President-elect Joe Biden goes all-in to help Democrats win two Senate contests in Georgia that will determine the party’s control in the early years of his administration, a widespread effort that not long ago would have been unthinkable in a Republican-dominated state in Deep South.
The advance of Tuesday’s election comes with early voting making some Republicans nervous, as President Donald Trump, who narrowly lost the state to Biden, continues to falsely claim that the Georgia election process is rigged.
Biden and his team raised at least $ 18 million to help Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock try to overthrow the Republicans Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Biden’s campaign manager and incoming White House deputy chief, Jen O’Malley Dillon, confirmed the numbers on Saturday, ahead of upcoming visits to Biden state and elected vice president Kamala Harris. The money includes about $ 6 million in support of employee and voter data and $ 12 million in fundraising for the two campaigns.
President-elect and Harris also recorded automatic calls to cover the state before Tuesday. The pair planned media interviews in markets across Georgia, including drive-time radio in the morning and late afternoon on election day.
The effort reflects the high stakes, with Democrats needing a sweep to tilt the Senate in their favor, while Republicans need only one chair to maintain their majority and force Biden to fight a divided government. In addition to what it means for Biden’s legislative prospects, the president-elect’s activity highlights the state’s evolution to a legitimate bipartisan battleground and what Biden’s team touts as its advantages as the first Democrat since 1992 to win the state in a presidential election.
“We are not talking about whether there is added value in having the president-elect as part of that. There is, ”O’Malley Dillon said in an interview. “The party feels that way and sees the unique coalition it has formed.”
Biden will be in Atlanta on Monday, the same day that Trump heads to the town of Dalton, in northern Georgia, for a rally on the eve of the election. Vice President Mike Pence will also be in Georgia on Monday. Harris will be in Savannah on Sunday.
Republicans face considerable pressure to maximize their expected election day advantage to offset an apparent repeat of Democrats’ success in voting at the November election.
“This is a turnout election and Democrats are giving their votes,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, warned a Republican Party crowd on Saturday in Cumming, an Atlanta suburb where he campaigned with Loeffler.
In November, around 5 million votes were cast in all. This included 3.6 million early votes and about 1.4 million on election day. Democrats had a big advantage in the first votes, but Republicans recovered ground on November 3. Biden defeated Trump by about 12,500 votes; Perdue led Ossoff by about 88,000 votes, but fell short of the majority needed to win immediately. Loeffler and Warnock were forced into a second round because they both fell well away from the majority.
Perdue’s early lead gave Republicans confidence during much of the runoff campaign. But the early turnout of black voters, who are overwhelmingly Democratic, is now a major concern for the Republican Party. Black voters represent about 31% of the electorate in the second round so far; several hundred thousand absentee votes are still pending, according to nonpartisan data analyst Ryan Anderson of Atlanta. At this point in the general election, the black portion of the initial constituency was less than 28%.
Meanwhile, more than 110,000 voters who did not participate in November voted in the second round; O’Malley Dillon said the Democrats’ analysis shows that the group leans heavily in its favor. All of which suggests that Republicans will have to gain an even greater advantage on election day than in November.
In the northern suburbs, where Democrats have made considerable gains in recent election cycles, Loeffler repeated the themes of his runoff blitz, cartooning Warnock and Ossoff as radicals who do not fit Georgia’s political makeup. But she did not meditate on whether Democrats would win.
“Make no mistake, they are energized. They are changing, ”she said. “We need you to ensure that 10, 20 of your family and friends participate in the vote on Tuesday. We have three days to do this. “
While Loeffler campaigned, the president accessed Twitter with more false claims that Biden’s victory in Georgia was fraudulent. In fact, Georgia’s electoral authorities, including Republicans, ensured the accuracy of the count, and several courts rejected Trump and Republican Party electoral challenges.
Perdue remained in quarantine on Saturday after being exposed to a campaign official who tested positive for the coronavirus. He told Fox News that he would miss Trump’s rally on Monday.
Meanwhile, on the Biden camp, O’Malley Dillon said there is confidence that Georgia, regardless of its outcome, has already proved a new path for Democrats under Biden. She said the president-elect could energize the party’s diverse and more liberal base, while attracting more moderate voters, including white voters in the metropolitan region who may have biased Republicans. This, she said, makes it more difficult for the Republican Party to routinely attack “radicals” and “socialism”. And O’Malley Dillon said the investments in Georgia demonstrate Biden’s willingness to lend his brand across the country, even in strongholds of the Republican Party.
“Joe Biden is the guy who was always there to help the party and the candidates, doing more fundraising than anyone else … showing up at state party events. This is only part of who he is, ”said O’Malley Dillon, adding that Georgia is“ a reflection of how the president-elect wants to conduct ”his political operation as president.
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Thanawala reported from Cumming, Georgia.