Control of the Senate puts Georgia runoffs in national spotlight
The races are bringing Republican and Democratic firepower to the Peach State.
With control of the Senate hanging in the balance, Georgia’s dual runoffs elections in January are taking on outsize influence over the next four years of governing under a newly-elected president.
More than six weeks into the pair of races, which have captured the nation's attention, each party’s heavyweights have hit the stump to gin up their bases, campaign cash continues to flood the state and national forces are shaping the contours of the two contests in the new battleground.
The Democrats -- Jon Ossoff, a once-unsuccessful congressional candidate and investigative journalist, and Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, a prominent Black preacher in the South as the senior pastor of the storied Ebenezer Baptist Church -- are attempting to cement Georgia's status as a swing state by securing the narrowest of majorities in the Senate if they can defeat the two GOP incumbents.
But getting there, much like any other runoff election, will come down to turnout.
"You all did something extraordinary in November," President-elect Joe Biden, the first Democrat to win the state in a presidential election since 1992, said last week while campaigning for Ossoff and Warnock in Atlanta. "You voted in record numbers. You voted to improve the lives of every Georgian. And you voted as if your life depended on it. Well, guess what? Now you're going to have to do it again come Jan. 5."
Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris echoed Biden's sentiments on Monday as she hit the campaign trail for Ossoff and Warnock, urging Georgians to think about their votes on a national level.
"I'm not here to tell you what's in your best interest. But I am here to say that the decision you make, the work you put into this, it will impact people who you may never meet, people who may never know your names," Harris said.
For Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who are campaigning in lockstep, their hopes of retaining their seats rely on an odd quandary: staunchly backing an outgoing president, who refuses to concede his loss, and his false assertions about a stolen election that could hurt their chances next month.
Still, it is Democrats who face a tall order: runoff elections historically favor Republicans, political and election experts told ABC News. But with a wildcard in President Donald Trump, and his assailing of the integrity of the electoral system looming over the race, most aren’t ready to count the Democrats out -- particularly in such close contests.
Politics and religion overlap on the trail
Like many other southern states, Georgia's modern political history developed alongside the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and was harbored in the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The link between the past and the present has since been amplified under the national spotlight, particularly in the race between Warnock and Loeffler, despite the four candidates making the strategic decision to run in pairs.
The overlap between political activism and faith-based organizations in Georgia is multifaceted, according to political experts, with each party's base in the Peach State consisting of faith-conscious supporters. In the aftermath of a general election year that saw heightened mobilization from Black voters, community-based organization efforts are likely to play a key role in getting voters to turn out for a second time.
"For any Republican here in Georgia, getting the white, Evangelical vote [is critical to] getting a big turnout for that group, and for Democrats, it's the African American vote," said Dr. Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist and professor at Emory University in Atlanta.
"The problem Democrats have had is getting African American voters to turn out in runoff elections, but with the national importance of the race, and with Warnock there, I think that that may help them," he said.
When polls opened for the first day of early voting for the runoff elections on Dec. 14, turnout for in-person voting eclipsed the total for the first day of early voting in the Nov. 3 election (which landed on Columbus Day, a holiday, leaving some polling locations across the state closed). More than 168,000 voters showed up at the polls, compared to some 128,000 votes for the general election when that total surpassed the previous record set four years earlier by a stunning 42%.
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