The stakes are high. If the Republicans retain only one of the two Senate seats, they retain the majority in the Senate and can block all legislative proposals by the Biden administration in Congress.
A month ago, Georgia had been considered clear Republican territory. Now things might get tight for the two Republican incumbents, David Perdue, and Kelly Loeffler. Perdue takes on young Democrat John Ossoff.
“Republicans are terrified. They thought this was going to be a Sunday stroll for them, and now they find themselves in a struggle for existence.”
Ossoff lost the first election by 100,000 votes. But: Under normal circumstances, the Republican Perdue would have to win every election in conservative Georgia much more clearly. There are essentially two reasons why this is not the case. On the one hand, the Democrats accuse both Republican senators of having redesigned their stock portfolios shortly following they were informed regarding the danger of the corona virus in February and of having earned tens of thousands of dollars from their insider knowledge. While the Senate Ethics Committee has found no wrongdoing, Democrats keep bringing the issue up.
Controversy within the Republican Party
What weighs more heavily at the moment, however, is that there is a row within the Republican party in Georgia. When Trump raised the allegation of vote-rigging, both David Perdue and his counterpart Kelly Loeffler rushed to do the same. A piquant detail: a Republican, the Secretary of State for Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, also oversaw the election. Donald Trump spoke of serious manipulations in Georgia and defamed his party friend Raffensperger.
“The Secretary of State is an enemy of the people and he made a deal.”
A deal with the Democrats once morest Trump. There is no evidence for this. But the two Republican candidates dutifully demanded the resignation of their fellow party member. The political goal: They wanted to curry favor with Trump voters. A maneuver that can backfire, according to political correspondent Emma Hurt of the Atlanta public broadcaster NPR.
“It’s confusing for Republican voters which message they want to believe.”
The fate of the Biden presidency will also be decided here
Because, on the one hand, describing the electoral system in Georgia as corrupt and, on the other hand, mobilizing as many voters as possible is contradictory. It is estimated that up to $260 million will flow into this runoff. Other estimates go up to $1 billion. In any case, it will be exciting because the fate of the Biden presidency will be decided in large part in Georgia. The Republicans have an experienced party machine on their side, the Democrats the euphoria and a changed demographic: the electorate has become younger and more diverse, which usually favors the Democrats. There are isolated calls from angry Trumpists on the Internet to boycott the runoff in Georgia because Republicans there have done too little to prove the alleged voter fraud. The extent to which these calls are effective can hardly be estimated. One thing is clear: whoever can mobilize their voters better in the end will win the race. Joe Biden won by just under 13,000 votes in Georgia – out of five million voters. Repeating that will be very difficult for the Democrats. It’s not impossible.
