Young Forces Runoff in Georgia Primary

After a Democratic primary campaign marked by civility, Lt. Gov. Zell Miller and former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young emerged the top two vote-getters Tuesday and will square off in a runoff election in the governor’s race on Aug. 7.

On the Republican side, state Rep. Johnny Isakson, 45, eliminated three challengers to capture his party’s nomination.

With 69% of the vote counted, Miller led with 41% to Young’s 28%, followed by state Sen. Roy Barnes with 21%. Isakson swept the GOP balloting with 71% of the vote.

A subdued Young said: “We’re looking forward to a new day in Georgia, and we’ll see you soon.”

Miller, savoring his apparently larger than expected vote tally, said: “It’s just overwhelming,” adding that he expected “a tough campaign for the runoff” and that he will “continue to talk about the issues.”

“The question is no longer whether a Republican can be elected to governor of Georgia,” a buoyant Isakson told supporters. “We, tonight, have laid that to rest.”

Young, 58, a former member of Congress and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, served two terms as mayor of Atlanta and is seeking to become the state’s first black governor, while Miller, also 58, an ex-Marine and former state senator, is trying to parlay 16 years in the state’s No. 2 job into the No. 1 spot.

The primary campaign was clean--colorless, some say. Mudslinging had no place, even though former Gov. Lester G. Maddox, who gained a national reputation as a segregationist, was one of the five Democratic candidates.

During the primary campaign, Young worked hard to attract white voters, at one point even visiting a “redneck” bar where a jukebox contained records with racial epithets in the titles. But in the process Young may have turned off some black voters, some analysts said.

Young’s campaign has been compared to that waged in Virginia last year by L. Douglas Wilder, who became the nation’s first black governor. However, the Georgia race does not have a compelling issue that galvanizes a liberal vote, while the abortion-rights issue served that purpose for Wilder.

Miller, a former teacher, has pushed hard for a state lottery, promising to use some of the profits to improve state schools. To stamp out illegal drug trafficking, he advocates “boot camps all across this state” for drug users and pushers.

For his part, Young has come to be identified with low-key promises to bring economic salvation to the downtrodden outlying areas of the state, promises built on Young’s worldwide connections stemming from his years in federal government service.

While Young believes economic issues unify the races, many analysts believe that he will face an uphill challenge to attract enough white votes to defeat Miller.

White voters, particularly those in rural areas of the state, “will be polite to Young, but I don’t think they see a black person being able to govern the state,” said William Boone, chairman of the political science department at Clark Atlanta University.

Miller, a moderate with a long record of public service in the state, stands to attract a respectable share of black votes in a runoff, Boone said.

Several analysts said that Young’s work as a civil rights activist likely will work against him, as will his identification with Atlanta, among many residents of rural Georgia. Miller’s home is Young Harris, a north Georgia mountain town.

But Roger Pajari, a political science professor at Georgia Southern University, asserted that “Georgia is changing. It is a vastly more urban, metropolitan and cosmopolitan state than it used to be,” adding that “there is less of an anti-Atlanta and less of an anti-black sentiment in this state than there used to be.”

Researcher Edith Stanley contributed to this story.