Mr. Perdue, a former chief executive
of Dollar General stores, is known as a turnaround specialist on Wall Street —
prompting Democrats to compare him to Mitt Romney — and has already poured $3
million of his own money into winning the nomination. Analysts say he will be a
tough rival for the cerebral and cautious Ms. Nunn, the former chief executive
of the Points of Light Foundation, an organization to promote volunteerism that
was inspired by the elder President George Bush.
While Ms. Nunn spent the primary
season trying to sound bipartisan and stay above the political fray, Mr. Perdue
plowed through two brutal races — a May primary and Tuesday’s runoff — to beat
six other Republicans. So he is battle-tested in a way that Ms. Nunn is not.
“You have two outsiders here, people
who’ve never held political office before, but the experience advantage
actually goes to Perdue because he had to fight through,” Mr. Black said. “Michelle
Nunn has been running as Democrat-lite — very lite. So this is going to force
her to explain why she’s a Democrat and what policies she supports.”
Republicans plan a strategy of
nationalizing the race. They will try to tie Ms. Nunn to President Obama and
make the case that a vote for her is a vote to keep Senator Harry Reid of
Nevada, the Democratic leader, in charge of the Senate. Eric J. Tanenblatt, who
was Mr. Romney’s 2012 Georgia finance chairman, said efforts to paint Mr.
Perdue as heartless would not work.
“Democrats saw in the last
presidential election that issue was used against Mitt Romney,” Mr. Tanenblatt
said. “But Georgia is a conservative state and we value in Georgia hard work,
and there’s nothing wrong with someone who is successful.”
Still, Democrats are trying — with
help from Mr. Perdue’s primary challengers, who have supplied ammunition. On
Wednesday, after Mr. Perdue secured his runoff victory over Representative Jack
Kingston, an 11-term congressman, the Georgia Democratic Party
released Internet video clips from a blistering Republican primary debate.
In it, Mr. Kingston ridiculed Mr.
Perdue for living in a “gated community,” while Representative Phil Gingrey, a
former challenger, went after him for his management of Pillowtex, a North
Carolina company that closed, leading to layoffs of 4,000 workers, after Mr.
Perdue briefly served as its chief executive.
“You once again hit the gold mine,
and the poor employees got the shaft,” Mr. Gingrey said in the debate. In
Washington, Democrats said Georgia voters could expect to hear more of such
talk.
Photo
Michelle Nunn, the Democratic nominee
for the Senate, campaigned Wednesday in Athens, Ga. Credit Aj Reynolds/Athens
Banner-Herald, via Associated Press
“He’s out of touch, he’s out for
himself and we’re going to make that case,” said Justin Barasky, a spokesman
for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee here. “When you contrast that
with someone whose life has been spent in a different kind of public service,
in a charitable organization, that’s a contest we’re very comfortable with.”
Democrats are also hoping that Mr.
Perdue will stumble in taking on a female candidate — and on Wednesday, they
were already proffering evidence that he had, citing a remark reported by The
Associated Press in which he sounded dismissive of Ms. Nunn’s work.
“Let’s talk about debt, the economy
and jobs and who brings more value to that debate,” the news service quoted Mr.
Perdue as saying. “Someone who has been running a philanthropy for 15 years or
whatever, or someone who has been out here, not to go bragging, competing in
the real world?”
Both candidates spent Wednesday
trying to pivot toward November. Mr. Perdue, who has already won Mr. Kingston’s
endorsement, turned up at the Georgia Republican Party headquarters, where the
party chairman, John Padgett, told reporters that Republicans were unified around
the nominee.
Ms. Nunn dropped in on an Atlanta
diner, and then began a four-day campaign swing in Athens, Ga., where she told
supporters she would “continue to talk about how we need to change the
dysfunction in Washington through civility and collaboration.”
Her campaign also staged a “money
bomb” fund-raising blitz; Nunn backers including Hank Aaron and a string of
Democratic senators, among them Michael Bennet of Colorado and Joe Manchin of
West Virginia, sent emails to supporters urging them to donate.
With $4.5 million in the bank, Ms.
Nunn has already proved to be a prolific fund-raiser, but experts say each side
will need at least $10 million.
One outside political action
committee, the Ending Spending Action Fund, has already spent $900,000 on an
attack ad against Ms. Nunn. Called “Desperate,” it asks voters why Mr. Obama is
“desperate for Michelle Nunn to be our senator” and accuses her of earning “as
much $300,000 running a nonprofit that had laid off 90 workers.”
If there is a path to victory for
Ms. Nunn, it will be by increasing minority turnout while courting
independent-minded whites, especially young voters and women. Since 2000, the
white share of the electorate in the state has dropped to 59 percent from 72
percent, and 48 percent of those newly eligible nonwhite voters are black, the
most reliable Democratic constituency.
But Mr. Black, the political
scientist, said much would depend on how she performed in debates against Mr.
Perdue, adding, “She’s got to elevate her game.”
