Ben Gray/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP
Supporters of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris celebrate in Atlanta on Saturday.
Barring a couple miracles in uncalled races in Alaska and North Carolina, control of the Senate will come down to two runoff elections in Georgia on January 5, two days after the 117th Congress initially convenes. One runoff completes the special election for the seat of retired Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson, with appointed incumbent Kelly Loeffler (R) facing the Rev. Raphael Warnock (D). The other runoff, between incumbent David Perdue (R) and Jon Ossoff (D), is happening because neither candidate reached 50 percent in the first balloting, and under Georgia law the top two face off from there.
My head tells me not to be optimistic about these two races. Runoff elections, which only exist for general elections in Georgia and Louisiana, are a Jim Crow–era relic that as a practical matter made it harder for non-racists to win statewide in the South. In Georgia in recent decades, this has translated into wins for Republicans.
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In the three Georgia runoffs since 1992 (the 1992 Senate race, the 2008 Senate race, and the 2018 Secretary of State’s race—all years in which Democrats gained nationally), the Republican won the runoff and the Democrat finished the runoff with a lower share of the vote then in the general election. These races featured significant drop-offs in turnout: In 2018, secretary of state candidates received 3.88 million votes in the November general election, and only 1.47 million in the runoff. Georgia runoffs are turnout battles, and historically, turnout favors Republicans.
The momentum in Georgia is on the side of those who just broke through at the presidential level.
But this is a different Georgia. It’s a Georgia that Joe Biden appears to have won, amid historic turnout, particularly among young voters and voters of color. This subset, sometimes called the Rising American Electorate, is precisely the kind of voter that drops off outside of presidential elections. And without a big target like Donald Trump to vanquish, there are reasonable fears that it will be harder to get these voters to the polls, giving Loeffler and Perdue the advantage.
But that cuts both ways. Just as Trump isn’t on the ballot to charge up Democrats, he likewise isn’t there to bring in MAGA voters, who really only got activated in politics because of Trump. As much as Loeffler, the richest member of Congress, wore the mask of a right-wing populist in her race this year (to the right of Attila the Hun, to be precise), and as much as Perdue got up to speed on racism, neither is Donald Trump. He inspired lots of infrequent voters who were disconnected from politics and who didn’t particularly like Republicans. Their general dejection at the end of the Trump era could translate into depressed turnout in January.
It’s true that Trump could still campaign, as the president, for Loeffler and Perdue. But he’ll be in the home stretch of his term of office at that time. I don’t expect Donald Trump, who has done nothing for anyone but Donald Trump his entire life, to lend a helping hand to the GOP on this one. Maybe some goodwill to the party would set up a 2024 restoration run, but that’s four years away, and Trump isn’t known as a long-term thinker. The lure of headlining a rally is pretty strong, but I suspect he’ll be far more interested in destroying evidence and figuring out how to pardon himself for the next couple months.
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By contrast, Georgia Democrats are energized about (pending a recount) winning the presidential vote for the first time since 1992. They do have an interesting combination of candidates to appeal to the voters they need to turn out. Rev. Warnock is the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church—a post once held by Martin Luther King. He’s been involved in many of the same circles that organized the victory for Biden; prior to running, he was board chair of the New Georgia Project, a critical voter registration organization, for three years.
For his part, Ossoff already had liberal America’s eyes on him; in 2017, he ran in a special House election to replace then-Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and raked in tens of millions of dollars in donations, nearly flipping the seat (that race also went to a runoff). He ran a better campaign this year than he did in that race, which focused on the federal deficit, but the more important factor here is geographic: the congressional district Ossoff contested includes a chunk of Cobb County, one of the Atlanta suburbs that are critical for any Democrat wanting to win statewide, and one that helped push Biden over the top in his apparent win. In this sense, Ossoff and Warnock complement each other in what is effectively one race. (I’d be surprised if there’s much difference between Warnock’s total vote and Ossoff’s in January.)
Republicans certainly have an argument to make to their base in Georgia, and they’re already making it. The runoffs, they claim, are the only thing standing between the nation and the total dominance by radical liberals in Washington. While this isn’t necessarily true—a 50/50 Senate with Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema and John Hickenlooper in the Democratic caucus would hardly be expected to muscle through mounds of socialist legislation—it could prove effective messaging.
The candidates should have no problem fundraising, with Democrats fired up to take the Senate.
Democrats can opt for their own message, however. As occasional Prospect contributor Jon Walker points out, Democrats could get all 48 of its Senate members to sign off on a specific coronavirus relief bill that they vow to put up for a vote if Warnock and Ossoff win and give them control of the Senate.
This kind of bill, which involves spending, could be accomplished through budget reconciliation and would only need 50 votes. So this would be a tangible piece of policy, with elements like $1,200 checks to most Americans, extended unemployment benefits, and state and local fiscal aid to save the jobs of firefighters teachers and cops, on which voters would get to make an up-or-down decision. This could also unify the center and left factions of the party, currently squabbling over what exactly would ruin the prospects of a Georgia victory.
Mitch McConnell has talked about doing a stimulus package in the lame-duck session, which would short-circuit this idea, but his plans thus far have not included $1,200 checks or state and local aid. On Friday, after new employment numbers came out, he said that a smaller, more targeted bill would be “more appropriate.” So expansive relief for struggling families would be on the table even if Congress passed something in the McConnell vein at the end of the year.
The combination of a ticket that could get out low-propensity Democratic voters, the absence of Trump as a turnout magnet, and the possibility of making the race a referendum on economic salvation for millions could even the scales of the normally skewed runoffs in the Peach State. The candidates should have no problem fundraising, with Democrats fired up to take the Senate. And the momentum in Georgia is on the side of those who just broke through at the presidential level.
None of this makes the runoffs a slam dunk for Democrats; if I had to set a betting line I’d make them the underdogs, in a high-pressure environment with the whole nation descending on the state. Still, Warnock and Ossoff aren’t big underdogs. With some smart strategy—like hiring Chuck Rocha to make sure Latinos turn out again—and capitalizing on the long-term, multi-racial organizing efforts that have transformed the state, they could deliver the Senate to the Democrats.
