MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-11-08 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Senate still in contention - with new election
|
Georgia’s Two Runoff Races Become Focus for Senate Control
Lindsay Wise, Cameron McWhirter and Jennifer Calfas
9-12 minutes
ATLANTA—While the nation is focused on the outcome of the presidential
election, political insiders and activists are turning their attention
to Georgia where a set of runoff races likely will determine control of
the U.S. Senate and whether President-elect Joe Biden will have a
Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress when he begins his
administration.
The partisan breakdown in the Senate is currently a tie, with 48
Republicans and 48 Democrats. Four seats are still outstanding: In
addition to the Georgia runoffs, Republicans are leading and expected to
win in Alaska and North Carolina, but those races haven’t been called
yet by the Associated Press because votes are still being counted.
If Republicans hold their seats in Alaska and North Carolina, Democrats
would need to win both of the Georgia runoff races on Jan. 5 to control
50 seats in the chamber. That would give their party majority control
since Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, in her role as president of
the Senate, could cast any tiebreaking votes. The House is expected to
remain in Democratic control, albeit with a smaller majority.
The Georgia runoffs will test how far the political landscape has
shifted in a state where Mr. Biden was leading President Trump on Sunday
by about 10,000 votes out of almost 5 million cast. A recount is
expected in the state’s presidential contest because of the narrow
margin, currently the closest in Georgia since the Civil War. If Mr.
Biden ultimately succeeds in winning Georgia’s 16 electoral votes, he
will be the first Democratic presidential nominee to capture the state
since 1992.
Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler giving a speech Nov. 3 after it became
clear there would be a runoff.
Photo: brandon bell/Reuters
While the presidential candidate with the most votes in the general
election is the winner, Georgia’s election law is different for Senate
and House candidates. If no candidate in those races gets more than 50%
plus one vote, the two top vote getters, regardless of party, compete in
a runoff. That’s what happened Tuesday in both the re-election bid of
GOP Sen. David Perdue, and in a special election to complete the term of
retired Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Republican.
In one runoff, Mr. Perdue, a former chief executive of Dollar General
Corp., is facing Democrat Jon Ossoff, a documentary filmmaker who has
never held political office. In the other, Democrat Raphael Warnock,
pastor of the late Dr. Martin Luther King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in
Atlanta, aims to oust Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler. Ms. Loeffler is a
businesswoman appointed last year by Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian
Kemp to fill Mr. Isakson’s seat.
Messrs. Ossoff and Warnock have been critical of President Trump, while
Mr. Perdue and Ms. Loeffler have allied themselves closely with Mr. Trump.
Republicans have dominated Georgia politics for decades, but the
Democratic Party is resurgent, bolstered by an influx of younger people
and minorities, many of whom moved to metro Atlanta from the North.
Voter-registration drives and lawsuits to change state election
processes, led by organizations founded by former state House Democratic
leader Stacey Abrams, have also brought in hundreds of thousands of new
voters.
Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff has begun airing ads for the vote
runoff.
Photo: chris aluka berry/EPA/Shutterstock
A key question is whether Democrats will show up for the runoffs in the
same numbers that they did in the general election. A nonpartisan study
of the history of runoffs in Georgia found that, going back to 1988,
there have been seven statewide runoff elections. Democrats won only one
of them—and that was more than 20 years ago, in 1998.
Democrats are aware of that history and already are working to bring out
their voters again in January. At a Saturday celebration in Atlanta’s
Freedom Park after Mr. Biden was projected to win the presidency,
members of the New Georgia Project, a voter registration organization
founded by Ms. Abrams, passed around sign-up sheets in an effort to find
new volunteers ahead of the runoff elections.
“We want to make sure we amplify and mobilize voters at this very
moment,” said Maggie Bell, a volunteer coordinator for the group. “We
can’t have anyone who voted November 3rd and not come back January 5th.”
Some at the rally worried the current enthusiasm will wane by January.
“If they can take the momentum and push it that would be amazing, but I
just don’t know,” said 31-year-old Kalin Foster of Atlanta, a longtime
Democrat. “I’m skeptical. I’m tired of getting my hopes up and then
getting my heart ripped out.”
Republican Sen. David Perdue has allied himself closely with President
Trump.
Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Greg Leopold, a 26-year-old Trump supporter who questions the
presidential-election results, said the prospects of a
Democratic-controlled House, Senate and White House would motivate
Republicans to vote in the runoffs.
“If it is the case that they hold the House, Senate and presidency, I
don’t know how many justices they will put on the Supreme Court. I don’t
know how many states they will bring into the union,” said Mr. Leopold,
in a reference to claims by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.,
Ky.) that Democrats would pass statehood for Washington, D.C., and
Puerto Rico, giving each two new Senate seats that Mr. McConnell says
would likely be filled by Democrats.
“I’m going to be very motivated myself. I believe the Democrats are
going to be very motivated as well,” Mr. Leopold said. “It’s going to be
a nasty fight.”
Ms. Abrams is pushing back against what she calls the “anachronistic”
notion that Democrats can’t win runoffs in her state.
She said Georgia Democrats will have an unprecedented level of unity,
investment and resources for January’s runoffs. “This is going to be the
determining factor of whether we have access to health care and access
to justice in the United States,” Ms. Abrams said on Sunday on CNN.
“Those are two issues that will make sure people turn out.”
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
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