United States Senate Campaign
On March 23, 2007 Jones announced he was running for the United States Senate against incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss. His campaign saw immediate controversies. In campaign literature, Jones sent out a flier in which he appeared in a picture next to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama with the words "Yes We Can." However, Obama himself stated he not only never posed with Jones (the picture had been digitally altered), he did not endorse Jones or any other candidate for the Democratic nomination for Senate. In response, Jones blamed his "liberal opponents backed by the liberal media" for trying to ruin his campaign.
Jones also received criticism for the appearance of the tagline "VOTE Vernon Jones for GA Senate" on tickets, produced using county funds, for the Dekalb County Blues and Jazz Festival. The company who printed the tickets, supporters of Jones' campaign, have taken responsibility for the incident; the company said it was unaware campaign finance laws made such an action illegal.
Another source of criticism leveled against Jones, mostly by chief rival Jim Martin, attacked his more conservative national record. On his campaign website, Jones acknowledged being a conservative Democrat, and in an interview, told the press he voted for George W. Bush. Additionally, Jones donated more than $2,464 in two separate donations to the Georgia Republican Party in 2001.
On July 15, 2008, Jones won a plurality of votes in the Democratic primary. However, Georgia requires a majority; if no majority is reached by a candidate, the two top vote-getters must face one another in a runoff. On August 5, 2008 Jones lost the run-off election to Jim Martin by a margin of 20 points. Jones unexpectedly lost to Martin in his home base of Dekalb County. Jones had lost support within the black community before the runoff election, and only captured 2/3 of the black vote in the head to head match up against Martin. The black turnout was also substantially lower than the initial primary election, further hurting Vernon Jones' chances in the runoff.
| 2008 Georgia U.S. Senate Democratic primary election | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Democratic | Vernon Jones | 199,029 | 40.4 | ||
| Democratic | Jim Martin | 169,640 | 34.4 | ||
| Democratic | Dale Cardwell | 79,183 | 16.1 | ||
| Democratic | Rand Knight | 25,670 | 5.2 | ||
| Democratic | Josh Lanier | 19,721 | 4.0 | ||
| Turnout | 493,243 | 100.0 | |||
Runoff results (with 98% reporting):
| 2008 Georgia U.S. Senate Democratic primary election runoff | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Democratic | Jim Martin | 188,137 | 59.8 | +25.4 | |
| Democratic | Vernon Jones | 126,425 | 40.2 | -0.2 | |
| Turnout | 314,562 | ||||
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