Voters in Georgia’s 8th District will go to the polls next Tuesday for the first time since the district’s boundaries were altered last year by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature. But the balloting will be a formality, as it will confirm a long-anticipated matchup between two-term Democratic Rep. Jim Marshall and former Republican Rep. Mac Collins (1993-2005).
Marshall, a right-leaning Democrat, is unopposed in his party’s primary in the 8th, a conservative-leaning area that stretches southward from the outer suburbs of Atlanta nearly to the Florida border.
Collins, a conservative Republican who is looking to return to the House after waging a 2004 Senate bid that failed in the GOP primary, is expected to dominate a Republican primary that also includes James Neal Harris, a deputy county sheriff and political novice.
CQ anticipates that the Marshall-Collins matchup will be among the three dozen most competitive House races this year. It presently rates the contest as “Leans Democratic,” meaning that Marshall has the edge but that the contest is closely contested.
Marshall surely will face a tougher fight this year from Collins than he did in 2004 from Republican Calder Clay, who took just 37 percent of the vote after having nearly beaten Marshall in an open-seat contest in 2002.
Republican officials note that Collins is waging a more vigorous campaign than he did in 2004, when his Senate bid suffered from lackluster fundraising and subpar campaign organization. Collins finished with 21 percent of the GOP vote to finish third in a race that was easily won by a more junior House colleague, Johnny Isakson, who was elected that November.
In this race, Collins is keeping pace with the opposition in fundraising. According to campaign reports recently filed with the Federal Election Commission, Collins and Marshall each raised $1.2 million in the first six months of this year.
Collins had $793,000 left to spend on June 28. Marshall had about $1.2 million left to spend, in part because he has not spent much this cycle. He also carried over some surplus campaign funds from his landslide 2004 campaign.
Harris has not filed fundraising reports with the FEC.
New York Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told reporters Tuesday that Collins’ improved campaign organization led him to give Collins the nickname of “New Chrysler Corporation.”
Reynolds said that Collins, a former trucking company owner, “has worked diligently in raising funds out in the district” and “has been moving along very well.”
The other major obstacle for Marshall is that he is seeking re-election in a district that was reconfigured by Georgia Republican legislators last year to have a more Republican lean — and to include territory in which Marshall is not as well-known as he is in his present district, which is numbered the 3rd.
Less than 60 percent of the population in Marshall’s present 3rd District was retained in the new 8th District. The reconfigured 8th includes Collins’ political base of Butts County, where he once served as chairman of the county commission.
But the 8th also includes all of Macon, where Marshall served as mayor from 1995-99. And Marshall’s service on the Agriculture and Armed Services committees may enable him to curry favor in some primarily rural and military-heavy counties that were added in redistricting.
Marshall’s campaign acknowledged the district’s enhanced Republican lean, but said Marshall has a conservative voting record that would enable him to win votes of non-Democrats — something the congressman did in his previous two elections.
“Jim is a conservative Democrat who appeals across party lines,” spokesman Doug Moore told CQPolitics.com Tuesday, adding that Marshall was re-elected with 63 percent of the vote in 2004 even as Democratic Sen. John Kerry took just 44 percent in the presidential tally.
In 2005, only four other House Democrats scored lower than Marshall on a Congressional Quarterly “party unity” tally that measures the frequency with which members of Congress side with their party on near party-line votes. In the first half of this year, Marshall’s 70 percent party unity score was the 10th-lowest among House Democrats.
Marshall’s departures from party orthodoxy included a May vote for GOP-backed legislation to overhaul lobbying and ethics laws. That vote drew the ire of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, who has placed a high priority on party unity.
But Collins has sought to link Marshall to Pelosi, noting that Marshall would again back the liberal San Franciscan for the Speakership if he were re-elected.
Collins also has been championing his opposition to illegal immigration, his socially conservative views and his support for pro-business policies. Prominent Georgia Republicans such as Isakson, Gov. Sonny Perdue and Sen. Saxby Chambliss all have campaigned for Collins.
Collins’ campaign also has questioned Marshall’s record on anti-terrorism policy. A recent Collins campaign release pointed to Marshall’s vote in May against a bill to cut off nearly all U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority, where the government is dominated by Hamas — the militant Islamic movement the United States has branded a terrorist organization. Marshall was one of just 37 House members to vote against the measure.
But Marshall’s campaign said the congressman is committed to the war against terror. Marshall, a Vietnam War veteran who was recently inducted into the U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame, has visited Iraq and Afghanistan nine times.
Moore said Collins’ campaign is employing the same political strategy used by Clay in 2004.
“These are the same same tactics Clay used against Jim two years ago...he talked about how he voted with Pelosi a percentage of the time ... and made the same kinds of statements,” said Moore. “That didn’t work two years ago, and I don’t think they’ll be very effective this time either.”
Please visit CQPolitics.com’s Election Forecaster to view ratings on all races.
Gregory L. Giroux contributed to this story.
