The campaign continued in Georgia on Saturday in two Senate runoff elections, which will define much of Joe Biden’s first term.
Regardless of Donald Trump’s bizarre New Year’s day decision to call the second rounds “illegal and invalid”, disputes on Tuesday will decide Senate control and therefore how far Biden can go on issues like the pandemic, health, taxes, energy and the environment.
Democrats Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock must win to split the chamber 50/50. Kamala Harris, the elected vice president, would then act as a tiebreaker as president of the Senate. In response to this threat, Republican representatives Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue have placed themselves directly behind Trump, making extremely exaggerated claims about the dangers their opponents are supposed to represent.
In the words of Perdue and Loeffler, a Democratic Senate would “stamp” a “socialist agenda”, from “ending private insurance” and “expanding the supreme court” to adopting a Green New Deal that would raise taxes by thousands each year .
In addition to misrepresenting the political preferences of Biden and most Democratic senators, this characterization ignores the reality of a Senate in which Democrats and central Republicans play a key role.
At a campaign stop this week, Ossoff said Perdue’s “ridiculous” attacks “blow my mind.” He also scoffed at the claim that his ideas, aligned with Biden, amount to a leftist coup. But he agreed with his opponent on how important Georgia is.
“We have a lot of good work to do,” said Ossoff, “to get stuck in traffic jams and obstructions for years to come.”
Ossoff also made headlines this week with his response to a Fox News reporter about Loeffler’s allegations that his opponent, Warnock – pastor of a church previously led by Martin Luther King Jr – is “dangerous” and “radical”.
“Here is the final result,” said Ossoff. “Kelly Loeffler has been campaigning with a klansman. Kelly Loeffler has been campaigning with a klansman and is therefore demeaning to these cruel personal attacks to divert attention from the fact that she is campaigning with a former Ku Klux Klan member. “
The claim was misleading: Loeffler was photographed with a former Klan member, but did not campaign with him. Loeffler responded by calling Ossoff “a pathological liar” and “a trust fund socialist whose only job has been working for the Chinese Communist Party in recent years”, a reference to payments to Ossoff’s media company from a Hong Kong conglomerate.
Perdue was quarantined this week after exposure to Covid-19. He and Loeffler must also face an ever-growing Republican divide over Trump’s refusal to admit defeat in the presidential election.
Trump spread unfounded allegations of electoral fraud and attacked Georgia Republicans, including the governor, Brian Kemp, who defended the electoral process, attacks that led to your Friday night tweet about the legality of second rounds. As Perdue and Loeffler supported Trump’s claims, some Republicans expressed concern that this could discourage legalists from voting. Others are concerned that Republican candidates have pushed out moderates repelled by Trump.
“No Republican is really happy with the situation we are in,” said Chip Lake, a former Republican consultant from Georgia. “But sometimes when you play poker, you have to play the hand you received, and for us it starts with the president.”
Trump will visit Georgia for a final rally with Loeffler on Monday night, hours before the polls open. It is not clear whether Perdue will attend.
Democrats are fine with their opponents’ decision to run as Trump Republicans and use exaggerated attacks.
“We talked about something like expanding Medicaid. We talked about expanding the Pell scholarships ”for low-income college students, said Ossoff at a recent stop in Marietta, north of Atlanta. “Does David Perdue denounce these things as socialism?”
Ossoff noted Perdue’s claims that a Democratic Senate would abolish private health insurance. Ossoff and Warnock actually support Biden’s proposal to add a federal insurance plan to private insurance exchanges.
“I just want people to have a choice,” said Ossoff.
Biden beat Trump by about 12,000 votes out of 5 million in Georgia, making him the first Democrat to occupy the state since 1992. His total record vote for a Democrat in the state was fueled by the racial and ethnic diversification of metropolitan areas, but also by changes in major Atlanta suburbs where white voters have historically leaned towards Republicans.
However, Perdue got a few thousand votes from Trump’s total and led Ossoff by about 88,000. Republican turnout also increased in small towns and rural areas and Democrats disappointed in the polls, failing to achieve the expected gains.
“We already won this race once,” said Perdue. His advisers think they can corner the narrow slice of undecided voters by warning against handing over control to House, Senate and White House Democrats.
Biden sold himself as a unifier and an experienced legislative broker. But even a Democratic-controlled Senate would not give him everything he wants, as the rules still require 60 votes to advance most important legislation. Biden must win the Republicans.
A Democratic Senate, however, would pave the way for nominees for important positions, especially in the federal judiciary, and bring control of committees and plenary action. A Senate led by the current majority leader Mitch McConnell would almost certainly deny major legislative victories, as he did under Barack Obama.
Biden will travel to Atlanta on Monday to campaign with Ossoff and Warnock. Harris will campaign on Sunday in Savannah. On his last visit, Biden called Perdue and Loeffler “barriers” and urged Georgians “to vote for two US senators who know how to say the word ‘yes’ and not just ‘no’.”