Democrats Jon Ossoff (left) and Rev. Raphael Warnock (right) bump elbows at a campaign stop in Atlanta for their U.S. Senate runoff races on Dec. 14, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Democrats have captured both of Georgia’s seats in the U.S. Senate for the first time in nearly 20 years, a momentous feat that gives the party control of Congress and the White House.
Several media outlets declared Democrat Jon Ossoff the winner Wednesday afternoon in Tuesday’s tight runoff contest against incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue. Ossoff took 50.3% of the vote to 49.7% for Perdue, apparently just above the 0.5% margin of victory that under state law would have allowed Perdue to request a recount.
Rev. Raphael Warnock captured Georgia’s other Senate seat earlier in the day when the Democratic challenger was declared the winner over incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler. Warnock prevailed by a slightly wider margin, 50.7% to 49.3%.
The Senate runoff results solidify Georgia’s position as a battleground state with closely fought elections for at least the next decade, said Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University.
“This is yet another election that confirms Georgia isn’t reliably Republican anymore,” Gillespie said Wednesday. “It has become purple and it has the potential to be very competitive for the next few election cycles.”
The two Democrats’ potential wins “feel bigger than Obama,” said Georgia political strategist Fred Hicks, commenting on former President Barack Obama’s historic victory in 2008 as the country’s first Black commander-in-chief. Warnock becomes Georgia’s first Black U.S. senator and Ossoff is the state’s first Jewish senator.
“There’s never been this kind of a get-out-the-vote effort statewide launched by Democrats and Democratic-affiliated groups,” Hicks said. “This was the first time that people went out to vote all over the state, not just metro [Atlanta] … And in a game of margins, that made the difference.”
Georgia has not been represented by two Democratic senators simultaneously since 2002, when former Sens. Max Cleland and Zell Miller both held office before Cleland’s reelection loss that year.
Turnout in the Jan. 5 runoffs is set to hover around 4.5 million as counting continued Wednesday, marking record-breaking turnout driven by huge vote-by-mail, early voting and Democratic enthusiasm over President-elect Joe Biden’s win over President Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 general election.
Close to $1 billion was spent by the four campaigns and outside groups in both races, dwarfing previous fundraising records in American politics, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. Celebrities and national politicians flocked to the state. Trump and Biden held rallies twice each.
Beyond the cash and cameos, Democratic operatives in Georgia also managed to “absolutely perfect get-out-the-vote” with wide canvassing efforts and “a more hopeful, optimistic message” than the fearful tone set by the senators’ campaigns, said Buzz Brockway, a former Republican state lawmaker and former Gwinnett County GOP chairman.
“Fear only goes so far,” Brockway said. “Obviously, there are people who think the world ended last night, but there are a lot who don’t.”
Democrats managed to hold the same margins or better that Biden saw in his win over Trump in Georgia despite a 10% drop in turnout in the runoffs compared to the Nov. 3 general election, said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.
Bullock, who has tracked elections in Georgia for decades, said Wednesday he did not see a path forward for Perdue and Loeffler in the runoffs.
“Democrats in the past have lost these general-election runoffs because they didn’t come back to the polls,” Bullock said. “That wasn’t the case this time.”
Much of the credit for Tuesday’s results and the presidential election flip went to Stacey Abrams, the former gubernatorial candidate and rising Democratic star who has led voter registration and turnout efforts since her loss to Gov. Brian Kemp in 2018.
Abrams took to Twitter late Tuesday night to laud her voting rights group Fair Fight’s staff and volunteers for helping put Ossoff and Warnock on a “strong path” to victory.
“Across our state, we roared,” Abrams said.
Georgia GOP leaders are now left to wonder what could have been if not for the influence of Trump, who served up more distraction than motivation for crucial conservative voting blocs by insisting the state’s election system was “rigged” after his loss on Nov. 3, according to several analysts.
Blame for Perdue’s and Loeffler’s potential losses should fall squarely on the president, said Georgia’s election system implementation manager, Gabriel Sterling.
“When you say your vote doesn’t count … then you spark a civil war within a GOP that needed to be united to get through a tough fight like this in a state that has been trending in the other direction for years now,” said Sterling, who is a Republican and a former Sandy Springs city councilman.
Officials have seen no evidence of widespread fraud in the runoff elections, Sterling said. That’s despite Trump’s assault on the state’s election integrity as he lobbed unproven fraud claims Wednesday and declared Perdue and Loeffler “never had a shot” – though neither senator has conceded defeat.
As Trump raged, Biden praised Georgia voters and Democratic leaders for sending “a resounding message” that looks to ease the way for his incoming administration to appoint Cabinet members and push through legislative initiatives for at least the next two years.
“After the past four years, after the election … it’s time to turn the page,” Biden said in a statement Wednesday. “The American people demand action and they want unity. I am more optimistic than I ever have been that we can deliver both.”
This story was updated to reflect that several media outlets have called the runoffs for both Ossoff and Warnock.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Supreme Court suspended state Court of Appeals Judge Christian Coomer with pay Wednesday after the former Georgia lawmaker was charged with misconduct.
Coomer, a Republican, served in the Georgia House of Representatives for eight years until he was appointed to the state’s second highest court in 2018.
The charges stem from an investigation launched last year into allegations that Coomer defrauded an elderly client while working as a private attorney.
Jim Fihart, 78, of Cartersville, claimed he loaned $159,000 to Coomer’s holding company in March of 2018 with the promise that the money would be paid back in a year, according to published reports. However, the promissory note that was written said it was to be paid off in 30 years when Fihart would be well into his 100s.
The note listed Fihart’s property as security of the debt should it not be paid off.
Coomer has said the property discrepancy was an unintentional mistake made when writing the document. He also offered to correct the error when it was drawn to his attention.
Coomer borrowed another $130,000 later in 2018, again through his holding company. This second loan was to be paid off when Fihart would have turned 84, and was also unsecured.
Fihart alleges Coomer should have known he was impaired and unable to make reasonable decisions. Coomer argues that it wasn’t until 2019 that Fihart suggested that he was somehow impaired.
Following an investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission charged Coomer late last month with 26 violations of the state Code of Judicial Conduct. Coomer has denied all of the allegations.
Under the state Supreme Court’s order, Coomer will be suspended with pay pending a final determination of the judicial commission’s proceeding against him.
ATLANTA – Georgia’s rural hospital tax credit fared better in a new state audit than the critical evaluation the program received from the state Department of Revenue just more than a year ago.
“Hospitals, taxpayers and third parties were largely compliant with statutory provisions,” the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts concluded in an audit released this week.
The last audit of the tax credit, released in December 2018, found that contributions to the program weren’t necessarily going to the neediest rural hospitals. The report called for bringing greater accountability and transparency to the program.
The General Assembly created the tax credit program in 2016 to help the state’s most financially stressed rural hospitals. A handful of rural hospitals have closed in recent years, unable to generate enough income to keep their doors open.
Under the program, taxpayers who donate to eligible hospitals reduce their state income tax liability by the amounts they contribute.
Donors may choose a specific hospital or, if one is not designated, the hospital receiving the contribution is chosen based on a ranking of financial need. In either case, no individual hospital may receive more than $4 million a year through the program.
Lawmakers capped total annual contributions to the program at $60 million, a level it nearly reached in 2018. However, the donations fell off to $46.5 million in 2019 and likely ended up at a similar level last year, based on data through mid-December, according to the audit.
Advocates for rural hospitals in Georgia blamed the reduction in contributions on a change in federal tax regulations in 2018 that reduced the financial benefit of the donations to individual and corporate taxpayers.
A rule promulgated last August partially restored the federal benefit by allowing some contributions from corporations and pass-through entities to be deducted as a business expense.
As expected, contributions to eligible hospitals vary significantly. In 2019, 12 of the 58 eligible hospitals received more than $1 million in contributions, while 22 received less than $500,000.
Dorminy Medical Center in Fitzgerald, ranked as the neediest rural hospital, received the $4 million limit in 2019, all in undesignated contributions. The hospital receiving the largest amount of designated contributions – Colquitt Regional Medical Center in Moultrie – brought in $3.3 million.
While most 2019 taxpayer contributions to rural hospitals complied with state law, the audit found a limited number of credits that exceeded statutory limits.
The report recommended that the state Department of Revenue strengthen the program’s safeguards by ensuring taxpayers contributing to the program identify the pass-through entities from which they are claiming income and that the agency not allow corporate taxpayer credits to exceed 75% of their actual tax liability.
Rev. Raphael Warnock (left) and Jon Ossoff (right) campaigned in Atlanta on Election Day in the U.S. Senate runoff races on Jan. 5, 2021. (Photos by Beau Evans)
Rev. Raphael Warnock is poised to defeat Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler in Tuesday’s runoff election, handing Democrats a Senate seat in Georgia for the first time in nearly 20 years.
Warnock’s co-campaigner, Democrat Jon Ossoff, also declared victory over Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue early Wednesday with a slim 16,000-vote lead in an election that looks to shatter turnout records for Georgia runoffs with around 4.5 million votes.
Should those results stand, Democrats will gain control of both chambers of Congress and the White House following President-elect Joe Biden’s win over President Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 general election.
Thousands of votes remained to be counted in heavily Democratic counties such as DeKalb, Fulton and Chatham. The outlook was enough for several news outlets including the Associated Press to call the race for Warnock as his lead grew to more than 53,000 votes overnight into early Wednesday.
“Every day I’m in the United States Senate, I will fight for you,” Warnock said in a victory speech just after midnight. “I will fight for your family.”
Ossoff joined suit, claiming victory Wednesday morning after CNN projected he will win. The Associated Press has not yet called his race.
“I will give everything I’ve got to ensuring that Georgia’s interests are represented in the U.S. Senate,” Ossoff said in a video thanking supporters.
The Republican senators have not conceded defeat so far. Loeffler told supporters around midnight she still sees “a path to victory,” while Perdue’s campaign issued an overnight message saying he “will be victorious” once all votes are counted in the “exceptionally close election.”
The runoffs have been among the most consequential in Georgia history, dominating airwaves and political talk for the past two months with control of the federal government hanging in the balance.
More than $830 million was spent by the four campaigns and outside groups in both races, dwarfing previous fundraising records in American politics, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. Celebrities and national politicians flocked to the state. Trump and Biden held rallies twice each.
The campaigns themselves were grueling affairs as Perdue and Loeffler cast their Democratic opponents as big-government socialists while Ossoff and Warnock framed the Republican incumbents as self-serving wealthy elites.
All four campaigns combed the state for every vote they could find after the Nov. 3 election saw Georgia flip for a Democratic candidate for the first time in a presidential contest since 1992, driven by strong gains in former Republican suburban strongholds like Gwinnett and Cobb counties.
Like the November election, vote-by-mail and early voting boosted turnout in the runoffs to record-breaking numbers as voters avoided long lines on Election Day due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. By Tuesday, more than 3 million ballots had already been cast by mail and during the three-week early voting period.
Coronavirus loomed large in the runoffs amid long-delayed negotiations between Senate Republicans and House Democrats over a second round of economic relief, as each side accused the other of delaying passage of a nearly $1 trillion legislative package.
A relief bill finally pushed through Congress that handed Democrats ammunition to continue attacking the Republican senators after Trump trashed the bill, calling it a “disgrace” for including $600 stimulus checks instead of the $2,000 checks he wanted.
Trump also sparked fears among Republican leaders with his relentless assault on Georgia’s election system since his November loss. They worried Trump’s influence risked depressing voter turnout in conservative parts of the state where the president’s loyal followers leaned toward believing his unproven claims of election fraud.
Both senators refused to acknowledge Biden’s win throughout the runoffs, with Loeffler going so far as to say she plans to join around a dozen other senators in contesting Congress’ vote on Wednesday to ratify the Electoral College results. Democrats accused her and Perdue of all but treason.
“If we win these races, we can turn the page on the last four years,” Ossoff said outside an Atlanta polling place on Tuesday.
Loeffler, who fended off Trump ally U.S. Rep. Doug Collins in a free-for-all Nov. 3 special election, dismissed concerns over the president’s influence ahead of Election Day, arguing Republican voters recognized her campaign and Perdue’s as a “firewall against socialism.”
“I’m proud of my campaign because we’ve shown Georgians the importance of this race, not just here in Georgia but to the entire country,” Loeffler said at a campaign stop Monday in Atlanta.
Loeffler, an Atlanta businesswoman, and Perdue, a former corporate executive from Sea Island, both faced allegations of insider trading in the pandemic’s early days. Though both insisted a federal probe cleared them of wrongdoing, Ossoff and Warnock used the controversy to portray the wealthy senators as out-of-touch with average Georgians.
“There are campaigns and there are movements,” Warnock said at a stop in Atlanta Tuesday. “And there is a sense in Georgia that so much is at stake.”
Perdue and Loeffler landed their own blows. Ossoff, who runs an investigative journalism company, was hit over a China-connected Hong Kong group’s purchase of a documentary his company made. Warnock, the senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist church, faced attacks for past comments on police and charges of interfering in a child-abuse investigation that he called a misunderstanding.
“If we don’t all get out and vote … everything President Trump has done to make America great again is gone,” Perdue said in a video that played at a Trump rally Monday in Dalton.
Ultimately, the two battling sides kept close to party positions on national issues. Perdue and Loeffler stressed pro-gun, anti-abortion and low-tax views while Ossoff and Warnock called for bolstering the Affordable Care Act and reforming use-of-force standards for police.
Clockwise: Jon Ossoff, U.S. Sen. David Perdue, Rev. Raphael Warnock and U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler are competing for Georgia’s two Senate seats in the runoff elections on Jan. 5, 2021. (Photos by Beau Evans)
The runoff races for U.S. Senate in Georgia looked too close to call late on Election Day, though Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock held favorable positions with thousands of votes left to be counted in suburban Atlanta counties and Savannah.
With more than a dozen counties still outstanding by midnight, Warnock clung to a slim 35,000-vote lead over opponent Republican U.S. Kelly Loeffler. Ossoff was neck-and-neck with Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue, with the senator leading by fewer than 2,000 votes.
More than 4 million votes had been cast in both races, which racked up historically huge absentee and early-voting turnout numbers. Several suburban counties that “likely lean toward Democrats” including DeKalb, Fulton and Chatham had not yet turned in final counts late Tuesday, said Georgia’s election manager, Gabriel Sterling.
“This is a contentious time,” Sterling said in a news conference just before midnight. “We want people to be patient.”
The runoffs have been among the most consequential in Georgia history, dominating airwaves and political talk for the past two months with control of the federal government hanging in the balance.
Wins by both Ossoff and Warnock would give Democrats control of both chambers of Congress and the White House following President-elect Joe Biden’s defeat of President Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 general election.
More than $830 million was spent by the four campaigns and outside groups in both races, dwarfing previous fundraising records in American politics, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. Celebrities and national politicians flocked to the state. Trump and Biden held rallies twice each.
The campaigns themselves were grueling affairs as Perdue and Loeffler cast their Democratic opponents as big-government socialists while Ossoff and Warnock framed the Republican incumbents as self-serving wealthy elites.
All four campaigns combed the state for every vote they could find after the Nov. 3 election saw Georgia flip for a Democratic candidate for the first time in a presidential contest since 1992, driven by strong gains in former Republican suburban strongholds like Gwinnett and Cobb counties.
Like the November election, vote-by-mail and early voting boosted turnout in the runoffs to record-breaking numbers as voters avoided long lines on Election Day due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. By Tuesday, more than 3 million ballots had already been cast by mail and during the three-week early voting period.
Coronavirus loomed large in the runoffs amid long-delayed negotiations between Senate Republicans and House Democrats over a second round of economic relief, as each side accused the other of delaying passage of a nearly $1 trillion legislative package.
A relief bill finally pushed through Congress that handed Democrats ammunition to continue attacking the Republican senators after Trump trashed the bill, calling it a “disgrace” for including $600 stimulus checks instead of the $2,000 checks he wanted.
Trump also sparked fears among Republican leaders with his relentless assault on Georgia’s election system since his November loss. They worried Trump’s influence risked depressing voter turnout in conservative parts of the state where the president’s loyal followers leaned toward believing his unproven claims of election fraud.
Both senators refused to acknowledge Biden’s win throughout the runoffs, with Loeffler going so far as to say she plans to join around a dozen other senators in contesting Congress’ vote on Wednesday to ratify the Electoral College results. Democrats accused her and Perdue of all but treason.
“If we win these races, we can turn the page on the last four years,” Ossoff said outside an Atlanta polling place on Tuesday.
Loeffler, who fended off Trump ally U.S. Rep. Doug Collins in a free-for-all Nov. 3 special election, dismissed concerns over the president’s influence ahead of Election Day, arguing Republican voters recognized her campaign and Perdue’s as a “firewall against socialism.”
“I’m proud of my campaign because we’ve shown Georgians the importance of this race, not just here in Georgia but to the entire country,” Loeffler said at a campaign stop Monday in Atlanta.
Loeffler, an Atlanta businesswoman, and Perdue, a former corporate executive from Sea Island, both faced allegations of insider trading in the pandemic’s early days. Though both insisted a federal probe cleared them of wrongdoing, Ossoff and Warnock used the controversy to portray the wealthy senators as out-of-touch with average Georgians.
“There are campaigns and there are movements,” Warnock said at a stop in Atlanta Tuesday. “And there is a sense in Georgia that so much is at stake.”
Perdue and Loeffler landed their own blows. Ossoff, who runs an investigative journalism company, was hit over a China-connected Hong Kong group’s purchase of a documentary his company made. Warnock, the senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist church, faced attacks for past comments on police and charges of interfering in a child-abuse investigation that he called a misunderstanding.
“If we don’t all get out and vote … everything President Trump has done to make America great again is gone,” Perdue said in a video that played at a Trump rally Monday in Dalton.
Ultimately, the two battling sides kept close to party positions on national issues. Perdue and Loeffler stressed pro-gun, anti-abortion and low-tax views while Ossoff and Warnock called for bolstering the Affordable Care Act and reforming use-of-force standards for police.
