All eyes are on Georgia as two potentially power-shifting U.S. Senate runoff races plowed on Monday and state election officials moved to tamp down unproven claims of ballot fraud from allies of President Donald Trump.
The runoff races between Republican Sen. David Perdue and Democratic nominee Jon Ossoff, and between Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock, are already attracting large donations and big-name backers ahead of a Jan. 5 runoff election.
Wins for both Ossoff and Warnock would likely tip the Senate in Democrats’ favor along with control of Congress and the presidency, clearing the way for President-elect Joe Biden and Democratic lawmakers to enact their priorities with little resistance for at least the next two years.
With millions of dollars already in the bank, Ossoff and Warnock look to benefit from a flood of donations pouring into their campaigns and the fundraising group Fair Fight led by former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, which raised $6 million for the two Democratic campaigns over the weekend.
“Together, we have changed the course of our state for the better,” Abrams said on social media Monday. “But our work is not done.”
Also over the weekend, former U.S. presidential candidate and New York resident Andrew Yang announced he and his wife plan on moving to Georgia in order to help drum up Democratic turnout for the Ossoff and Warnock campaigns.
Despite the excitement, Democrats have a tough fight ahead to flip Georgia’s Senate seats. Biden’s lead over Trump remained a razor-thin roughly 10,600 votes Monday afternoon as both state and national Republicans rushed to bolster Perdue and Loeffler’s campaigns and galvanize Republican voter support.
National Republican leaders have latched onto comments Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., made shortly after news outlets called the presidency for Biden on Saturday, saying: “Now we take Georgia, then we change America.”
Echoing other Republican leaders, Perdue and Loeffler have used Schumer’s comments to cast Georgia as the last line of resistance against Democratic priorities on health care, criminal justice reform and climate change initiatives, which Republicans have called too radical.
On Monday, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., announced he plans to join Perdue and Loeffler for a joint rally in Cobb County this week, marking the first of what will likely be many high-profile political figures arriving in Georgia to muster support for the two competing teams of Senate contenders.
“Georgia is the firewall against the radical agenda of the far left,” Rubio said on social media Sunday.
The tug-of-war over Georgia’s Senate seats comes as many Republican leaders continue lobbing accusations – so far without evidence – of improper ballot counting in Georgia and other states with tight races that flipped for Biden.
In Georgia, outgoing U.S. Rep. Doug Collins has signed on to lead the Trump campaign’s push for a recount, which can legally be requested since the vote margin between Trump and Biden stands at less than 0.5%.
Collins, who finished third and out of the running for the January runoff against Loeffler, said in a statement announcing his new position that he feels “confident we will find evidence of improperly harvested ballots and other irregularities” during the recount.
Georgia election officials – including some Republicans – have rejected claims any recount or discovery of improperly cast ballots could sway the election as officials work to certify results and prepare for a recount in the coming weeks.
Gabriel Sterling, the state’s voting system manager, dismissed claims of ballot harvesting or ballot-tampering at a news conference Monday, noting a handful of counties including Fulton, Gwinnett and Spalding did see temporary counting discrepancies but that those have since been fixed.
“The facts are the facts, regardless of the outcome,” said Sterling, who is a Republican. “In Georgia, we had an actual, accurate outcome.”
Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican, also said Monday morning on CNN that Georgia officials “have not had any sort of credible incidents raised to our level yet” regarding voter fraud or improper ballot counting.