In short, if no candidate gets 50 percent on Tuesday, that race will go into a runoff. (50 percent + 1 vote is enough to win.)

First, a word on racial, neighborhood, and retail politics:

The population of Savannah is somewhere in the ballpark of 55 percent black, 35 percent non-Hispanic white, 5 percent Hispanic, and 3 percent Asian. The percentage of blacks is probably higher among those under 18, so the voting power of Savannah’s African-American population probably isn’t quite as strong as those numbers appear, but there is no doubt that there will be more black voters than white voters in this election.

There is only one council district — District 4, where Julian Miller is challenging Mary Ellen Sprague — where white voters clearly dominate.

There are lots of voters who will split their tickets on Tuesday between white and black candidates, but many voters will vote for an all white or an all black slate. There’s clear evidence of white candidates beating black candidates head-to-head, like Tom Bordeaux’s easy runoff win in 2011 for Alderman At-Large Post 2, but there is still an electoral edge for black candidates.

Savannah is a small, who-do-you-know kind of town. Take a look at the 2011 general election results, and you’ll see that Jeff Felser made the mayoral runoff with just a little over 5,000 votes. John Hall and Estella Shabazz were elected to council with just over 1,600 votes. With numbers that low, one doesn’t need a lot of money or a sophisticated multimedia campaign to win.

Candidates in Savannah need to know a lot of people, know a lot of people who also know a lot of people, and get out into the community as much as they can. I obviously don’t know everything that each campaign has been doing, and I’ve been out of town a lot in recent months, but I have seen little evidence that the 2015 challengers have done the sort of retail politicking required to pick up a few votes here, a few more votes there. For example, if Eddie DeLoach gets into a runoff with Edna Jackson, and if he can win even 10 percent of black support in that runoff, he might very well be Savannah’s next mayor, but I don’t know that he and his supporters have done the type of legwork necessary.

So, here are my more or less final thoughts on each race:

MAYOR:

Ok, I’m not even going to talk about crime. I’m going to briefly mention only a few of the other major issues at City Hall right now. I could literally go on and on and on for thousands of words about the failings at the top.

But who is the top?

Savannah has a strong city manager form of government. For part of Jackson’s term, Rochelle Small-Toney was in the top spot, and Jackson deserves credit for pushing Small-Toney out, but now the city manager is Stephanie Cutter, who rose over the years through the ranks. Jackson has repeatedly expressed strong support for Cutter, so a vote for Jackson on Tuesday is probably an endorsement of four more years of a Jackson/Cutter administration. Let’s consider some of the things that combination has brought us:

1) Cultural Arts Center. My Sunday City Talk column tomorrow is mainly about the Cultural Arts Center, which was originally intended to be an economic development tool for MLK. Now we’re putting it on some of the most valuable land in the city.

2) Meldrim Row demolition. What do our leaders think of affordable housing, African American history, classic vernacular architecture, maintaining diversity in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood? Meldrim Row is your answer.

Before:

After:

3) Alcohol ordinance. The city has been trying to revise the ordinance since January 2013 (or earlier). In 2014, literally on the business day before the first public meetings, the city released a draft that would have banned any adult between 18 and 20 from being in a restaurant that serves alcohol after 10 p.m., unless that person is with a parent. That means that restaurants like Applebee’s, Vinnie’s, Crystal Beer Parlor, and dozens of others would have to begin carding every single young looking patron who entered the door after 9 p.m. or so, whether or not that patron was ordering alcohol. City officials quickly dropped that provision from their draft, but it is still utterly mind-boggling to me that a group of adults could work on a draft for 18 months and then include a bone-headed idea like that. In fact, officials eventually dropped most of the onerous language of that first draft (and would create new entertainment options for 18+ audiences), but it’s now a year later and there is no ordinance.

4) Food trucks. At the mayoral forum at Armstrong, Mayor Jackson articulated a broadly liberal vision for food trucks — a vision that would allow entrepreneurs a real chance to thrive. But Jackson’s words directly contradicted pretty much everything in the draft ordinance released by the city. So where is the disconnect? At a council workshop session, alderwoman Carol Bell noted that she had started asking the city to move on an ordinance when her term began in early 2012. And here we are.

5) Waters Avenue strip mall. Enough said.

6) A vision for the old arena when new one is built. At that Armstrong forum, Jackson said that she thought that community groups would still want to use the MLK arena even after the new arena is built off West Gwinnett. Huh??????

7) Police merger. The merger may already be over, and city officials have increasingly blamed the county, but many of us blame and have for many months been blaming the city for its hubris.

8) The NewZO. Under this leadership, it will never happen, so I’m not even going to bother making a pitch for it.

So, is that enough? We have a dysfunctional city government, and all signs point to the situation getting worse before getting better, if Jackson is reelected.

Have challengers Eddie DeLoach and Murray Silver done enough retail politicking — appearing at churches, community groups, neighborhood gatherings — to attract the small percentage of black votes necessary to a) force a runoff and b) defeat Jackson in a runoff? Since Louis Wilson looks unlikely to take a significant percentage of the black vote away from Jackson, Jackson is certain to enter a runoff or to win outright on Tuesday. I suspect that she is going to win outright.

And then I can only hope that she will realize that she is at the helm of a sinking ship.

ALDERMAN AT-LARGE POST 1:

I’d like to take all the at-large candidates — the two for this post and the six for post 2 — and put them all on council. What a smart, diverse, and interesting group that would be.

As I’ve said before, I’m impressed by Carol Bell, but she hasn’t pushed hard enough on the mayor and the city manager. I’m also impressed by challenger Linda Wilder Bryan and will likely vote for her on Tuesday. I’m frankly still trying to decide.

ALDERMAN AT-LARGE POST 2:

What an interesting race. The establishment support (Chamber-affiliated PAC, Savannah Morning News, Savannah Tribune) for retired bank president Brian Foster has led many of my friends and acquaintances to oppose his candidacy, but I think he’d be an excellent choice, assuming he’s a bit more consistently engaged than Tom Bordeaux, who currently holds the seat.

But Joe Steffen and Travis Coles both seem like better choices, and I have also been impressed with interviews with G. Lind Taylor, Alicia Blakely, and Clinton Young.

This is a really strong field, and each of these six candidates has a shot at making the runoff, although the racial demographics — three are white, three are black — and the lack of polling make this race very tough to call.

UPDATE, 11/2, on at-large races: I will post something more detailed later, but there were flyers distributed on Sunday throughout much of the city that were paid for by Jackson’s and Foster’s campaigns. Those flyers endorsed all incumbents. The Bell campaign was not listed as a funder of the flyer, but she has not responded so far to a message left for her on her official Facebook page.

In light of this flyer and the desperation of supporting all eight incumbents, I recommend supporting Linda Wilder-Bryan for Post 1 and either Joe Steffen or Travis Coles for Post 2 (although at the moment I’d vote for any of the candidates over Foster).

DISTRICT 1:

Has Bernetta Lanier done enough retail politicking to knock off incumbent Van Johnson? Are West Savannah residents tired enough of high crime and lack of economic development to vote the incumbent out? Keep in mind that Lanier grew up in the neighborhood and has a huge network.

As I’ve said before, if Van Johnson has designs on the 2019 mayoral election as is widely assumed, then he obviously has to defeat Lanier on Tuesday and has to help make council more effective over the next four years. He’s smart enough to demand better and quicker work from city staff.

DISTRICT 2:

District 2 has been significantly redrawn, and it seems very likely that the new voters added to the district, including me, will vote overwhelmingly against incumbent Mary Osborne. I don’t know how anyone who is familiar with the blight, crime, and poverty in the 2nd district could vote for more of the same with Osborne, but some will … Still, I’m confident that we’ll see a runoff between Detric Leggett and Bill Durrence. Andree Patterson is also a strong candidate with real interest in issues like better urban planning and affordable housing.

DISTRICT 3:

Wow, Kim Dulek is an impressive candidate. But she’s a relative newcomer to Savannah, and she’s a white candidate in an overwhelmingly black district with an incumbent — John Hall — who has been active in the community for decades. I hope Dulek will continue to be engaged in local politics, even if she can’t overcome the inherent obstacles on Tuesday.

DISTRICT 4:

I’ve never quite understood some of the frustrations with Mary Ellen Sprague, who handily won reelection in 2011. Julian Miller is an impressive challenger, for sure, and it looks like he might have a slight edge. If Miller wins, I hope he follows through on holding the mayor and city manager’s feet to the fire on moving more quickly to support the SCMPD and Chief Lovett Lumpkin (I’m not the first to make that mistake!), and I hope that he demands results on all sorts of lingering issues on the city’s plate.

DISTRICT 5:

Does the energetic Shaundra McKeithen have the community connections to unseat Estella Shabazz? Like Leggett, McKeithen has been described as representative of a new group of leaders in Savannah’s black community — ones who are willing to break with the entrenched powers — but has she done enough in the 5th district to tip the scales and knock off a well-known incumbent? I hope so, but I wouldn’t bet money on it. Change happens slowly around here.

DISTRICT 6:

What else is there to say about Tony Thomas, who is once again picking up key endorsements despite being the target of all sorts of questions and attacks? Many Southside residents love Thomas, but this election poses some special problems for him. His district now has a very slim white majority, and he’s being challenged by two white candidates (Stephen McElveen and David Self) and a strong black candidate (Zena McClain).

Thomas was unopposed in 2011, and he still has a chance of winning outright on Tuesday, but I suspect this race will head to a runoff.

So, first, what is the SAB PAC, and why do I say the organization has close ties to the Chamber?

From the Georgia Secretary of State:

The Savannah Chamber of Commerce, which is located at 101 East Bay St., is headed by president and CEO William Hubbard. Steve Green is a member of the Chamber’s Board of Directors and the Chamber’s 2015 CEO Council. Robyn Iannone is the Chamber’s Chief Financial Officer.

As the Savannah Business Journal said today, the SAB PAC promotes “pro-business candidates.”

And here’s the list:

• Mayor: Edna Jackson (incumbent)
• Alderman At-Large, Post 1: Carol Bell (incumbent)
• Alderman At-Large, Post 2: Brian Foster (open seat)
• 1st District: Van Johnson (incumbent)
• 2nd District: Detric Leggett (challenger)
• 3rd District: John Hall (incumbent)
• 4th District: Julian Miller (challenger)
• 5th District: Shaundra McKeithen (challenger)
• 6th District: Tony Thomas (incumbent)

And now cue all the objections, including seemingly endless variations on “How could any business person endorse Edna Jackson?” Well there are all sorts of possible correct answers to that question, and it’s disappointing to me that Jackson’s detractors can’t understand those rather obvious possibilities. I’d say it’s also fatal to the campaigns of challengers if they don’t understand why a group like SAB PAC would endorse Jackson and other candidates.

Possible reasons for the endorsement of Jackson, in no particular order:

1. Many business leaders assume that Jackson will win (and she probably will), and they want to back a winner.
2. Many business people have been very successful over the last few years — several sectors of the regional economy are booming.
3. They have an existing relationship with Jackson and have access.
4. They have successfully secured city contracts since Jackson was mayor.
5. They are invested in some way in specific policies that Jackson is likely to back.
6. They think, on the whole, that Jackson is better than the challengers.

I’m not saying I agree with any of those reasons, and I’m extremely concerned about some decidedly anti-business trends we’ve seen from the current city administration, like the interminable processes for adopting the New Zoning Ordinance, a new alcohol ordinance, and a food truck ordinance. Those are just examples, by the way; I could go on and on.

There are also perhaps some more slippery issues at play, including the demands of racial politics (i.e., the SAB PAC couldn’t possibly endorse a fully white or black slate of candidates, for example) and the likelihood that many of the key players in this post have known each other for decades.

And it’s obviously worth noting that the Savannah Area Business PAC doesn’t speak for all major business interests. For example, I hope likely voters have read Reed Dulany’s recent Savannah Morning News op-ed Vote for change in Savannah and ‘vastly’ improve our city. Reed heads Dulany Industries and is a partner in Daniel Reed Hospitality, which owns Local 11 Ten, Soho South Cafe, and The Public Kitchen & Bar. I have had many conversations with Dulany over the years and have developed a healthy respect for his positions, even when I disagree with him. I was especially struck by this line from his op-ed: “What is particularly alarming to me at this juncture is the acceleration of poor decisions.”

The SAB PAC endorsements beyond the mayor’s race are interesting. If you think that the political action committee is simply rubber-stamping the status quo, think again. It’s definitely meaningful that they are calling for the defeat of three sitting council members — Mary Osborne, Mary Ellen Sprague, and Estella Shabazz.

A few thoughts about the endorsements down the line:

*Carol Bell seems to me like one of the sharpest members of council, but she is going to have stop being so patient if she wants to see anything actually get accomplished. It seems likely that she and Van Johnson have their eyes on the mayor’s seat in 2019; if they are serious about stepping up, they’ll want a more substantial series of accomplishments than they have now.

*The endorsement of retired bank president Brian Foster is no surprise, and Foster certainly knows something about business. But given the insidery feel of all this, the anti-establishment mood, and the increasing worries about tourism interests being too powerful, I wonder if Foster, whom I consider a good candidate, is even well-served by this endorsement.

*I think 1st district challenger Bernetta Lanier is a wonderful person, but I have no sense if she’s making headway against Van Johnson. I also think that Johnson, like Bell, is simply too patient with city staff’s slow pace of progress on issue after issue. (Both Bell and Johnson have work histories in local governments, which might play a role in their attitudes.)

*I’m in the newly redrawn 2nd district, and I’m thrilled that there are credible challengers to incumbent Mary Osborne. Bill Durrence, Detric Leggett, and Andree Patterson all seem like solid candidates to me.

*Interesting choice to endorse John Hall over challenger Kim Dulek, who gave an impressive interview to Connect Savannah recently.

*I’ve never quite understood some of the antipathy toward sitting 4th district council member Mary Ellen Sprague, but Julian Miller is certainly a strong candidate.

*Shaundra McKeithen seems prepared to be a fresh voice for the 5th district, but I have no sense for whether she has a chance of knocking off the incumbent Shabazz.

*Love him or hate him, Tony Thomas has worked hard for many of his Southside constituents and has been an outspoken critic of the police department. More recently, he has expressed justifiable exasperation with city staff. I have no idea if his challengers in this election have any chance of taking the seat.

And there has been plenty of polling of the big Georgia races over the last few weeks. The weight of that polling has suggested — consistently suggested — that Republicans will have a pretty good day. Looking at the polls, one would assume that Governor Nathan Deal (R) will win a narrow victory over Jason Carter (D) and that David Perdue (R) will have an even narrower win over Michelle Nunn (D) in the race for the open U.S. Senate seat.

In theory, the sheer weight of the polling should even out discrepancies between the polls. In other words, if we consider the numbers from all the polls together, the margin for error should be exceedingly small.

But if you’ve been following the analysis and comments at Peach Pundit (I’m an occasional contributor), you already know that there have been serious methodological questions raised about almost every poll. For example, most analysts who are especially well-versed in Georgia demographics and politics are expecting a black turnout of approximately 28 percent, but many of the polls pegged that number at 26 percent or lower.

In early polling, with perhaps as many as 1/3rd of total ballots already cast, the black turnout is over 33 percent.

It also seems that pollsters’ likely voter screens have weeded out too many voters, and some polls have likely also understated the percentage of women in today’s electorate.

In other words, it looks to me like there has been a pretty broad, but quite small, bias toward the Republicans in Georgia’s big races.

Also, before I share my final guesses, I should add that we really have no idea how the particular dynamics of regionality (will Perdue get out those Kingston voters?) and of family legacy (Carter is Jimmy Carter’s grandson, Nunn is Sam Nunn’s daughter, Perdue is Sonny Perdue’s cousin) will play out.

I should also add that I’m assuming that Nunn is fundamentally a stronger candidate than Carter and that the incumbent Deal is a stronger candidate than Perdue.

I think both of these major races will see the winner get just 50 percent — thus avoiding the January runoff that many are predicting. Here’s my guess:

Nunn 50.8, Perdue 47.8
Deal 50.5, Carter 48.0

Given the power of incumbency and the likelihood that many voters will ignore the down ballot statewide contests, I expect all of those to go Republican, although perhaps by very narrow margins.

As of yesterday (Nov. 1), 934,485 Georgians had voted early in 2014.

That’s a remarkable increase. But how many of those early voters would have voted on Tuesday? It’s a critical question.

Also, check out this demographic breakdown of those early voters in Georgia:
White: 58.1%
Black: 30.8%
Hispanic: .5%
Other: 1.0%
New registrants, race unknown: 9.6%

Given the disproportionately high level of new black voter registration, we can probably assume that as of right now, the white vote has been about 62 percent and the black vote has been about 34 percent.

Also, check out this post by Jim Galloway at the Political Insider at the AJC: African-American share of early ballots up 13 percent over 2010.

The Hispanic vote and vote by other minorities is very low so far, but if, after Tuesday, the black vote is still over 30 percent, it’s exceedingly likely that Michelle Nunn will be Georgia’s next Senator. I like Nunn’s chances to beat Perdue considerably better than Jason Carter’s chances to beat Nathan Deal, but most polls have been assuming that blacks would make up no more than 28 percent of the electorate.

Perdue’s fate might end up being determined by Kingston voters in the Savannah area and in south Georgia generally. Kingston stomped Perdue in the southern part of the state, and — in my estimation — Perdue hasn’t done nearly enough to bring those voters to his side and to encourage them to vote.

About two in three eligible blacks (66.2 percent) voted in the 2012 presidential election, higher than the 64.1 percent of non-Hispanic whites who did so, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report released today. This marks the first time that blacks have voted at a higher rate than whites since the Census Bureau started publishing statistics on voting by the eligible citizen population in 1996.[…]

Blacks were the only race or ethnic group to show a significant increase between the 2008 and 2012 elections in the likelihood of voting (from 64.7 percent to 66.2 percent). The 2012 increase in voting among blacks continues what has been a long-term trend: since 1996, turnout rates have risen 13 percentage points to the highest levels of any recent presidential election. In contrast, after reaching a high in 2004, non-Hispanic white voting rates have dropped in two consecutive elections. Between 2008 and 2012, rates for non-Hispanic whites dropped from 66.1 percent to 64.1 percent. As recently as 1996, blacks had turnout rates 8 percentage points lower than non-Hispanic whites.

Overall, the percentage of eligible citizens who voted declined from 63.6 percent in 2008 to 61.8 percent in 2012.

Both blacks and non-Hispanic whites had voting rates higher than Hispanics and Asians in the 2012 election (about 48 percent each).

The numbers were largely driven by black women, who turned out at a 70.1 percent rate. Black women over the age of 45 turned out at over 76 percent.

Many of us were dubious of the conventional wisdom (on the right, at least) that blacks wouldn’t show up last November because of the struggling economy, general disillusionment with Obama, Obama’s support for gay marriage, and so forth. But it’s certainly an interesting development to see the turnout among blacks actually increase from 2008.

Looking at the longer-term trend in a graph from The Diversifying Electorate—Voting Rates by Race and Hispanic Origin in 2012 (and Other Recent Elections) is especially interesting:

Black turnout in 1996 was only 53.0 percent. It jumped 3.8 points in 2000, 3.2 points in 2004, 4.7 points in 2008, and another 1.5 points in 2012. So the rate was increasing pretty dramatically even before Obama appeared on the ballot in 2008.

Given the recent history of white voting patterns, one could argue that black turnout might be near a point of maxing out. On the other hand, we’ve clearly seen some incredible get-out-the-vote operations put in place by various Democratic organizations in the last couple of election cycles.

By the way, Obama took about 3/4ths of the vote among both Asians and Hispanics, where turnout remains quite weak.

Interesting stuff.

There’s much more in the report.

Now there’s an excellent piece in the Huffington Post about that issue and several others that could have contributed to Gallup’s failings: Gallup Presidential Poll: How Did Brand-Name Firm Blow Election?.

From that piece:

Since the election, the Gallup Poll’s editor-in-chief, Frank Newport, has at times downplayed the significance of his firm’s shortcomings. At a panel in November, he characterized Gallup’s final pre-election poll as “in the range of where it ended up” and “within a point or two” of the final forecasts of other polls. But in late January, he announced that the company was conducting a “comprehensive review” of its polling methods.

There is a lot at stake in this review, which is being assisted by University of Michigan political scientist and highly respected survey methodologist Michael Traugott. Polling is a competitive business, and Gallup’s value as a brand is tied directly to the accuracy of its results.

The firm’s reputation had already taken a hit last summer when an investigation by The Huffington Post revealed that the way Gallup accounted for race led to an under-representation of non-whites in its samples and a consistent underestimation of Obama’s job approval rating, prompting the firm to make changes in its methodology. (Since Gallup implemented those changes in October, the “house effect” in its measurement of Obama’s job rating has significantly decreased.)

It’s a really interesting piece that discusses myriad issues that polling companies are facing in the 21st century.

Highly recommended for those who followed the numbers closely last year. Those numbers were pretty clear if one trusted the data. Ironically, Gallup didn’t trust its own data enough. If they had reported their registered voter polling versus their likely voter polling, they would have been considered one of the best performers of the election cycle.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), one of the Republicans most vulnerable to a conservative primary challenge, will retire in 2014 rather than seek a third term.

Chambliss denied in a statement Friday morning that the potential primary was a factor in his decision, saying he was confident he would have won re-election.

“Instead, this is about frustration, both at a lack of leadership from the White House and at the dearth of meaningful action from Congress, especially on issues that are the foundation of our nationâ€s economic health,” Chambliss said. “The debt-ceiling debacle of 2011 and the recent fiscal-cliff vote showed Congress at its worst and, sadly, I donâ€t see the legislative gridlock and partisan posturing improving anytime soon.”

From Jim Galloway at the AJC, U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss: Frustration with Washington drove him out:

Chambliss†announcement will immediately set off an avalanche of Republican candidates who will seek to replace him.

At least two GOP House members from Georgia, Paul Broun of Athens and Tom Price of Roswell, have been contemplating primary challenges to Chambliss, who has been criticized for leading the bipartisan “Gang of Six” effort to broker a deal to address a $16 trillion federal deficit.

There’s a whole series of lively posts today by my colleagues at Peach Pundit, including a statement from Jack Kingston’s campaign office that reads in part:

Serving the State of Georgia is one of the greatest honors of my life. From the bounties of our fields and the unparalleled might of our soldiers to the top-notch research of our universities and the global commerce churning through our ports, I have worked to strengthen some of our greatest assets. I have also fought to cut the federal budget and reduce the size of government so we may free future generations from a life indebted to China. Over the coming days, I will discuss with my family and meditate through prayer on how best to continue that service.

While most of the immediate focus will be on Republicans testing the waters, we should also keep in mind that a Democrat might have a shot.