ATLANTA (AP) – Reverend Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, defeated Senator Kelly Loeffler in Tuesday’s special election for an unsuccessful term for a US Senate seat in Georgia. Warnock will become the first black senator in Georgia’s history. It is still too early to call the second race between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican David Perdue, who is seeking a second term after his first term ended on Sunday. Senate control is at stake.
Here are some important tips:
BLACK VOTERS DRIVE THE SCALE
Warnock, senior pastor of the church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached during the height of the civil rights movement until his assassination, made history with increased black participation.
Certainly, a narrow 4.4 million vote win involves many variables. But black voters were a force in the initial vote and on election day. Notably, it was not just in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, but also in rural counties and small towns across South Georgia, where black turnout has historically been lowest.
That means it was an alliance that spans from Atlanta’s wealthiest black residents, including recent transplants to Georgia, to Georgia’s black natives who come from the state’s most economically depressed pockets.
This electoral cycle saw a confluence of factors for black voters: 2020 offered the first general election after the disappointment of Stacey Abrams narrowly failed in 2018 to become the first black governor in US history, and it was the first election after the death of Rep. John Lewis, an Atlanta civil rights icon who once marched alongside King.
Loeffler and his Republican allies used the two-month run-off campaign to hammer Warnock with advertisements calling him “dangerous” and “radical”. They used excerpts from his Ebenezer Baptist Church sermons to accuse him of “hate speech” and “racial” division.
But black voters can aim for Tuesday’s vote count and take credit for this strategy that ended in defeat.
GEORGIA SHOWING BATTLEGROUND BONA FIDES
When President-elect Joe Biden defeated Georgia by 12,000 votes out of 5 million, many observers assumed it was a reaction to President Donald Trump. It certainly had something to do with it. But after that with a victory in the second round of the Senate and potentially a second, the Democrats proved their status as a battleground for two parties in the future.
FALSE TRUMP CLAIMS FIND FAVORS WITH GOP ELECTORS
Trump may have lost the presidency, but his campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the election has clearly been successful with Republican voters in Georgia.
About three-quarters of voters who supported Perdue and Loeffler told the AP VoteCast poll that Biden was not legitimately elected in November. AP VoteCast interviewed more than 3,600 voters to measure voter views on a variety of topics.
Approximately 9 out of 10 Republican supporters said they were not confident that the votes in the November presidential race were accurately counted. Half said they had no confidence in the vote count. This is almost five times as many Republicans who said in November they were not confident that votes would be counted accurately.
That sentiment clearly traces Trump’s false rhetoric about electoral fraud, a claim that has been rejected by Attorney General William Barr, dozens of federal courts and several prominent Republican senators. And the findings demonstrate Trump’s continued control over the Republican base, something his fellow Republican politicians will face even after he leaves office.
TRUMP IS STILL A SHIFT DRIVER – FOR BOTH SIDES
Even with risks, Perdue, who is trying to win a second term, and Loeffler, a nominated senator trying to win her first election, have tied themselves to Trump at every stage of the campaign.
Democrats were stronger in the initial polls than in November, and that made Republicans nervous. These concerns followed weeks of Trump’s criticism that Biden stole the election, fueling the Republican Party’s fear that he would lead some of his supporters to skip the second round of protest, while repelling moderate and biased independents. Republican Party in urban and suburban areas.
Republican Party strategists felt a little better on Tuesday as they attended the conservative counties and outer ring of the Atlanta metropolitan area, where Republicans still have a large number of votes.
But Democratic participation also remained strong, with Fulton and DeKalb in the center of the Atlanta metropolitan area on the way to almost equal or exceed their participation in the general election. This represents a steep hill for Republicans in the newly discovered decisive state.
RELATIVELY SOFT
Even with Trump’s constant drumming of falsehoods about the voting process, state election officials and officials from both parties said Tuesday’s vote and counting seemed uneventful. There were no reports of queues lasting several hours. Election officials have also taken advantage of changes to the rules since November, which allowed for the early processing of absentee ballots – so they could be counted more quickly. As the count progressed to Wednesday, Georgia officials appeared to be managing the process without major problems.
KEMP FACES TROUBLE
Trump endorsed Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp during a Republican primary litigation in 2018, only to call him “incompetent” and promise to campaign against him in 2022 because he did not meet the president’s demands to reverse Georgia’s presidential results .
According to AP VoteCast, Republican voters are on Trump’s side: about 6 out of 10 approve of the way Kemp handled the consequences of the election. In November, AP VoteCast found about 9 out of 10 Trump supporters who passed Kemp’s overall job performance.
Kemp was already facing the prospect of a strong challenge for the general election of Abrams, the Democrat who must seek a rematch for his defeat in 2018. She would enter the race with a boost from all the electoral registration work that paid off with the Biden and Warnock wins. And now Kemp needs to establish his position in his own party before thinking about Abrams or any Democrats.
DEMOCRATS ‘HIGH-TOUCH GROUND GAME
Democrats appear to have had a wider reach than Republicans in contact with voters. About 6 out of 10 voters say they were contacted on behalf of Democratic candidates, compared with about half of Republican candidates.
The Democrats’ ground game may have helped to train voters. Overall, about 4 out of 10 said they were contacted and responded with a promise or commitment to vote. These voters were more likely to favor Ossoff and Warnock than Perdue and Loeffler.
NEW RESIDENTS CHANGING POLICY
AP VoteCast showed signs that newcomers to Georgia were more Democratic than longtime residents of the state. Those who lived in the state for more than 20 years leaned toward Republicans, while those who moved more recently preferred Democrats.
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Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Hannah Fingerhut in Washington and Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this report.