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Georgia Democrats say voters care about COVID and economic aid before anything else – and that Donald Trump’s overnight demand for more direct payments is helping them deliver their current message.
Since the start of the Senate double second round in Georgia, Democrats and Progressives have told their supporters that there are only three people who oppose Congress Democrats with a chance to expand relief efforts and direct assistance during the next session of the Congress: Sens. David Perdue, Kelly Loeffler and Mitch McConnell.
Advocacy groups converged on Georgia over the past month, as Congress negotiated a massive COVID aid package that includes unemployment insurance and business assistance – and a direct payment of $ 600 to those whose income falls below a certain threshold. These payments, which were added to the last deal after a joint effort by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Josh Hawley, have become the last-minute breaking point.
In a video posted on Twitter On Tuesday night, Trump called the $ 900 billion relief bill a “shame” and threatened to veto the bill if Congress did not increase out-of-pocket payments to $ 2,000 from $ 600. proposed dollars, which he described as “ridiculously low”.
Democrats vying in Georgia, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, immediately announced that they supported the president’s call.
“President Trump is, as always, erratic and everywhere. But on this point, tonight, he is right, ”said Ossoff in a CNN interview Tuesday evening. “$ 600 is a joke. They should be sending $ 2,000 checks to the American people right now because the people are suffering. He added that Perdue had opposed and obstructed direct payments.
Perdue and Loeffler are now in an awkward position as they campaign to retain their seats. McConnell reportedly urged Republican senators to support another round of direct payments because Loeffler and Perdue were “getting hammered” for months behind in aid, like direct payments, to Americans.
During the election campaign and in newly released ads after the deal was announced, Loeffler and Perdue both praised the relief bill and pointed to the second round of direct relief that would be given to Americans.
After Trump’s announcement, Loeffler Told the press that she “would seek” to support the increase in direct payments “if that reuses unnecessary spending”. A Senate spokesperson for Perdue did not respond on whether he supported the president’s call for an increase in out-of-pocket payments.
“This key that Trump threw into their plans gave Ossoff and Warnock the opportunity to remind Georgian voters that they are both okay with an increase in out-of-pocket payments,” a spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. word of the Warnock campaign. “Meanwhile, Loeffler and Perdue are now in a tough spot trying to explain why they’re pushing Georgians to get less relief that even Trump opposes.
Extending COVID relief and lockdown to implement another back-up plan was already a major point of tension in the run-off election ahead of Trump’s announcement and the recently adopted recovery bill.
“We’ve had around 2 million conversations throughout 2020 and tons of focus groups and tons of polls since March,” Nsé Ufot, executive director of the New Georgia Project, told BuzzFeed News. “The number one problem across the board, based on race, age, gender and geography is COVID.”
“Our job at the moment has been to connect the act of voting with the changes people want to see around COVID like health and the economy,” Ufot added.
Progressive groups such as the Working Families Party, the Sunrise Movement, and the Georgians for Registration and Increased Turnout (GRIT) have incorporated pandemic and relief efforts into prospecting scripts and literature as they knock on doors and walk by. calls in the state.
“At the end of the day, very concisely, people are in trouble. People are unemployed, people don’t have health insurance, sometimes people don’t know where their next meal will arrive, and this is sometimes exacerbated by COVID, ”said Britney Whaley, senior political strategist who heads the prospecting operation of the Working Families Party. in Georgia. “It paints a picture of those who suffer the most. People know. They do not have to read a 500 page bill to know that it is insufficient. “
She said the party’s 200 or so canvassers and their phone banking program had put candidates in touch with the issue and would continue to do so ahead of the race, but that many Georgians they speak with have established the link on their own.
“Both of these senators have been in Washington, and in some cases they have set up roadblocks and in opposition. It is not difficult to make a connection between the fact that we have two senators who have been in Washington for months and that there has been back and forth as we fight for our survival, ”said Whaley. . “It’s not something we have to tell the average Georgian when we are at their doors. It’s something they tell us.
Support for a new relief package was rampant across the country ahead of the general election, and a New York Times poll found 7 in 10 voters back a new stimulus package as Congress blocked relief measures. In Georgia, where 3.9 million people have lost their jobs since the pandemic began, a mid-November Data for Progress poll found that 63% of likely second-round voters in Georgia said they would be more likely to support a candidate who would support an additional $ 1,200. stimulus control.
In an early December memo, progressive organizations including Justice Democrats and Sunrise Movement urged Democrats to campaign for a stand-alone bill to issue a new round of $ 1,200 checks that would give Democrats ” a clear message about something tangible that the Democrats will do for you “that they thought would help the party win both polls in Georgia.
Shanté Wolfe, coordinating campaign director of the Sunrise Movement, said they decided to sign the letter to highlight a new strategy of connecting their movement with voters in the South while motivating them to go to the polls.
“Sometimes it’s not the message, it’s the messenger,” Wolfe said. “When we’re at the gates and on the phone we talk about Ossoff and Warnock and the big picture of this race and how that would ensure a 50-50 split, and we also talk about utilities and the way they’re going to pay the bills. , which are at the heart of people’s concerns as 2021 approaches. ”She added that the group would push conversations about the new stimulus bill into the final days of the race.
For groups like GRIT, the effects of COVID on people’s lives has been one of the main issues they talk to voters about when they knock on the doors of apartment complexes, and it’s an issue of concern. the electors. The new COVID relief bill and Trump’s criticism of it only gives them more talking points.
“I can guarantee you that the first person I knock on to talk about the election and the COVID stimulus when I’m back in prospecting again, I’m going to bluntly tell them that this new deal that was made was bullshit and we we need to do better and there’s no way we can do better if we don’t get Warnock and Ossoff, ”Ben Davidson, one of the leaders of GRIT, a hyperlocal organizing group that has started hitting at the gates of Atlanta’s rapidly diversifying suburban apartment complexes told BuzzFeed News ahead of Trump’s announcement.
“It’s good for us,” Davidson said in an interview after Trump’s announcement. “It helps people and shows that the people at Loeffler and Perdue don’t have people’s best interests at heart. It doesn’t change anything for us and, on the contrary, it gives us more ammunition.
Warnock and Ossoff both made the expansion of COVID relief a cornerstone of their campaigns and pushed the point in ads and on the campaign trail – Republicans in Congress pushed for smaller relief checks during COVID negotiations throughout the year. Democrats campaigning in the state, including President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris, have called the two elections a second round of pivotal roles in passing any legislation that would expand relief efforts .
“I need two senators from this state who want to do something – not two senators who will just get in the way. Because, listen, doing nothing hurts Georgia. Look at what’s going on in Congress right now, ”Biden told his supporters at a drive-through rally in Atlanta last week, while listing political priorities they could help push through with Democratic control of the Senate.
The Ossoff and Warnock campaigns view the problems with out-of-pocket payments and calls for broader economic relief as a boon to link the impact their races could have on Senate control with tangible results for voters. they are elected. The campaigns plan to continue criticizing Perdue and Loeffler on the issue in the final days leading up to the election.
“It will be focused on how we can make sure that Georgians get what they need and do not suffer from these behind-the-scenes agreements and laws that do not take into account the needs of our community,” a spokesperson said. from Warnock.
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