By Rachel Kapochunas, CQ Staff

National Republican Party strategists said they would again target Georgia Democratic Reps. John Barrow and Jim Marshall this year after each incumbent narrowly escaped defeat in 2006. Though both seek to cut conservative profiles, they are among the greatly diminished numbers of white Democrats representing the South in Congress.

Yet even as Marshall faces a fight to hold on to his seat in the state’s 8th District, Barrow has emerged on stronger footing in his general election campaign this time around in the 12th District. With advantages of incumbency and other factors working to Barrow’s favor in his race against Republican challenger John Stone, CQ Politics has changed its rating on the 12th District race from Leans Democratic to Democrat Favored.

Barrow in 2006 held on to win the sprawling eastern Georgia district by just 864 votes — but his opponent then was Max Burns, whom Barrow had unseated in a close 2004 race. And Barrow was dealing with the new political landscape pressed upon him by a rare mid-decade redistricting pushed through by Republicans, which stretched the 12th District from Augusta well south to Savannah but excluded his lifelong home base of Athens and Clarke County in the north.

But Barrow’s victory has given him two more years to entrench himself among the new constituents to whom he first introduced himself during the 2006 campaign. Burns, meanwhile, declined entreaties from some in his party to give it another try this year, and Barrow — who became a resident of Savannah after the remap — moved early to eclipse new opponent Stone in fundraising.

Stone, a former congressional aide, reported just $8,000 in cash on hand in his campaign treasury through June 30, the end of the most recent reporting period for this contest. That left him at a huge disparity to Barrow, who reported $1.1 million on hand through June 30 — though the incumbent likely spent down some of those funds prior to the July 15 primary in which he easily deflected a challenge from state Sen. Regina Thomas.

Though Stone worked for ex-incumbent Burns, he does not carry the high profile enjoyed by his former boss. And Barrow’s efforts to maintain a profile as a conservative House Democrat — he’s affiliated with the Blue Dog Coalition of like-minded lawmakers — has helped him deprive Stone of endorsements from some conservative-oriented national organizations that often accrue to Republican candidates.

For example, Barrow announced Monday that the National Rifle Association’s Political Victory Fund endorsed his re-election bid. Early this summer, he became one of the few Democratic congressional candidates this year endorsed by the Business-Industry Political Action Committee (PAC), known as BIPAC.

Stone, though, has criticized the incumbent on the issue of illegal immigration and what he argues is Barrow’s support for state health care to illegal immigrants. Stone announced Wednesday an endorsement from the PAC of Americans for Legal Immigration, a group that strongly opposes illegal immigration.

The 12th District has one of the stronger Democratic bases among the House districts in Georgia, where the Republicans hold a 7-6 edge over the Democrats. This is in part because a heavily Democratic-voting black constituency makes up nearly half of the district’s population. Nonetheless, most of the white voters in the heavily rural district are conservative, making it a competitive battleground. As it is currently drawn, the 12th District favored Democrat John Kerry over President Bush by just more than half a percentage point in 2004.

Yet by comparison, Marshall’s 8th District leans much more strongly Republican. The district, a long stretch of central Georgia that includes Marshall’s hometown of Macon, supported President Bush in 2004 with 61 percent of the vote. Marshall — who edged Republican former Rep. Mac Collins by a 1-point margin in his 2006 race — this year is defending against Republican Rick Goddard, a former commander at Robins Air Force Base in the district, in a contest CQ Politics rates as Leans Democratic.

Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss — who preceded Marshall in the House in an earlier and partially similar incarnation of the 8th District — recently told CQ Politics that the political landscape offers his party a better shot at overtaking Marshall than Barrow. Chambliss, in an interview conducted at the Republican National Convention, said the 8th is more competitive “because of the demographics of the district.”

The senator, who is strongly favored to win his own race for a second term against Democratic former state Rep. Jim Martin in November, added that he believes both Stone and Goddard “have a legitimate opportunity” to provide competition for the Democratic incumbents. But he warned the two Republican House candidates they will need to “work hard” and focus on issues of importance to district voters in order to offer strong challenges.

Goddard was recruited by Republican officials to run against Marshall in part because of military background and direct connection to Robins Air Force Base, a major economic engine in the 8th District. But Marshall, a decorated Army veteran who dropped out of Princeton University temporarily to fight in Vietnam, is the only Democrat this year who has been endorsed by the PAC of Vets for Freedom, a group that supports candidates who advocate the troop surge in Iraq and other aspects of the war there.