Georgia Democrats chair sees silver lining in Carter, Nunn defeats

• Joeff Davis/CL File
• Georgia Democrats Chairman Dubose Porter

Georgia Democrats didn’t fare well in last night’s election. To be blunt: They got pummeled beyond anyone’s expectations. The party’s two biggest hopes, U.S. Sen. candidate Michelle Nunn and gubernatorial candidate Jason Carter, lost by surprising margins to their Republican opposition. Farther down the ballot, GOP candidates won every single statewide elected office and even knocked out longtime Augusta Congressman John Barrow.

But Democratic Party of Georgia Chairman Dubose Porter remains cautiously optimistic following the dominant Republican showing. Back in June 2013, beleaguered DPG chairman Mike Berlon resigned from a nearly broke and rudderless political organization that lacked strong statewide candidates. Porter tells CL that the party has made immense strides since then and, despite the midterm defeats, has turned Georgia into a purple state that will be competitive in the 2016 presidential election.

You expressed disappointment and confusion in brief remarks following last night’s election results. One day later, how do you feel about the Democratic party in Georgia and the way its candidates performed throughout the ballot?

We’re certainly disappointed because of the opportunity that was lost for our state and our country. You couldn’t ask for a better person than Michelle Nunn to send to Washington. We know the issues Jason ran on — doing right by public education, job training, higher education — are right for Georgia. We still believe in our issues. We know we’re the party that includes everyone. But we feel great because we have changed Georgia from being red to purple.

There’s no question people will talk about Georgia in the same way they do about North Carolina and Virginia. We’ve made a tremendous amount of progress with the best set of candidates you could ever offer. These were competitive races and Republicans had to dump millions and millions of dollars into Georgia in the form of negative ads to distort the races. It’s unfortunate that the process works that way. But I still regret missing the opportunity I know we could’ve had with Jason, Michelle, and the rest of our slate.

It’s interesting to hear you refer to Georgia as a purple state even though Republican handily won statewide races. To what degree do you think last night’s results in Georgia were about the national politics, effectively being a referendum on President Barack Obama’s administration, as opposed to the quality of the candidates themselves?

Voters didn’t look at the races. Look at the School Superintendent’s race: Richard Woods is so bad that the sitting Republican school superintendent endorsed Valarie Wilson, the Democrat, because she would’ve been better. Because of the extent of the negative ads in the top-tier races, Georgia elections became about Obama rather than the races themselves. That’s unfortunate.

The gubernatorial and U.S. Senate election results might seem surprising to those following the races, especially given many political observers’ predictions that Carter and Nunn would force runoffs. How do you feel about where the Democratic Party of Georgia stands? It wasn’t that long ago that the party was in shambles with former chairman Mike Berlon at the helm.

There’s a short game and a long game. The short game was 2014: To get organized, to get our candidates, to get well-financed candidates, and to get the party back in shape. We’ve done that and the result was something no one thought we could do. And that’s turning Georgia purple. With the long game, this has put us into play for the 2016 presidential election. Michelle cut into the GOP stronghold in Cobb and Gwinnett counties. She won Douglas and Henry counties outright.

We also held onto the Georgia House of Representatives to stop a GOP supermajority. We had no incumbents in the House or Georgia Senate lose their seats. They spent a lot of money trying to do that. If you look at the total picture, we’re better organized and have our messaging down. We recruited the next generation of candidates for Georgia. I think the party’s even stronger. We’ve put ourselves in a position to move forward in a much stronger way.

What are the next steps in terms of the DPG’s “long game” in Georgia? What do you have to do in 2015 and 2016?

With the presidential election, turnout will be heavier. We’ll begin recruiting candidates in those areas that’ll make a difference. We anticipate that we’ll pick up seats in the Georgia House and Senate. Nobody imagined that we’d be turning Georgia purple this quickly a year ago. But we have. I feel great about it.

It’s been predicted that Georgia’s changing demographics would favor Democrats down the road — perhaps in 2018, 2020, 2022, or beyond. Do you think that will happen sooner?

I think what we showed last night is that it’ll be sooner rather than later. We now have Democratic candidates that people can believe in again. That’s been inspiring. Michelle Nunn is an inspiring candidate, as is Jason. We have so many others who have that kind of potential to give this state. I think it’ll hopefully inspire more to get engaged.

It’s early, but do you foresee Jason or Michelle running again or being involved in that push?

Whether they run or not, they will be part of the process. They’ll be engaged in some way. They need to be. They have a lot to contribute.