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Voters in Georgia will go to the polls on Tuesday after two months of fierce campaigning for the closely watched Senate second round on January 6. The result will determine which party has the majority in the Senate and thus determine effectiveness. President-elect Joe Biden will be able to implement its legislative program.
Outgoing Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler face well-funded Democratic opponents, Jon Ossoff and the Reverend Raphael Warnock. Georgia was a critical state in the presidential election and was narrowly won by Mr Biden, a result that has been confirmed time and again with an initial tally and two more recounts.
President Trump has focused on the state in its unsuccessful efforts to overturn election results with baseless fraud allegations. In one phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger On Saturday, audio of which was obtained by CBS News, Mr. Trump attempted to pressure Raffesnperger to “find” more than 11,000 votes so he could win the state.
“The Georgian people are angry, the people of the country are angry,” Mr. Trump can be heard on the audio recording. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, uh, you recalculated.”
Supporters on both sides are hoping Mr Biden’s unexpected victory will motivate voters to enter the second round, which has already broken turnout records.
The Senate balance is currently 50 Republicans for 48 Democrats. If Ossoff and Warnock win their races, Democrats will have a 50-50 majority, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris breaking any tie. This would give Democrats control of the House, Senate and White House, meaning Mr. Biden’s priorities could more easily be implemented by a cooperative Congress.
Tuesday marks the second time Perdue and Loeffler will face off against Ossoff and Warnock. Perdue, who was in the running for re-election, was unable to reach the 50% threshold in the November 3 elections which would have enabled him to avoid a second round. Loeffler, who was nominated to fill a seat vacated by Senator Johnny Isakson in 2019, was challenged by 20 other candidates in the special election. Although Warnock won the plurality of votes on November 3, no candidate obtained a majority, which also resulted in a run-off.
Millions of Georgians voted early or by absent ballot before the presidential election, and many chose to do so before the second round as well. More than 3 million Georgians voted in the second round until the end of the early vote. Two million of those votes were in-person votes and nearly one million were mail-in ballots, according to the Georgia Secretary of State. Data analyzed by Georgia Votes shows that more than 115,000 people voted at the start of the second round who did not vote in November.
Democratic candidates have a fundraising advantage after a massive and record harvest in the third quarter. In a file released on December 24, the Ossoff and Warnock campaigns revealed that they each received more than $ 100 million between mid-October and mid-December. Republicans, however, receive substantial help from outside groups in January.
However, it is not known whether the campaign money will translate into votes. Many Democratic Senate candidates overestimated their opponents last year, but Democrats only reversed two Senate seats.
And despite the advantage of Democratic fundraising, Republicans and their allies have overtaken Democrats in advertising. GOP candidates and third-party groups spent $ 279 million, while Democratic candidates and groups spent $ 234 million, according to data from Kantar / CMAG.
Mr Biden and Mr Trump are expected to visit Georgia on January 5 to boost support for their candidates. Loeffler and Perdue have been closely linked with Mr Trump, who refuses to admit he lost the election.
Perdue was forced to leave the election campaign in its home stretch. He said on December 31 that he was going to quarantine after coming into close contact with someone in the countryside who tested positive for COVID-19, according to his campaign. Perdue and his wife tested negative on New Years Eve, but went into quarantine on the advice of her doctor and as directed by the CDC.
Republican senators had to navigate a fine line between acknowledging some problems with the November election, but still persuading Republicans to run for the vote in the second round.
“If you’re crazy about November, fight. Fight with us,” Perdue told a crowd in Henry County last week. “(President Trump) is coming Monday night for a reason: to remind people, no matter what you think of November, we need to hold the line to protect everything we’ve accomplished in the past four years.”
Republican candidates have framed their campaigns as a last line of defense against Democrats adopting their policies, which they frequently label as “radical” and “socialism.”
“We are the firewall to stop socialism, we have to keep the line right here in Georgia, the nation is counting on us,” Loeffler told a crowd on the Atlanta subway on New Years Eve. “I know. that you feel the pressure. The pressure is there. “
Republicans backing Loeffler and Perude have echoed these concerns about the Democratic agenda.
“The things they can do is devastating our freedoms as Americans,” said Pat Quigley, 80, after hearing Loeffler speak.
Later that day, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina came to Georgia to campaign for the Republicans and presented the GOP’s plan if they won at least one of the rounds.
“We have a chance here in a few days to make sure that the most radical agenda in American political history dies in the United States Senate. That whatever comes out of Pelosi’s house gets to the Senate and we kill him dead. . ” Graham told the crowd in Gainesville.
Democratic candidates have made an equally urgent pitch to their grassroots, warning that all policies they want to implement, from COVID relief to healthcare, the economy and criminal justice reform, are under threat if they lose only one of the races.
“If Mitch McConnell retains control of the United States Senate, he will try to do to Joe and Kamala exactly as he tried to do to President Obama,” Ossoff said at a joint rally with Warnock in County DeKalb last week. “They will block the COVID relief we need. They will block the $ 15 minimum wage that we deserve as Americans. They will block the student debt relief that young people in this country are clamoring for.”
“You need US Senators who are focused on the people and not on themselves,” Warnock told the crowd at the drive-through rally.
Ossoff followed Perdue with more than 80,000 votes in November, but he told CBSN’s Lana Zak on Sunday that he believed Democrats had “energy of movement.” He insisted he would not be a “partisan soldier,” but said Democrats must check the power of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
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