Republicans target ‘extreme’ Warnock in Georgia Senate standoff

While the majority of the Senate is up for grabs in the double second round of the elections in Georgia, a new advertisement from Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler calls her Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock “too extreme for Georgia”.

For Warnock, the pastor who now occupies the pulpit of the famous Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, the attack is just a taste of things to come from Republicans.

SENATE CONTROL APPLIES TO TWO ELECTIONS IN GEORGIA

With the GOP retaining their seats in Alaska and North Carolina this week, the party currently controls the Senate 50-48. This means Democrats must win both Georgia ballots to make it a 50-50 Senate, in which Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be the deciding vote, giving her party a tiny majority in the chamber.

The other second round in Peach State pits Republican Senator David Perdue against Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff. Perdue edged out Ossoff by around 87,000 votes, but failed to break 50%, forcing a second round.

The stakes in Georgia’s runoff could not be higher: These two elections will determine whether the GOP retains its majority in the Senate or whether Democrats control both houses of Congress as well as the White House.

Warnock mostly escaped negative Republicans’ attacks in the special election to serve the last two years of former Sen. Johnny Isakson’s tenure – as the Loeffler nominee battled a challenge from GOP Rep. Doug Collins. Loeffler captured almost 26% of the vote in a massive 20-candidate race – Warnock winning almost 33% of the vote.

POTENTIAL OF PRESIDENTIAL CONTAINERS OF GOP 2024 IN GEORGIA

In an ad released last week that aired on statewide television, Warnock acknowledges that incoming gunfire was on the way.

“Prepare yourself, Georgia. Negative ads are coming, ”Warnock said instantly. “Kelly Loeffler doesn’t want to say why she wants to get rid of health care in the middle of a pandemic, so she is going to try to scare you with lies about me.

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Loeffler’s campaign hit back in a web video on Tuesday.

“Meet Raphael Warnock. He wants you to know that he eats pizza with a fork and a knife. Once he stepped over a crack in the sidewalk. But Georgians don’t care about that, ”said the narrator on the spot.

The ad goes on to label Warnock “a proud supporter of the anti-American and anti-Semitic pastor Jeremiah Wright, who suggested America deserved the 9/11 terrorist attacks” and uses a quote from Warnock that says “we celebrate Reverend Wright.”

Wright was the fiery Chicago-based black pastor at a church that Sen once attended. Barack Obama who became a lightning rod during the 2008 presidential campaign when a controversial old sermon in which he said “God damn America” ​​resurfaced.

This is far from the first time that the Loeffler campaign has linked Warnock to Wright. The candidate told Fox News last month that Warnock’s defense of Wright was “appalling, disgusting and out of place in this country.”

The narrator of the ad also accuses Warnock “anti-Israel, anti-2nd Amendment, sympathizes with Marxists and Socialists and wants to make your neighborhoods less safe.” Don’t let him fool you with pizza and puppies – Raphael Warnock is too extreme for Georgia.

Warnock spokesman Terrence Clark in response to accusations in the Loeffler ad told Fox News that “you are going to hear a lot of attacks from Senator Loeffler and his Washington allies in the next two months that distort Reverend Warnock and his beliefs in an effort to frighten the Georgians. This is a transparent effort to distract Georgians from Senator Loeffler’s own track record of working to eliminate health care for 1.8 million Georgians with pre-existing conditions and profit from the COVID-pandemic. 19 while our condition is suffering.

These Loeffler attacks continued on Wednesday, when the Senator – campaigning with Perdue and Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, asserted that “Warnock wants to keep us locked up. He wants to support Joe Biden’s mandates, where we all take refuge at home and where we shut down this economy.

Expect such a fire to continue.

“The future of the country is at stake in Georgia. The January second round gives voters another opportunity to reject the socialist agenda of Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, and their far-left supporters, ”said Republican National Senate Committee spokesperson Nathan Brand.

Will negative attacks work?

“I think that may still motivate your base. But I don’t know how well this messaging works for suburban moderates. It’s an open question, said MV Hood, professor of political science at the University of Georgia. and director of the school survey center.

But Hood, noting that there won’t be many undecided voters, stressed that the second round is “really a game of participation – getting your supporters to the polls rather than a game of persuasion.”

Democrats, in repelling the attacks, point out that Loeffler and Perdue are both big supporters of President Trump.

“Georgia’s Republican ticket is made up of a pair of corrupt and disconnected politicians who have profited from the pandemic and will stop at nothing to deprive Georgians of healthcare. It is clear that David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are not ready for prime time and we are focused on releasing their records in the months to come, ”said JB Poersch, Senate Majority Chairman PAC, on main outside group supporting senators and Democratic candidates. .