ATLANTA – Two Republican incumbents appeared well on their way to winning reelection to the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) Tuesday night.
Commissioners Lauren “Bubba” McDonald and Jason Shaw were leading Democratic challengers Daniel Blackman and Robert Bryant, respectively, late on Election Night.
Each of the two Republicans had amassed nearly 55% of the statewide vote with 1,863 of Georgia’s 2,656 precincts reporting, according to unofficial results.
If the numbers remain unchanged, McDonald would win another six-year term representing PSC District 4, which covers all of North Georgia and the state’s border with South Carolina down to Augusta. The former member of the General Assembly has served on the commission since 1998.
Shaw, also a former state lawmaker, was appointed to the commission last year to represent PSC District 1, which covers all of South Georgia.
During the campaign, the two Democrats criticized the Republican incumbents for giving Georgia Power the green light to finish the nuclear expansion at Plant Vogtle despite huge cost overruns and lengthy delays.
The challengers also took the incumbents to task for lifting a moratorium on electrical service disconnections in July. The commission imposed the moratorium back in March as businesses shut down by the coronavirus pandemic began laying off employees.
The incumbents defended the Plant Vogtle project as critical to maintaining nuclear power as a component of a diverse energy-generation portfolio in Georgia, particularly as Georgia Power reduces its reliance on coal.
Victories by both McDonald and Shaw would leave the five-member PSC fully in Republican hands.
U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (left), U.S. Rep. Doug Collins (center) and Rev. Raphael Warnock (right) are competing in the Nov. 3 special election.
U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler and challenger Rev. Raphael Warnock appear headed for a runoff in one of two hotly contested Senate seats in Georgia.
U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, the firebrand Republican challenging Loeffler for her seat in a free-for-all election, called Loeffler to concede and support her campaign around 10:30 p.m. on Election Day after results indicated she will advance to the runoff. His campaign confirmed the call.
Warnock, who has mustered a staunch coalition of Democratic support in Georgia and nationwide, was likewise well on his way to gathering enough votes to face Loeffler in what will be a closely watched runoff race in January.
“We’re going to be successful, but we’ve got a long road ahead,” Loeffler said late Tuesday night. “So we’ve got to come together.”
Rallying with supporters Tuesday hours before results arrived, Warnock cast the special election for Loeffler’s seat and others Democrats are trying to claim as something of a spiritual as well as political quest.
“I know it’s been a long, dark night,” Warnock said. “But joy comes in the morning. And we are on the verge of morning in Georgia and in the United States of America.”
In a Twitter post just after 10:30 p.m., Collins said he will back Loeffler in her runoff campaign against Warnock.
“She has my support and endorsement,” Collins said. “I look forward to all Republicans coming together.”
The race for one of Georgia’s two Senate seats has been dominated for almost a year by the fierce intra-party battle between Loeffler and Collins, who repeatedly scorched each other in television attack ads and social-media posts.
All the while, Warnock has sought to take advantage of the Republican spat that has largely shielded him from direct campaign attacks and allowed him to broadcast consistent messaging on health care, voting rights, criminal justice and workers’ rights issues.
Speaking Tuesday, Warnock said he plans to stick with that campaign strategy while incorporating more ways to “draw a contrast between my record” and his runoff opponent.
Loeffler was appointed in January by Gov. Brian Kemp to hold the seat vacated by retired Sen. Johnny Isakson, who stepped down due to health concerns with three years remaining in his term.
Whoever wins the runoff in January and claims Isakson’s old seat will need to run again in 2022 for a full six-year Senate term.
The special election held Tuesday involved around 20 candidates including Loeffler all on the same ballot, marking a free-for-all ballot format that prompted the intense campaigning between Loeffler and Collins.
For months, the two Republicans opened fire on their personal and political records, each seeking to portray the other as the less conservative candidate while trumpeting loud support for President Donald Trump.
Loeffler, a wealthy Atlanta businesswoman, has touted legislation she filed on protecting local police budgets, prohibiting COVID-19 aid for abortion providers and barring transgender girls from playing in public-school girls’ or women’s sports.
She faced controversy in April amid allegations she made stock trades to isolate her and her husband’s assets from damage from the COVID-19 pandemic, shortly after she and other senators received a private briefing on the virus.
Though a federal investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing, Collins and Democratic leaders frequently used the incident to bludgeon Loeffler as an out-of-touch elitist concerned more about her own financial interests than public service.
Loeffler, who has pumped $23 million of her own money into her campaign, embraced her wealth by portraying herself as a self-made political outsider in the mold of Trump who would not be shackled to any campaign donors.
Collins, a four-term congressman and U.S. Air Force Reserve chaplain, pushed to chisel his image as the more grassroots conservative candidate compared to Loeffler, who he accused of being too cozy with the oft-vilified Planned Parenthood and Georgia Democratic star Stacey Abrams in her role as co-owner of the Atlanta Dream women’s professional basketball team.
But aside from sniping at each other’s personal backgrounds, Collins and Loeffler largely shared similar conservative views on key issues like abortion, gun rights and economic security from China.
By contrast, Warnock used his platform to condemn his Republican opponents for opposing the Affordable Care Act and supporting Trump’s latest U.S. Supreme Court justice pick following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September.
Warnock, who is the senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, has pressed for boosting health-care access through Medicaid expansion and by shoring up the Affordable Care Act with a public option. He has also called for national rules on certain police activities including a ban on chokeholds and third-party probes of officer-involved killings.
Though the clear Democratic frontrunner in the race, Warnock was not immune to challenges from within his own party. In particular, he faced competition from educator and health-care consultant Matt Lieberman, the son of former U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
Lieberman, who drew a scant share of the vote Tuesday, refused to exit the race after many prominent Democratic leaders urged him to clear the way for Warnock in a bid to help the frontrunner gain enough votes – more than 50% of the total – to avoid a January runoff.
Former U.S. Attorney and state Sen. Ed Tarver also competed in the race as a Democrat. Former Lithonia Mayor Deborah Jackson also pulled a fair number of votes as a Democratic candidate.
Lines were sparse outside the Cobb County Regional Library voter precinct through noon on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Georgians fearing the worst for Election Day 2020 woke up to find swift lines and few headaches as voters shuttled in and out of polling places up and down the state on the way to record-breaking turnout.
Even before Tuesday, Georgia voters had cast nearly 4 million ballots by mail or during the three-week early voting period that wrapped up last Friday.
With upwards of 2 million more ballots anticipated, the state looked well on track to passing the 4.1 million record turnout for the 2016 presidential election.
Faced with huge lines during early voting and in the June 9 primary, election officials across the state warned Georgians in recent weeks to prepare for lengthy waits outside voting places as poll workers grappled with high volumes, new machines and safety precautions amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
LaToya Jefferson, who lives near her precinct at Cobb County Regional Library in Mableton, said Tuesday she had watched the long lines of early voting since Oct. 12, when voters waited outside the library for as many as eight hours.
Jefferson decided to wait until Election Day to vote, despite remembering the tough conditions during the 2016 election when she had to wait for hours in the rain. But come Tuesday morning, it took her about 10 minutes to vote at the library.
“I was surprised,” Jefferson said. “I kept seeing that line and seeing that line last week. But I was in and out today.”
By the lunch rush, when lines tend to run long, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office estimated wait times statewide stood on average at just four minutes to vote. Election officials primed for a repeat of problems seen in June were starting to breathe sighs of relief.
“We’re hearing good things all over the state,” said Walter Jones, a spokesman for Raffensperger. “Everything is humming along.”
Even the worst line offenders in Atlanta were running smoothly. Poll workers at the Park Tavern precinct, where people waited for hours in line during the June primary, had been moving voters through with no slowdowns and no technical issues by 2 p.m.
Officials said few polling places opened late on Tuesday, eliminating a major source of bottlenecks that have plagued past elections. Machine problems had also been sparse aside from a glitch in Spalding County with voter access cards, but which was largely fixed by afternoon.
Raffensperger and other officials credited the thousands of volunteers who have pitched in as poll workers and technical assistance with helping ease the voting process, as well as an avalanche of early and mail-in votes. Counties like Fulton also took key steps to resolve past problems, Raffensperger said.
Gabriel Sterling, the voting system manager with Raffensperger’s office, said around 3:30 p.m. that “everything is steady as she goes” across the state with the average wait time having fallen to a mere two minutes. The longest afternoon wait time was about an hour in Coweta County, Sterling said.
“It’s exceeding our expectations given the situations we saw in June,” Sterling said. “We’ve hit all of our marks. The counties have done an amazing job. The state’s worked with them to make sure they have all the resources they need.”
Voting rights advocates have pressed state and county election officials for months to reduce line times that drew accusations of voter suppression.
Rev. Raphael Warnock, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, said during an Election-Day campaign stop that “we are clearly on our way to record turnout and that’s a good sign.”
Campaigning Tuesday with Stacey Abrams, the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate who founded the voting rights group Fair Fight, Warnock praised the quick voting times but cautioned Georgians to remain vigilant about potential acts of alleged suppression.
“We’ve seen the collision of voter passion and voter suppression,” Warnock said. “Hopefully, at the end of the day, the passion will overcome the suppression.”
ATLANTA – The Georgia Lottery set a record for profits during the first quarter, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Monday.
The lottery brought in almost $383.4 million during July, August and September, the most profitable quarter in the program’s history. That brought the total the lottery has transferred to education to about $22.7 billion.
“The Georgia Lottery continues to produce strong results for Georgia’s HOPE and Pre-K programs,” Kemp said. “Students and families throughout the Peach State benefit greatly from the Lottery’s continued success, and we appreciate their hard work to support education in Georgia.”
The Georgia Lottery’s record first quarter follows a record fiscal 2020 that generated more than $1.23 billion for HOPE and Pre-K.
“Our record first quarter provides a strong foundation to build upon for the remainder of the fiscal year,” said Gretchen Corbin, the lottery’s president and CEO.
More than 1.9 million Georgia students have received HOPE during its 27-year history, and more than 1.6 million 4-year-olds have attended the statewide, voluntary prekindergarten program.
The line stretched around the block at South Cobb Regional Library in Mableton where voters waited in line for hours to cast ballots on the first day of early voting in the Nov. 3 general election on Oct. 12, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Prominent national political figures swarmed Georgia in the final days before the Nov. 3 election, solidifying the state as battleground territory where voter turnout is racking up record-breaking numbers.
President Donald Trump landed in Rome, Ga., on Sunday for a rally attended by thousands of people as part of a multi-state blitz meant to shore up Republican support in states with tight races including those for Georgia’s U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who attended the president’s rally.
Hours before he spoke, Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris headlined a get-out-the-vote rally in the Atlanta area in her second visit to the Peach State in recent weeks, following an appearance by her running mate and presidential nominee Joe Biden last Tuesday.
And former President Barack Obama, in whose administration Biden was vice president, also held a rally in Atlanta on Monday afternoon to further punctuate Georgia’s growing importance for Democratic leaders.
Meanwhile, more than 3.9 million votes had been cast in Georgia as of Saturday through mail-in ballots and during the three-week early voting period, shattering records for early turnout and approaching the 4.1 million votes cast in the 2016 presidential election.
State election officials expect upwards of 2 million more votes could roll in on Election Day.
Interest has spiked among Georgians this election cycle with the presidency, both U.S. Senate seats, congressional seats and control of the state House of Representatives in play.
Polls show tight races up and down the ballot in Georgia, from the contest between Trump and Biden to the two Senate races to a pair of congressional contests in suburban Atlanta where voters have trended more Democratic after years of reliable Republican support.
But Trump, who has journeyed to the state several times in recent months, said he was unfazed by the political fortune-telling in Georgia during a rally late Sunday night in staunchly conservative Northwest Georgia, where he touted his administration’s track record and assailed Biden.
“I shouldn’t even be here,” Trump said. “They say I have Georgia made. But you know what? I said I promised we have to be here.”
Down the road, Harris convened numerous state Democratic leaders including voting-rights advocate and former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock and local officeholders to drum up excitement for Democrats’ chances on Tuesday.
“They know that when we vote, things change,” Harris said. “They know that when we vote, we win.”
Ossoff, Warnock, Abrams and other state Democratic luminaries dropped by for Obama’s rally in downtown Atlanta on Monday, where the former president said Georgia voters could help sway the balance of power in both the Senate and the White House.
“Georgia could be the state,” Obama said. “Georgia could be the place where we put this country back on track.”
Despite the push from Democrats, Georgia Republicans and the Trump campaign have remained confident they will keep a foothold in the state where a majority of voters have not cast ballots for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992.
“As the final hour of the election draws near, Georgia is once again ready to deliver and re-elect President Trump,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Savannah Viar.
Polling places in Georgia open on Election Day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Absentee ballots must be received by 7 p.m. on Nov. 3 to be counted.
