Home » Posts tagged 'Georgia Senate 2020'
Tag Archives: Georgia Senate 2020
Donald Trump urges Republican faithful to vote in US Senate runoffs
President continues criticism of Georgia’s governor, secretary of state at Valdosta rally
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
VALDOSTA, Georgia (CFP) — In his first major public appearance since November’s election, President Donald Trump urged Georgia Republicans to turn out for January runoffs in two U.S. Senate races that will determine which party will control the upper chamber.
However, at a Saturday night rally in Valdosta, the president continued to insist that he won November’s presidential election and kept up his drumbeat of criticism aimed at Republican Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for not taking action to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the Peach State.
At one point, Trump acknowledged one of his most stalwart supporters, Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, in the audience and asked him, “You want to run for governor in two years?”
Donald Trump speaks to supporters in Valdosta
While Trump’s appearance was designed to tamp down calls by some of his supporters to boycott the runoffs, the awkward fallout from the presidential race became apparent when Trump invited U.S. Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler to speak briefly to the audience — and the crowd began to loudly chant “Fight for Trump” at both of them.
The capacity crowd — most of whom were not wearing masks — waited for hours at the airport in Valdosta for Air Force One to arrive. During Trump’s appearance, which lasted nearly two hours, they chanted “Four More Years,” “Stop the Steal” and “We Love You.”
Trump referred to boycott supporters as “great people” and “friends of mine” and said he understood the impulse to sit out the runoffs to protest the presidential election results. But, he told the crowd, “Don’t listen to my friends.”
“If the other side manages to steal both elections, we will have total one-party socialist control, and everything you care about will be gone,” he said. “If you don’t vote, the socialists and the communists win. Georgia patriots must show up to vote for these two incredible people.”
The certified results from the November 3 election show that Biden beat Trump in Georgia by 12,670 votes, becoming the first Democrat to win the state in 28 years. Two recounts have confirmed Biden’s win, and the Trump campaign’s legal challenges of the result have been turned back in every state and federal court where they have been filed.
But Trump has been publicly and privately pressuring both Kemp and Raffensperger to try to overturn his loss, which he claims was the result of fraud.
“You governor could stop it very easily, if he knew what the hell he was doing,” Trump said. “For whatever reason, your secretary of state and your governor are afraid of Stacey Abrams.”
Abrams was Kemp’s Democratic challenger in 2018 who led a voter registration campaign for the 2020 vote that has been widely credited for Biden’s victory.
Kemp and Raffensperger, who did not attend the Valdosta rally, have both insisted that while they supported Trump in the election, no legal basis exists for them to intervene in the election. And even if the result in Georgia were overturned, that alone would not alone change Biden’s victory in the Electoral College.
Raffensburger, who has been subjected to death threats, has defended the integrity of the election against Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of fraud.
The runoff elections on January 5 pit Perdue against Democrat Jon Ossoff and Loeffler against Democrat Raphael Warnock.
If Democrats win both of those races, the Senate will have a 50-50 tie, with the incoming vice president, Kamala Harris, giving Democrats control in her role as Senate president. If either Perdue or Loeffler win, Republicans will keep control, which would likely be a significant impediment to the incoming Biden administration.
Perdue defeated Ossoff by 93,000 votes in the November vote but was forced into a runoff because he did not receive a majority, as required by state law.
Warnock and Loeffler finished in first and second place, respectively, in an all-party special election for the state’s other seat. Loeffler was appointed to that post by Kemp last year to replace Republican Johnny Isakson, who retired because of ill health.
Collins, who finished third in the special election for Loeffler’s seat, has been publicly supportive of Trump’s fraud claims, prompting Raffensperger to call him a “charlatan.” Collins gave up his House seat to run for the Senate, which will leave him free to challenge Kemp in 2022.
Trump’s endorsement of Kemp in the Republican gubernatorial primary in 2018 was seen as a key factor in his victory — an endorsement the president now says he regrets.
We tweet @ChkFriPolitics Join us!
2020 Overtime: Runoffs in 2 Georgia U.S. Senate races will decide party control
Democrats face uphill battle in flipping both Georgia seats in January 5 vote
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
ATLANTA (CFP) — Attention, Georgians: Prepare to have your Thanksgiving interrupted by politics. And your Christmas. And your New Year’s.
Runoffs will be held January 5 for both of the Peach State’s U.S. Senate seats, with party control of the Senate hanging in the balance, which will nationalize these contests and draw an avalanche of money and advertising.
If Democrats win both runoffs, the party will control the White House and both the U.S. House and Senate starting next January 20. If Republicans win just one, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will remain large and in charge — and standing in their way.
The stakes were summarized by one of the Republicans defending a Georgia seat, Kelly Loeffler, on Twitter after networks projected Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential contest: She said she and Republican seatmate David Perdue “are the last line of defense against the radical left.”
Jon Ossoff and David Perdue
Perdue defeated his Democratic challenger, Jon Ossoff, on election night, but fell just below the 50% threshold he needed to win the seat outright and avoid a runoff. (Georgia is the only state in the country that requires candidates to win a majority in a general election.)
In a special election to fill out the remainder of Republican Johnny Isakson’s term, Loeffler, who was appointed to the seat last year, faces Democrat Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church making his political debut.
The runoffs take on additional importance now that Democrat Kamala Harris has been elected as vice president. Currently, the Senate Republican caucus has 50 members, the Democratic caucus, 48. If Democrats win both Georgia seats, the balance in the chamber will stand at 50-50; Harris, in her role as president of the Senate, will give Democrats control.
However, Democrats will have an uphill battle in both runoff races.
Perdue came in nearly 93,000 votes ahead of Ossoff in the November 3 vote, which the Democrat will have to find a way to make up in what is likely to be a much smaller electorate in January.
Raphael Warnock and Kelly Loeffler
In the special election, which had 20 candidates running in the first round, Warnock held a 140,000-vote lead over Loeffler. However, the six Republican candidates in the race drew nearly 415,000 more votes combined than the eight Democrats.
Over the last 30 years, Republicans have won six of the seven statewide general election runoffs, including two in 2018. Democrats lost runoffs for U.S. Senate in 1992 and 2008, contests where their candidates had finished in first place in the first round.
Meeting with a group of supporters Friday, Ossoff expressed confidence he could turn the vote around.
“We have all the momentum. We have all the energy. We’re on the right side of history,” he said. “We’re just getting started.”
But Perdue’s campaign manager, Ben Fry, expressed similar confidence, saying “If overtime is required when all of the votes have been counted, we’re ready, and we will win.”
He also took a dig at Ossoff, who lost a runoff for a U.S. House seat in 2017, noting that “[t]here’s only one candidate in this race who has ever lost a runoff, and it isn’t David Perdue.”
Speaking to her supporters on election night, Loeffler made it clear that she will cast the election as a battle between “conservative values” and the “radical left.”
“In January, I have one of the most radical opponents on the Democrat ticket in the whole country,” she said.
But Warnock, like Ossoff, is touting himself as a sign that Georgia politics have changed, an argument that could take on new resonance if Biden secures the state’s 16 electoral votes after an impending recount.
“Something special and transformational is happening right here in Georgia,” he said. “The people — everyday people, ordinary people — are rising up, and they are demanding change.”
We tweet @ChkFriPolitics Join us!
Decision 2020: Georgia’s presidential contest heading to a recount
Joe Biden pulls slightly ahead of Donald Trump in Peach State
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
ATLANTA (CNN) — With unofficial results within 7,300 votes, Georgia election officials said Friday they will recount the ballots in the state’s presidential contest between President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden.
“Interest in our election obviously goes far beyond Georgia’s borders,” said Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensburger. “The final tally in Georgia at this point has huge implications for the entire country.”
Trump built a significant lead as results of in-person voting came in on election night. But as mail-in ballots were counted in Democratic counties in metro Atlanta, Biden closed the gap and then surpassed the president.
Trump, Biden neck-and-neck in Georgia results
Saturday, Biden’s lead stood at just 7,264 votes, out of nearly 5 million cast, a close enough margin to trigger an automatic recount.
If Biden prevails in the recount, he will be the first Democrat in 28 years to carry the Peach State and win its 16 electoral votes.
However, the result in Georgia will not affect the outcome of the presidential race, as Biden captured the White House when Pennsylvania was declared on Saturday.
While the Trump campaign has vowed to pursue legal challenges in other Democrat-controlled states that he appears to have lost, that could be more difficult in Georgia, where the governor and secretary of state are both Republicans. The state’s voting manager, Gabriel Sterling, said Friday that “we’re not seeing any widespread irregularities” in the vote count.
In addition to the presidential race, the late count of mail-in ballots also affected one of the two U.S. Senate races. Republican incumbent U.S. Senator David Perdue still leads over his Democratic rival, Jon Ossoff, but he has fallen below the majority he needs to win under state law.
That will set up a January 5 runoff between Perdue and Ossoff, which will take place at the same time as a special election runoff for the state’s other Senate seat between Democrat Ralphael Warnock and incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler.
If Biden wins the presidency and both Democrats win in Georgia, control of the Senate will shift from Republican to Democratic hands.
We tweet @ChkFriPolitics Join us!
Decision 2020: Has Georgia finally arrived at a political tipping point?
Democrats are in contention in presidential, U.S. Senate races, poised to pick up another U.S. House seat
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
ATLANTA (CFP) — When the smoke clears from the 2020 election, a whole new political day may have dawned in Georgia.
Democrats appear ready to capture another U.S. House seat, which would give them six out of 14 seats in the state delegation, nearly at parity with Republicans. They also have a shot at both U.S. Senate seats and an outside chance of capturing a majority in the Georgia House.
And, in perhaps the biggest surprise of all, Joe Biden could become the first Democrat to carry the Peach State in 28 years.
That’s a best case, rosy scenario for the Democrats, one which Republicans would no doubt dismiss as wishful thinking. But even if this optimistic scenario doesn’t all pan out, 2020 is likely to go down as the best year state Democrats have had since they suffered a collapse in 2002, losing the governorship and control of the legislature after a decade in which they had lost their grip on the state’s federal offices.
Trump, Biden neck-and-neck in Georgia polls
In 2016, Donald Trump carried Georgia by 5 points–enough to get the state’s 16 electoral votes but the weakest showing by a Republican since Bob Dole in 1996. The biggest shock in that race was Hillary Clinton carried both Cobb and Gwinnett counties, which had for decades been impenetrable Republican redoubts in the Atlanta suburbs.
These suburbs, which continued to swing toward the Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, are key in the presidential race. Trump should get a sizable win in rural areas and small towns; Biden will easily carry the urban cores of the Atlanta and the state’s other cities; so the suburbs will be where this contest is won or lost.
Polls now show the race between Biden and Trump within the margin of error. The biggest sign the state is truly competitive: Both Trump and Biden are making October campaign stops in Georgia, which rarely gets a glimpse of presidential candidates outside of the primary season.
U.S. Senate
Because of the retirement of Republican Johnny Isakson at the end of last year, both of Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats are up this year. Republican David Perdue is seeking a second term, and Republican while Kelly Loeffler, a wealthy Atlanta businesswoman and political newcomer appointed to fill Isakson’s seat by Governor Brian Kemp, will try to keep it in an all-party special election.
Perdue is facing Democrat Jon Ossoff, who rose to national prominence in an expensive but ultimately unsuccessful U.S. House race shortly after Trump’s election. At the beginning of the race, Perdue wasn’t thought to be in much trouble, but Ossoff has closed the gap, with polls showing the race within the margin of error.
A major source of contention in the race has been the coronavirus epidemic, with Ossoff hitting Perdue for downplaying the severity of the disease during the early days of the pandemic and voting to dismantle Obamacare, which Ossoff says has provided a lifeline to virus victims.
Perdue has hit Ossoff over his fundraising from out-of-state sources, charging that Ossoff’s contributors support a “radical socialist agenda” that he would pursue as a senator.
Ossoff has raised nearly $33 million, much of it in small dollar online contributions from Democratic donors across the country. Perdue has raised about $21 million.
Because of a quirk in Georgia law, if neither Perdue or Ossoff break 50%, they will face each other in a January runoff, which could happen if a Libertarian candidate also in the race draws off enough support.
In the special election, 20 candidates are running, and polls show three are competing for spots in a January runoff: Loeffler; Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Collins from Gainesville, who has been trying to run at Loeffler from the right; and Democrat Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, a pulpit once held by Martin Luther King Jr.
Warnock has surged to the front in the latest polls, consolidating Democratic support with an ad blitz. Loeffler and Collins are running neck-and-neck for the second spot, in a race that has divided state Republicans into two camps.
Collins, one of Trump’s most vocal defenders during last year’s impeachment fight, decided to challenge Loeffler after Kemp passed him over for the Senate appointment. But he has so far not gotten the president’s endorsement, and Loeffler has been battling him for supremacy on the right by firmly embracing Trump and taking conservative stands on social issues.
One key metric to look at on election night will be whether the Republicans in the race collectively attract more votes overall that the Democrats, which could be a sign of things to come in the runoff.
Warnock has raised the most money, at $22 million, but Loeffer has more money to spend, after tapping her considerable personal fortune for $23 million in loans. Collins trails at $6 million.
Depending on results in other states, control of the U.S. Senate could hinge on two runoff elections in Georgia in January — a circumstance that would attract massive amounts of money and national attention to the Peach State.
U.S. House
The focus in the U.S. House races with be the 6th District, in Atlanta’s near northwest suburbs, and the 7th District, in the near northeast suburbs.
Two years ago, Democrat Lucy McBath flipped the 6th District seat, defeating Republican Karen Handel, Handel is back for a rematch, but McBath — like other freshmen Democrats defending seats in districts Trump won in 2016 — has raised a mountain of money, nearly $8 million, to less than $3 million for Handel
Trump won this district by less than 2 points in 2020. Demographic changes, including more minority voters, are also contributing to its shift from red to purple, and most election handicappers are giving McBath the edge.
Handel will need a strong margin from East Cobb and North Fulton counties to offset McBath’s strength in more diverse areas such as Sandy Springs and Doraville.
In the 7th District, Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux, who lost this race by just 400 voters in 2018, is back for another try, facing Republican Rich McCormick, a physican and retired Marine pilot. (The Republican incumbent, Rob Woodall, retired.) Bourdeaux also enjoys a fundraising advantage, $4.7 million to $2.4 million.
The largest population center in this district is Gwinnett County, where Democrats have been winning legislative seats and county offices in recent years. White voters are also now a minority here, which should help Bourdeaux.
If both McBath and Bourdeaux win, the Georgia delegation will be split 8R and 6D, closer than it has been since 1994.
State Legislature
In the battle for the state House, Democrats need to pick up 15 seats in the 180-member House to gain control, after picking up 11 seats in 2018. The party is targeting seats in the Atlanta suburbs, where Democrats have been making gains in recent years, although it is unclear if enough flippable seats remain to get to 15.
Democrats would need to pick up eight seats in the 56-member Senate to take control, which is considered much less likely.
We tweet @ChkFriPolitics Join us!
Racist? Georgia U.S. Senator David Perdue under fire for mocking Kamala Harris
Perdue mispronounces first name of Democratic vice presidential nominee
♦By Rich Shumate, ChickenFriedPolitics.com editor
MACON, Georgia (CFP) — In the middle of a close re-election race, Georgia Republican U.S. Senator David Perdue is under fire for mispronouncing the name of Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris during a rally with President Donald Trump Friday in Macon.
“KA-ma-la or Ka-MA-la? Ka-MA-la-ma-la-ma-la? I don’t know. Whatever,” Perdue told the crowd of cheering Trump supporters, creating a video that has since gone viral–and drawn rebukes from critics who are calling the mispronunciation deliberate and racist.
Video at end of story
“Senator Perdue never would have done this to a male colleague. Or a white colleague,” his Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff said on Twitter. “And everyone knows it.”
Harris is the first woman of color, and only the third woman, on a presidential ticket.
U.S. Senator David Perdue, R-Georgia, speaks at Trump rally (YouTube)
Perdue has served alongside Harris in the Senate since 2017. They also are both members of the Senate Budget Committee, which has just 19 members.
A spokesman for Perdue’s campaign, John Burke, responded on Twitter that “Senator Perdue simply mispronounced Senator Harris’ name, and he didn’t mean anything by it. He was making an argument against the radical socialist agenda that she and her endorsed candidate Jon Ossoff are pushing.”
President Trump also mispronounces Harris’s name during rallies to draw a response from the crowd.
Less than three weeks before the November election, Perdue and Ossoff are locked in a tight race, with polls showing no clear leader. Trump also appears in danger of losing Georgia, which prompted his visit to Macon.
A Democrat hasn’t won the presidential race in Georgia since 1992 or a Senate race since 2000.
The effect Friday’s viral moment might have on the outcome is unclear. Nearly a third of the state’s voters are African American.
In 2006, in a U.S. Senate race in Virginia, the Republican incumbent, George Allen, created a firestorm after being captured on video calling an Indian-American supporter of his challenger “Macaca.” Allen lost.
Chicken Fried Politics 