GA-03: Dentist Drew Ferguson recently earned the support of eight county sheriffs in his late July GOP primary with state Sen. Mike Crane, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jim Galloway gives us an interesting look why Crane has such a poor relationship with local law enforcement. Back in 2014, police burst into a home unannounced in search of a drug dealer. Their target wasn’t there, but the special ops team threw a flash-bang grenade that inflicted severe injuries on a 19-month-old toddler. Crane backed legislation that would have increased scrutiny of “no-knock” warrants; the bipartisan proposal failed after prosecutors and law enforcement groups came out against it.
Crane didn’t help his relationship with these groups earlier this year, when he was caught on camera saying, “You come to my house, kick down my door — if I have an opportunity, I will shoot you dead. And every one of you should do the same. It is the only area where the law enforcement community and I differ.” The clip didn’t get much play during the May primary, where Crane narrowly outpolled Ferguson in this safely red seat, but Galloway hints that voters will “see much more of it in the next five weeks.”
Crane also didn’t make friends with business conservatives when he unsuccessfully pushed for “religious liberty” legislation, and Galloway says that, “Business-oriented forces may be lining up against him.” The anti-tax group the Club for Growth in in Crane’s corner, but they didn’t spend much for him in the tight three-way primary, and it’s unclear how much they’ll go to bat for him in July. While Ferguson didn’t start the contest with much name-recognition, his ties to fellow dentists helped him to decisively outraise Crane; Ferguson also recently earned an endorsement from Jim Pace, who took a close third in the primary. It’s tough to handicap low-turnout runoffs, but it’s very possible that Crane has just made too many enemies to beat Ferguson, who doesn’t appear to have offended many people.