Georgia Senate Runoff Update

It's coming down to the wire for Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin as they prepare for their runoff election on Tuesday.

John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Rudy Giuliani, and Zell Miller have already come down and campaigned for Chambliss, and Sarah Palin will make several stops for him on Monday. Their message is simple--electing Chambliss might be the last chance at stopping the Democrats from having that 60-seat filibuster-proof majority and thus complete control in Washington.

Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Donna Brazile have campaigned for Martin, but he has yet to get a visit from the greatest marquee name in the party--President-elect Barack Obama. And that visit is unlikely to come, seeing as if he campaigns for Martin and he loses, he will have appeared to already have lost some of his political capital. However, he did cut a radio for Martin, and Martin is still riding the Obama wave, mentioning his name as much as he can in ads and speeches.

Chambliss defeated Martin by three points on Nov. 4, but was two-tenths of a percentage point shy of winning outright. In that race, Libertarian candidate Allen Buckley received about 3% of the vote, and who his supporters line up behind could decide the outcome of the runoff.

The polls so far show that Chambliss has a lead of about five points over Martin, but runoff elections are notoriously hard to poll because the turnout is generally much lower than on Election Day, and is thus hard to predict.

The winner of Tuesday's election will really be determined by which party turns out its base more, and as of right now it appears that Chambliss has the edge over Martin.