How Michelle Nunn Has Managed To Stay Afloat With Outsourcing Attacks

There was good news for Georgia Democratic candidate Michelle Nunn on Wednesday: a Survey USA poll found Nunn leading Republican opponent David Perdue 48 percent to 45 among likely voters.

The poll’s findings were a welcome respite from a seemingly endless wave of polling showing Perdue ahead of Nunn. And the Survey USA Poll was actually the second recent poll showing that Perdue had not taken the race away — a previous Landmark Communications poll on behalf of WSB-TV found Nunn and Perdue tied with 46 percent each.

All together those polls suggested that Nunn may have found her groove in the Senate race or, at the every least, a recent pattern of attacks against Perdue could be working. The core of Nunn’s critiques against Perdue, a former CEO, has centered on his business record and, in particular recently, Perdue saying that a big chunk of his business career outsourcing jobs for the companies he managed. That comment was reported by Politico which obtained a transcript of a July 2005 deposition.

“Yeah, I spent most of my career doing that,” Perdue said, referring to his role as CEO of the textile maker Pillowtex. Perdue admitted, as Politico noted, that he was in part hired to cut costs and outsource aspects of the failed company overseas.

Nunn had been hammering Perdue on his business background before but the outsourcing admission has given her what might be a once-in-a-campaign’s-lifetime opportunity to bash her opponent. What’s more for Nunn, Perdue defended the outsourcing comment.

“Defend it? I’m proud of it,” Perdue said to reporters earlier in October. “This is part of American business, part of any business. Outsourcing is the procurement of products and services to help your business run. People do that all day.”

Nunn’s campaign has hit Perdue on this again and again and again. On Tuesday the campaign released a new ad that included TV footage of Perdue responding to questions about his time at Pillowtex.

The advent of the Pillowtex comments seems to have helped create an opening for Nunn that’s also been bolstered by a new wave of funding. Democrats are pouring $1 million into the Georgia race and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) contributed $350,000 to a pro-Nunn super PAC.

To be sure, Nunn is hardly a sure thing, and she’s had to act like a Democrat in a deep red state: playing up her role with George H.W. Bush’s Points of Light Foundation (Bush has endorsed Purdue), treading carefully on Obamacare, and even refusing to commit to backing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). But recent events in the race have been enough to make some Democrats think winning a seat there is still possible.

Democratic strategist Paul Begala, in an email to TPM about how Democrats are doing overall, suggested that you add what’s going in Georgia to Democrats trying to capitalize on possible Democratic openings in South Dakota and Kansas and it seems the midterms might not be catastrophic for Democrats.

“Add to that Michelle Nunn’s surge in Georgia, and you’d think Dems are doing ok,” Begala said in an email to TPM.