Polls in Georgia close at 7PM Eastern and so far, as expected, turn out appears to be rather light.

Polling stations across Georgia reported low to moderate voter turnout. At the Atlanta Public Library on Ponce de Leon Ave., where more than 1,600 people voted in the general election, only 400 people had voted by noon today.

While conventional wisdom is that lower turnout favors Chambliss, there's just no way to really gauge whose supporters are coming out to vote today. As Matt Towery, CEO of Insider/Advantage, whose final poll showed Chambliss up 4, put it:

"The race will turn on whether the tradition of Republicans returning to the polls in greater numbers than Democrats in runoff elections will prevail, or whether the almost 1 million automated phone calls by Barack Obama to African-American and longtime Democratic voters will somehow motivate Democrats to return to the polls."

Martin's organizational advantage extends beyond robo-calls from the President-elect. The campaign's GOTV effort has way outstripped anything Chambliss has going for him.

Matt Canter, a spokesman for Mr. Martin, said the campaign had 3,200 people knocking on doors and 3,000 others making phone calls to likely Democratic voters.

Michelle Grasso, a spokeswoman for Mr. Chambliss, said the Republicans were relying largely on e-mail and telephone messages to remind voters of the election. The Chambliss campaign has sent two messages a day to supporters for the past four weeks and will continue to contact voters today, she said.

Sean Quinn has more:

Yesterday we learned that the Martin contact rate during GOTV has been impressively high, with up to 1,000 contacts for 1,500 attempts. According to that source, who knows numbers from working through previous Georgia Democratic voter files, this is just a stunning improvement. What those numbers imply is that the influx of organization will allow for the efficient channeling of volunteer dials and knocks. Where labor fills in, the campaign knows who and where the voters are. Unlike the Obama emphasis on early voting, the Martin campaign did not do a gigantic absentee push, instead opting for a big December 2 turnout.

As of last night, according to Martin spokesman Matt Canter, 2,500 volunteers had signed up for the online neighbor-to-neighbor phonebanking tool. Word is that this number has been smashed, beginning early this morning. In addition to and separate from the online phonebanking volunteers (from anywhere), 3,200 on-ground volunteers have deployed around the state for Runoff Day knocking and calling.

So, how many points is organization worth exactly and are Martin's contacts delivering votes more reliably than Chambliss's? We'll begin to get an idea when polls close in 45 minutes.

Update [2008-12-2 18:18:38 by Todd Beeton]:Per Breaking Blue, Senate Guru has a breakdown of the top Georgia counties to watch as results begin to pour in.

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In a new ad released today, Jim Martin responds to Saxby Chambliss' false, vicious attacks on Martin's record.  The truth is that Jim Martin voted to return $100 million of surplus taxes to taxpayers and voted for the largest middle class tax cut in Georgia's history. While Jim Martin will go to Washington to fight for the middle class, Saxby Chambliss has spent his time there fighting for CEOs and lobbyists.

"Go To Work"

"Saxby Chambliss has resorted to false, vicious attacks because Georgians know there's only one candidate who will work with Barack Obama to cut middle class taxes, and that's Jim Martin," Martin spokesperson Kate Hansen said. "Voters are rejecting Saxby Chambliss' tired, bitter politics because they know that in these perilous times we need a fighter for the middle class, not a politician who stands up for special interests. In Washington, Jim Martin will get to work fixing America's economy for middle class Georgians again."

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I missed this earlier but wanted to highlight it since it's Public Policy Polling, whose polling I tend to trust.

First the poll itself:

Chambliss 52
Martin 46

This result represents a solid improvement for Chambliss over his performance in both PPP's final pre-election poll AND the actual results on Nov. 4th, which had Chambliss up by 2 & 3 points respectively.

The reason: a slight demographic shift in the expected electorate on Dec. 2nd as well as some movement toward Chambliss among Independents.

Compared to PPP's final pre election poll of the race, Chambliss' main gains have come with independent voters. Where he had a 44-41 lead with them before, with Libertarian Allen Buckley pulling 12%, Chambliss is now leading 53-41.

One important factor that could be helping Chambliss is that while PPP finds that black turnout is likely to be similar to what it was earlier in the month, it appears that there will be a decline in young voters relative to when the Presidential race was on the ballot. That means the percentage of voters over 65 in the electorate is likely to be a lot higher, and given Chambliss' 69-31 lead with those voters compared to Martin's 50-42 advantage with voters under 30 the age shifts could work to the Republican's favor.

The problem with polling the run-off, of course, is that predicting the voting universe is extremely difficult. PPP's methodology this time:

We're going to use the same sampling criteria we did for November 4th: folks who voted in the 2004 general, 2006 general, 2008 Presidential primary, or 2008 state primary. We gave some thought to narrowing the sampling criteria, and think it's highly unlikely turnout will match or even come that close to matching what it was for the general election. [...]

I think we did a very good job of projecting demographics, but this election is a whole different bird so we're going to take the composition of who is actually responding to the polls into account a lot more than we usually would over the next two weeks.

It's hard to tell whether this poll is likely to be more or less accurate than the Mellman Group poll conducted by the DSCC since we don't have comparable data. One thing Martin DOES have going for him that Chambliss does not is the Obama grassroots focused now almost exclusively on the Georgia Senate race. That means do it yourself phonebanks that worked tirelessly for Obama all over the country now trained on Georgia. Not a happy time to be a Georgian I expect.

If you'd like to help pull Jim Martin over the top, you know what to do.

Update [2008-11-24 22:30:4 by Todd Beeton]:Could PPP be the outlier? Yet another poll, this one from Politico/Insider Advantage, shows Chambliss up by 3.

Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss holds a narrow lead over Democrat Jim Martin in the Dec. 2 Georgia Senate runoff, according to a new Politico/InsiderAdvantage poll. The poll shows Chambliss leading Martin by three points, 50 to 47 percent, with three percent of respondents undecided. The first-term GOP senator's lead is within the poll’s four-point margin of error. The Politico/InsiderAdvantage poll surveyed 523 likely voters on November 23.

The electorate this poll is anticipating showing up on Dec. 2nd seems to be quite different from that of PPP. This poll undersamples African-Americans vis a vis PPP, gives Chambliss a bigger chunk of Republicans but gives him a smaller chunk of Independents. The differences in the two likely voter models underscores how difficult this election is going to be to poll.

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Democrat Jim Martin continues to break out the big bats as he seeks to unseat Republican U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss in the December 2nd run-off election.

Monday morning, prominent Democratic strategist Donna Brazille penned an email to supporters of Jim Martin letting them know that she's coming to Georgia.

"I'm on my way to Georgia, and I wanted to send you a quick message," the email reads.  "When I heard Jim Martin was in a runoff, I cleared my calendar because I knew I needed to do whatever I could to ensure a big win for Jim in the 15 short days we have until the election."

Brazille asked supporters of the Georgia Democratic U.S. Senate candidate to "dig deep for Jim Martin and make an immediate contribution of $35, $75, or $150 today."

"I wouldn't be on my way to Georgia to help Jim if I didn't know that we can win this race, Brazille wrote.  "Georgians are ready for change, and they're ready for a U.S. Senator who will work with President-elect Obama - not someone who is dead-set on blocking his ambitious agenda."

Brazille is a member of the Democratic National Committee and made history in 2000 as the first African-American to manage a major presidential campaign when she served as Al Gore's campaign manager.  Brazille is frequently seen on CNN and the ABC News Sunday morning public affairs program "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

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The Georgia online political newsletter, Capitol Impact, is reporting today that John McCain and possibly Sarah Palin are coming to Georgia on behalf of their good friend Saxby Shameless who was forced into a run-off by Democrat Jim Martin.

Chambliss said Friday the GOP presidential nominee and possibly Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will campaign for him in the runoff election with Democrat Jim Martin; Martin has asked president-elect Barack Obama to make a campaign appearance as well but has received no confirmation yet; runoff election will be held Dec. 2 because Chambliss did not get 50 percent plus one vote in the general election

Source:  Capitol Impact, McCain is coming to Georgia, November 7, 2008

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