Free Republic

Conventional political wisdom says Gresham Barrett has too steep of a hill to climb to overtake Nikki Haley for the Republican gubernatorial nomination June 22. Barring any additional scandal, pundits say, Haley should walk away with the win in the runoff election and earn the right to face Democratic state Sen. Vincent Sheheen in the general election Nov. 2. But Barrett remained upbeat Wednesday despite unofficial results showing the congressman from Westminster losing to the Lexington state lawmaker by a 2-1 margin in Tuesday's primary. "I guess up in Oconee, they do call it a butt-whupping," he said. "It was...

Birmingham lawyer Patrick Cooper and Jefferson County Commissioner William Bell will face off again next month in a runoff to decide who will be Birmingham’s next mayor. Voters on Jan. 19 will go to the polls to select one of the two candidates to serve the remaining two years of what was Larry Langford’s term. Langford was removed from office Oct. 28, the same day he was convicted by a federal jury of taking bribes while on the Jefferson County Commission. Cooper, after results Tuesday night showed him with 40.1 percent of the vote, said, “It looks like we’re headed...

KABUL (AFP) – Taliban gunmen stormed a UN guesthouse in Kabul Wednesday, killing at least eight people in a suicide attack as the Islamist militia signalled a bloody countdown to new Afghan elections next week. President Hamid Karzai ordered an urgent security upgrade for international organisations after the rampage, which left at least five expatriate UN staff dead in the worst assault on the world body's Afghanistan mission since 2001. The Obama administration and UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack, which the Afghan defence ministry said was the work of Pakistani Taliban dressed as police who struck the UN-approved...

There could be a serious upset in a congressional special election this year and it is going under the radar. John Fund took notice of it yesterday. David Harmer is the Republican running in a special election to fill Ellen Tauscher’s seat in Congress. The Democrat, Lt. Governor John Garamendi, is favored to win, but is only polling 41% to Harmer’s 34%. Interestingly, poling in the area shows the favorability of the GOP is skyrocketing in that district. Nonetheless, the GOP would rather support a pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion, pro-union, ACORN supported Dede Scozzafava in New York’s 23rd Congressional District than...

Open thread. Live results here.

The final election of the season takes place tomorrow, ending the showdown in the 4th Congressional District. Democrat Paul Carmouche takes on Republican Dr. John Fleming, and Independents Chester "Catfish" Kelley and Gerard Bowen Jr. The polls open at 6am and close at 8pm. Voter turnout is expected to be in the 15 to 20 percent range. Chilly weather, along with a negative campaign tone are partly to blame for the expected low turnout. We are your election headquarters tomorrow night. You can stay up to date on KTBS 3 News and on ktbs.com.

So the good news is that Saxby Chambliss has helped our nation stave off total democratic hegemony in Congress. The concern on the right has been that with the Presidency and both houses controlled by Democrats, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate would have been the brick on the gas pedal in the national drag race to see who can get taken care of more by the government. The other good news is that Sen. Chambliss won his reelection resoundingly. Just 5 weeks after the GOP was handed its most devastating defeat in a generation, Chambliss ran away with one...

For all of the talk about "bi-partisanship," the Georgia Senate run-off was nothing if not blatantly partisan. It was, simply, ALL about the party, and by extention, was the most intellectually sound and pure election in all of the 2008 cycle. Six years ago, Republican Saxby Chambliss routed incumbent Max Cleland by running a partisan and aggressive campaign that "infuriated Democrats" at the time. Since then, Chambliss has often wandered off the conservative partisan plantation and infuriated mainly his own base. He even got chastised for a "reach across the aisle" energy vote in an appearance on the Rush Limbaugh...

The danger of special elections and run-offs is that they invite analysts to impute some sort of national significance or trend to their outcomes. Sometimes, like in the string of Republican victories that preceded their 1994 revolution, this kind of analysis is warranted. But in the case of yesterday's Senate run-off in Georgia, it most certainly is not.

ATLANTA – Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss has won re-election in a runoff, dashing Democratic hopes of capturing enough Senate seats to thwart Republican filibusters.

United States Senator, Chambliss 8% of precincts reporting PR=Precincts Reporting TP=Total Precincts Chambliss (R) 126,582 Martin (D) 63,731 Totals 190,313 66.5% 33.5% 100.0% County PR TP APPLING 6 19 980 547 1,527 ATKINSON 0 6 0 0 0 BACON 3 7 931 268 1,199 BAKER 3 7 216 239 455 BALDWIN 0 16 0 0 0 BANKS 0 15 0 0 0 BARROW 0 18 0 0 0 BARTOW 1 19 661 295 956 BEN HILL 4 7 871 959 1,830 BERRIEN 8 11 2,038 756 2,794 BIBB 0 43 0 0 0 BLECKLEY 0 3 0 0 0 BRANTLEY...

Public Policy Polling of North Carolina has released a final poll of the U.S. Senate runoff, giving Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss a “solid” 53 percent lead over Democrat Jim Martin, who weighs in at 46 percent. But PPP also attaches a caveat. The survey of 1,276 likely voters was conducted Nov. 29 and 30, and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.7 percent. Here are two cogent paragraphs from the PPP analysis: Chambliss is up 71-28 on Jim Martin with whites. For Martin to win the runoff with that performance, the electorate would have to be 34% African American....

Augusta — Several thousand people stood in the cold Monday morning for the chance to get inside the James Brown Arena to see Alaska Gov. — and new Republican star — Sarah Palin. Palin was in Augusta to start a four-city campaign swing for incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who is locked in a hotly contested runoff with Democrat Jim Martin. The race will be decided Tuesday, and Palin’s appearance is part of Chambliss’s effort to get conservative voters to the polls.

First-term Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss holds a 52 percent to 46 percent lead over Democratic challenger James Martin), a former state representative, in their Dec. 2 runoff battle, according to a Research 2000 survey conducted Nov. 23-25. Two percent are undecided and the margin of error is 4 points. Research 2000 makes the same observation that Public Policy Polling did in its Nov. 22-23 poll: that Chambliss has been able to widen his lead because, this time around, Barack Obama is not on the ballot to lure a larger turnout. PPP had Chambliss leading Martin 53 percent to 41 percent....

Abstract: The runoff for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia is providing a stark example of how candidates in the 2008 election have been able to skirt campaign-finance limits -- without actually breaking the law. Federal campaign-finance law limits individuals to donating $2,300 to a candidate per election. Yet Republicans and Democrats are soliciting donations more than 10 times that amount for the Dec. 2 runoff in Georgia. GOP fund-raisers are asking people to give as much as $65,500 toward incumbent Sen. Saxby Chambliss's campaign, while Democrats are seeking donations up to $30,800 for challenger Jim Martin. So how are...

U.S. Sen. John McCain will come to Georgia to campaign for Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the Moultrie lawmaker’s campaign confirmed Friday. “We just have to work out the dates,” said Chambliss’s spokeswoman, Michelle Grasso. Grasso said the campaign is also in touch with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s office about a possible Georgia appearance. “She wants to come down, but right now we are working with her schedulers to see if that’s possible,” Grasso said. Chambliss is headed for a Dec. 2 runoff with Democratic challenger Jim Martin of Atlanta. Neither candidate got a majority of the vote in their...

HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwe's presidential run-off poll is to be delayed by as much as 10 weeks, a government document obtained by AFP showed Wednesday, in a move denounced by the opposition as an attempt to "resuscitate" veteran President Robert Mugabe. A second round of voting had been expected by May 23 under Zimbabwean law, but the country's top electoral body is to announce Thursday that an election can take place as late as July 31. In a first round of voting on March 29, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai beat Mugabe by 47.9 to 43.2 percent but fell short of...

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe's opposition leader on Saturday accused President Robert Mugabe of preparing a "war against the people" and said the party was reluctant to take part in a presidential runoff election. Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai stopped short of threatening a boycott but said there was a mounting climate of fear. "ZANU-PF is preparing a war against the people," Tsvangirai told a news conference. "In the runoff, violence will be the weapon. It is therefore unfair and unreasonable for President Mugabe to call a runoff." On Friday, the ruling ZANU-PF party said Mugabe would fight to...

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe's ruling party said Friday there will be a presidential runoff election between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. ZANU-PF party secretary and Minister of State Didymus Mutasa also charged that the opposition bribed electoral officials and said his party would contest results of 16 parliamentary seats — enough to win back its majority. Mutasa spoke at a news conference after a party politburo meeting, the first since elections results showed it has lost its control of parliament. The opposition claims to have won the presidency, but official returns in that race have not yet...

HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwe's ruling party geared up on Thursday for a final battle to keep Robert Mugabe in power, declaring itself ready for a presidential election run-off as police arrested foreign journalists in Harare. With no official result yet declared five days after the poll, tensions were heightened further by news that a New York Times correspondent and a colleague were held after a raid on a guest house for reporting without accreditation. South African President Thabo Mbeki meanwhile urged all sides to accept the official results of the election as diplomatic efforts were stepped up. While the opposition...