ATLANTA (AP) – Georgians cast final votes of great importance on Tuesday in the elections to determine the balance of power in the new Congress, deciding the runoff elections for the Senate be sure to shape President-elect Joe Biden’s ability to enact what could be the most progressive government agenda in generations.
Republicans are united against Biden’s plans for health, environmental protection and civil rights, but some fear that President Donald Trump’s blatant attempts to undermine the integrity of the country’s voting systems could discourage voters in Georgia.
State election officials reported light turnout Tuesday morning, including in the deeply conservative northwest region, where Trump held a rally on Monday night to encourage Republican Party voters to appear in force. Waiting times at polling stations were “almost non-existent”, averaging about a minute across the state, said Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
More than 3 million Georgians voted early, by mail or during the in-person vote in December. The strong initial participation was expected to benefit Democrats, as it helped Biden become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win in Georgia since 1992.
“This is the story unfolding in Georgia now,” Jon Ossoff, one of Georgia’s two Democratic opponents, told reporters outside an Atlanta polling station.
Republicans were counting on a big turnout on Tuesday to increase their chances.
“You have to swarm tomorrow,” Trump told thousands of supporters Monday night, minimizing the threat of fraud, even after repeatedly declaring that the state’s November elections were plagued by cheating that Republican officials, including their former attorney general and Georgia’s electoral chief, say did not take place.
Democrats must win the two state Senate elections to win a majority in the Senate. In this scenario, the Senate would be split equally 50-50 with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as the tiebreaker for Democrats.
Democrats secured a narrow majority in the House and the White House during the November general elections.
The January elections in Georgia, necessary because no Senate candidate received the majority of the votes in the general election, were unique for many reasons, mainly because the candidates basically ran in teams.
A contest featured Democrat Raphael Warnock, who serves as a senior pastor at the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached. Warnock, 51, was raised in public homes and spent most of his adult life preaching in Baptist churches.
Warnock would face Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler, a 50-year-old former businesswoman who was appointed to the Senate a year ago by the state’s Republican governor. She is only the second woman to represent Georgia in the Senate, although race has emerged as a campaign focus. Loeffler and his allies took advantage of excerpts from Warnock’s sermons at the historic Black Church to consider him an extremist. Dozens of religious and civil rights leaders have backed down.
The other election put former business executive David Perdue, 71, who held the Senate seat until the official end of his term on Sunday, against Democrat Ossoff, a former Congressional aide and journalist. At only 33, Ossoff would be the youngest member of the Senate if elected. He gained national prominence for the first time in 2017, during an unsuccessful special election election in the Chamber.
Even a very divided Democratic Senate would not guarantee Biden everything he wants, given the house rules that require 60 votes to pass most important legislation. But if Democrats lose at least one of Tuesday’s disputes, Biden will have little chance of positive or negative votes in his most ambitious plans to expand government-backed health coverage, tackle racial inequality and fight climate change. A Republican-controlled Senate would also create a more difficult path for Biden’s Cabinet choices and court appointments.
“Georgia, the whole nation is looking for you,” Biden declared at his own Atlanta rally on Monday. “The power is literally in your hands.”
Despite fears among some Republicans that Trump’s baseless allegations of electoral fraud could diminish participation, the two Republican candidates strongly support him. Perdue said on Tuesday that Trump “of course” deserves credit if Republicans win.
“What the president said last night is that even if you’re upset about all of this, you have to get up and fight,” Perdue told Fox & Friends. “If we don’t vote, we’ll look back and regret the day when we hand over the keys of the kingdom to the Democrats.”
Loeffler has vowed to join a small but growing number of Republican senators protesting the expected Congressional certification for Biden’s victory on Wednesday.
“We have to find out what happened in this election,” Loeffler told reporters during the campaign in Sandy Springs, a suburb of Atlanta. “There are many open and unsolved investigations.”
Warnock accused Loeffler of “helping and encouraging” Trump’s efforts to reverse his electoral defeat.
“She wants to spend time trying to hear her voice,” Warnock told supporters in the suburb of Marietta, north of Atlanta. “We know that Joe Biden beat Georgia. How many times do we have to count the votes? So, what we need now is to get help for him. ”
Democrats attacked Perdue and Loeffler, each among the richest members of the Senate, for personal action talks after members of Congress received information about the emerging threats from COVID-19 while Trump and Republicans played down the pandemic. None of the businesses violated the Senate law or ethical rules, but Warnock and Ossoff called Republicans selfish and inaccessible.
Perdue and Loeffler responded by criticizing Democrats as certain to initiate an onslaught on the left in national politics. Neither Warnock nor Ossoff are socialists, as the Republicans claim. They do, however, support Biden’s agenda.
Georgia’s runoff marks the formal end of the turbulent 2020 election season and has attracted nearly $ 500 million in campaign spending to a state that was once solidly Republican and is now a battleground. The result will help demonstrate whether the political coalition that fueled Biden’s victory was an anti-Trump anomaly or part of a new scenario.
Biden won Georgia’s 16 electoral votes for about 12,000 votes out of 5 million in November.
Democratic success is likely to depend on a huge turnout of African Americans, young voters, voters with higher education and women, all groups that helped Biden to beat Georgia. Republicans have focused on energizing their own base of white men and voters beyond the center of the Atlanta metropolitan area.
In downtown Atlanta, Henry Dave Chambliss, 67, voted for both Republicans. He said he wants Republicans to retain control of the Senate to ensure that the new Biden government does not slide “all the way to the left”.
“I have moderate success and I know that they will come after more of my money that I won,” said Chambliss. “I was born a Southern Democrat and I just hope and pray that some moderate voices are heard and things get more in the way.”
Beverly McDaniel cast her vote Tuesday morning amid a light attendance at a neighborhood gym in Atlanta. She voted for both Democrats, saying she believes they would do better to deal with the adversities caused by the coronavirus.
“Our children are not fully in school as they should be and people do not have jobs,” said McDaniel, a medical field worker. She said the virus “is taking control where we should have the government taking over”.
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Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. AP journalists Haleluya Hadero and Angie Wang contributed from Atlanta.