Do Runoffs Help Or Hurt Parties In Georgia Governor Races?

By John A. Tures, Professor of Political Science, LaGrange College

While former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms easily won her Democratic Party Primary for the gubernatorial nomination, businessman Rick Jackson and Lt. Governor Burt Jones have to slug it out against each other for another month to win the Republican nomination. Does that mean Bottoms is more likely to win, while the GOP is doomed to lose because of the expenses and bitter in-fighting?

Also, does it help for someone to be the front-runner, or the one who finishes second place, when it comes to the primary, before the runoff, when no one gets more than 50 percent of the vote?

To test these hypotheses about runoffs, I look at all Georgia Gubernatorial elections from 1990 to 2022. I look at which cases had runoffs, and whether the front-runner from the primary prevailed. I also determined whether the party that had a nomination that had to go to a runoff wound up winning in the Fall election. And here is what I found.

Of these 16 cases, there are five that had runoffs for Republicans or Democrats. In those five cases, the party with a runoff won four times, an impressive 80 percent clip. Those who won with runoffs include Zell Miller (over Andrew Young) in 1990, Roy Barnes in 1998 (over Lewis Massey), Nathan Deal in 2010, and Brian Kemp in 2020. Only Guy Millner, forced into a runoff in 1994, failed to prevail (he lost to Zell Miller that year).

Additionally, in three of the cases, the front-runner from the primary also won the runoff (Miller, Millner and Barnes). In 2010, former Secretary of State Karen Handel got the most votes in the first round of voting (34.1 percent to 22.9 percent for Congressman Nathan Deal, 20.1 percent for Eric Johnson, and 17 percent for John Oxendine. But Deal narrowly prevailed in the runoff, 50.2 percent to 49.8 percent for Handel.

In 2018, Lt. Governor Casey Cagle got 38.95 percent in the first round to 25.51 percent for Brian Kemp, 18.32 percent for Hunter Hill, and 12.19 percent for Clay Tippins. Though Donald Trump claims his endorsement sealed the deal for Kemp’s comeback, the polling evidence doesn’t support that. Cagle led Kemp in late May surveys, but that narrowed to a one point game, a tie, and then a three-point lead for Kemp. Polls overlapping Trump’s endorsement cannot be credited with a July 18 Trump endorsement win, as we don’t know who was surveyed when. What’s more likely is that Trump could see Kemp surging, and decided to back the Secretary of State to get the credit for the victory. Kemp eventually prevailed 69.45 percent to 30.55 percent for Cagle.

Of the 13 cases where the primary winner got more than 50 percent of the vote and did not need a runoff, you’d think this type of candidate would benefit. They don’t. In only five cases this first round primary winner take the Governor’s Mansion, a 38.46 percent success rate. Having more party unity and less to spend on a runoff is offset by almost no media coverage for the primary-to-runoff time frame.

What’s worse for Bottoms is that for Democrats, they are winless in six cases where there was no runoff, while Republicans do better without runoffs. So if the former Atlanta Mayor is to prevail without a runoff, she’ll have to pull off a feat not seen by the party of the left since perhaps before the 1990s.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu or on “X” at @johntures2. His first book “Branded” a thriller novel where corporate greed, media manipulation and academic intrigue collide in a deadly game of product placement, has been published by the Huntsville Independent Press (https://www.huntsvilleindependent.com/product-page/branded).