ATLANTA – Veteran Georgia Public Service Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald withstood a challenge from Democrat Daniel Blackman Tuesday, winning reelection to a six-year term by a narrow margin.
With 99% of precincts reporting, the incumbent Republican was leading with 50.8% of the vote to 49.2% for Blackman, according to unofficial results.
McDonald, who served 20 years in the Georgia House of Representatives before joining the PSC in 1998, fended off a series of criticisms from Blackman, an environmental advocate who also lost to McDonald in 2014.
Blackman accused McDonald and the other four members of the all-Republican utility-regulating commission of dragging their feet on moving away from the use of coal in power generation toward a greater emphasis on renewable energy, particularly solar power.
The challenger also took the PSC to task for lifting a moratorium on electric service disconnections while the coronavirus pandemic was still wrecking Georgia’s economy, letting Georgia Power Co. recover the costs of its coal ash cleanup initiative from customers and for refusing to pull the plug on the long delayed and overbudget Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion.
McDonald countered by taking credit as a driving force on the commission in favor of expanding the role of solar energy in Georgia and defending Plant Vogtle as a clean source of power that eventually will pay dividends for electric customers over time.
The incumbent also reminded voters his time on the PSC has seen Georgia build upon its reputation for inexpensive, reliable electricity. Indeed, the price of electricity in Georgia is below the national average, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
McDonald was forced into a runoff when he fell barely short in the November general election of winning the 50%-plus-one margin of the vote required in Georgia to avoid a runoff. He captured 49.9% of the vote on Nov. 3.
McDonald represents the PSC’s District 4, which covers all of North Georgia and the state’s border with South Carolina down to Augusta.
Thousands attended President Donald Trump’s rally ahead of the U.S. Senate runoff elections in Dalton, Georgia, on Jan. 4, 2021. (Photo by Beau Evans)
DALTON – The race for control of Congress saw the country’s two most powerful leaders swoop into Georgia for competing last-push rallies on Monday, one day before the intensely watched U.S. Senate runoff elections.
President Donald Trump drew supporters by the thousands for a nighttime rally in Dalton, the heart of conservative Northwest Georgia, where voting has lagged so far in the runoffs amid doubts over the integrity of the state’s election system.
His visit came hours after President-elect Joe Biden, who defeated Trump in Georgia by 11,779 votes in the Nov. 3 general election, stopped in Atlanta to help keep Democratic momentum rolling after his campaign flipped the state blue for the first time in a presidential contest since 1992.
It was the second Georgia visit for both Trump and Biden since the election – which Trump will has refused to concede – and since Democratic Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock forced runoffs against incumbent Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
The past two months have brought scores of national politicians and celebrities to Georgia for the runoffs, plus hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign donations. Wins by both Ossoff and Warnock would give Democrats control of both chambers of Congress and the White House for at least the next two years.
Trump, Biden and the campaigns they’re backing have all stressed the need to secure runoff wins on Tuesday.
Republicans fear the federal government would steer too close to socialism if both senators lose, while Democrats say split control of Congress would hamstring the Biden administration’s priorities on health care, climate change and the COVID-19 response.
“Georgia … the power is literally in your hands,” Biden said at his rally. “One state can chart the course, not just for the next four years, but for a generation.”
President-elect Joe Biden rallied for Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock ahead of the U.S. Senate runoff elections in Atlanta, Georgia, on Jan. 4, 2021. (Biden transition video)
While Biden spent the bulk of his speech touting the Democratic candidates, Trump devoted huge portions of his remarks to trashing Georgia’s election system as riddled with fraud – though state election officials and federal courts have rejected his claims.
State Republican leaders have worried the president’s assault on Georgia’s elections could scare off conservative voters and swing the runoffs for Ossoff and Warnock.
Trump had no such worries on Monday night. He urged his supporters to swarm the polls on Tuesday, despite his claims of widespread fraud in the November election.
“There’s no way we lost Georgia. There’s no way,” Trump said. “That was a rigged election.”
President Donald Trump rallied for Republican U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler ahead of the Senate runoff elections in Dalton, Georgia, on Jan. 4, 2021. (Photo by Beau Evans)
The president’s visit came amid a barrage of criticism for a phone call he had over the weekend during which he pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the Nov. 3 election results.
A recording of the call was made public by several news outlets on Sunday. In the call, Trump pressured Raffensperger to “find” enough voters to reverse the election results in his favor. He chided Georgia’s election chief over unproven fraud claims, such as voting by dead people, nonresidents and felons, as well as vote-padding with illegal absentee ballots.
Raffensperger and his general counsel batted back the claims during the call.
While Biden avoided mention of the phone call during his rally, his preferred Senate candidates used it to slam the Republican senators for continuing to stand behind Trump and refusing to acknowledge Biden’s victory.
Ossoff, who runs an investigative journalism company, called Perdue “not fit” to keep his seat after the call. Warnock, the senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, said Loeffler “does not care about Georgia voters.”
Perdue, a former corporate executive from Sea Island, shrugged off Trump’s call, telling FOX News he “didn’t hear anything that the president hasn’t already said for weeks now.”
Loeffler, an Atlanta businesswoman, skirted the call Monday morning by insisting her “sole focus” was on the runoff.
Former Trump senior advisor Kellyanne Conway (left) campaigned with U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (right) ahead of the Senate runoff elections in Atlanta on Jan. 4, 2021. (Photo by Beau Evans)
The Republican senators’ decision to support Trump has highlighted fractures among Georgia GOP leaders as the president wages war against Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp – both Republicans – for not overturning the election results.
Loeffler, in particular, has clung to Trump at the expense of her biggest ally in the state, Kemp, who appointed her to fill retired Sen. Johnny Isakson’s seat late last year. Kemp has not appeared on the campaign trail since Trump’s attacks started, even as Loeffler campaigned recently with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Neom.
Trump, who endorsed Kemp’s gubernatorial campaign in 2018, scorched the governor at Monday night’s rally after calling for him to resign last week.
“I’ll be here in a year and a half campaigning against your governor … and your crazy secretary of state,” Trump said.
President Donald Trump blasted Gov. Brian Kemp and hurled claims of election fraud at a rally in Dalton, Georgia, on Jan. 4, 2021. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Georgia Democratic leaders have seized on the Republican infighting to make the case for Ossoff and Warnock, casting the two challengers as more level-headed options to represent Georgians in Washington than the Trump-allied incumbents.
“We are going to be determining whether this country moves forward and makes progress in solving its problems and issues, or whether we are going to continue with the political infighting that has dominated our politics in the last few years,” said Debby Peppers, chairwoman of the Democratic Party in Whitfield County, where Trump held his rally.
Polls open Tuesday at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. for the runoff elections. Absentee ballots must be received at county elections offices before the polls close to be counted.
Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s election system implementation manager(Secretary of State video)
ATLANTA – A top official in the Georgia secretary of state’s office pleaded Monday for voters worried about fraud during the Nov. 3 election not to stay home from Tuesday’s U.S. Senate runoffs.
Calling it “Anti-Disinformation Monday,” Gabriel Sterling, the state’s elections system implementation manager, went through allegation after allegation lodged by President Donald Trump and his Republican allies surrounding the election and dismissed charges that President-elect Joe Biden stole Georgia’s 16 electoral votes from Trump in carrying the Peach State.
The president’s campaign to get the election results overturned reached a crescendo during the weekend when Trump spent an hour in a recorded phone conversation pressuring Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, also a Republican, to “find” enough votes to overturn the Georgia results. Biden carried the state by 11,779 votes.
Sterling assured voters concerned about the fraud allegations stemming from the November election that Tuesday’s runoffs will yield legitimate results.
“Everybody’s vote is going to count. Everybody’s vote counted,” he told reporters during a news conference at the state Capitol. “If you care about the values and directions of the nation you want to see, it is your obligation to turn out and vote tomorrow, be you Democrat or Republican.”
Georgia voters will head to the polls on Tuesday to elect both of the state’s senators, with Republican incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler defending their seats against Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock.
With control of the Senate at stake, interest has been unprecedented for a Georgia runoff election. More than three million voters already have cast their ballots early via absentee ballots or by in-person early voting, setting a record for a runoff in Georgia even before Election Day arrives, Sterling said.
Voter interest has been stirred up by a withering barrage of advertising by the four campaigns and allied groups.
“I’m sure Georgians are tired of TV ads, text messages, voice-mails and mail,” Sterling said. “It’s all going to end very soon, hopefully.”
ATLANTA – The state must pursue new sources of public and private funding to make the improvements needed to move an exploding volume of freight through Georgia efficiently, a state commission is recommending.
A report released last week by the Georgia Freight & Logistics Commission proposed that the General Assembly commit $1 billion to $1.5 billion a year to a dedicated fund for freight projects across the state.
In addition to that public money, the panel suggested legislation authorizing the State Road and Tollway Authority (SRTA) to tap into private financing to help build freight and logistics improvements such as rail projects and truck parking.
“There are some huge freight and logistics challenges ahead of us,” Brad Skinner, a board member at Denver-based freight railroad operator OmniTrax and a member of the commission, said during the panel’s final meeting last month. “[But] our traditional sources of revenue are drying up.”
The legislature created the commission two years ago to look for ways to improve the flow of freight through Georgia. The panel, which disbanded following the release of its final report, included lawmakers, local elected officials, business leaders and logistics executives.
The commission’s mission gained greater urgency last year as the coronavirus pandemic forced Americans accustomed to shopping at brick-and-mortar stores to go online for goods and services. For example, online spending last May was up 77% over May of 2019, according to the report.
The commission’s final report recommended an array of options for new sources of public funding for freight projects, including broadening the uses of motor fuel taxes – currently limited by state law to roads and bridges – to rail projects. The panel also suggested imposing mileage-based user fees, a consumer-based tax assessment on activities such as home deliveries from e-commerce providers, or a statewide assessment on warehouse distribution facilities.
The proposed SRTA legislation would expand the state agency’s authority from the toll lanes in metro Atlanta it currently oversees to let it enter into public-private partnerships to finance and build freight projects.
“SRTA, in conjunction with [the Georgia Department of Transportation], has demonstrated a strong proficiency in executing major infrastructure projects with private financing components, and their scope should be expanded to include freight and logistics projects as well,” according to the report.
The commission identified shortages of both truck parking and commercial truck drivers as major challenges hampering the smooth movement of freight. The DOT is conducting a study of the truck parking issue, looking to expand the supply of spaces beyond those found at truck stops and interstate rest areas.
The report noted that commercial truck driving schools were forced to close last year when the pandemic hit, hurting efforts to train new drivers at a time COVID-19 was increasing the demand for them. The commission recommended creating a workforce development grant program to help the commercial trucking industry work with public high schools in recruiting potential future drivers.
The 2021 General Assembly session kicks off next Monday.
