Democrat Jon Ossoff (left) and Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue are locked in a tight race.
ATLANTA – For the last two decades, Georgia Republicans have cornered the market in U.S. Senate races.
In five of the six Peach State Senate elections since the turn of the century, the GOP candidate has won comfortably with margins of victory ranging from nearly 53% of the vote to more than 58%. The other contest also went to the Republicans, although it took a runoff to decide the winner.
But 2020 is different. With about six weeks remaining until Election Day, polls show incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue and Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff within the margin of error.
A sure sign the outcome is in doubt is how much the candidates and the national super PACs backing them are spending to bomb the airwaves, to the dismay of political ad-weary TV viewers. Total TV/radio ad spending in the race, including future bookings, is now more than $83.4 million, political advertising broker Medium Buying reported last week.
“Money is being poured into Georgia because it could go either way,” said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.
What’s turned a close race in Georgia into a critical contest nationally is that Democrats need to gain only three or four seats to control the Senate, depending on which party wins the vice presidency. The vice president presides over the Senate and can break tie votes.
“Both parties are really interested in what happens here,” said Kerwin Swint, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University.
Like President Donald Trump, Perdue, 70, came to Washington after a career in business. Perdue was elected to the Senate in 2014 after 40 years in the corporate world, including stints as CEO of Reebok and Dollar General.
He has spent his first term in the Senate as one of Trump’s closest allies, supporting the president’s tax cut legislation in 2017, Trump’s get-tough trade policy with China, and, more recently, the president’s much-criticized handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
“Early on, he shut down travel from infected areas and quarantined people coming back into the country,” Perdue said. “He started a task force to work on PPE (personal protective equipment) and testing.”
After the pandemic shut down the nation’s economy, Perdue supported a congressional package of $2.9 trillion in relief to unemployed Americans and struggling businesses including the $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program.
“That was a tough vote for me. I’m a fiscal hawk,” he said. “[But] we saved 1½ million jobs in Georgia.”
Ossoff, 33, is making his first run at statewide office after losing a special election for a congressional seat in Atlanta’s northern suburbs three years ago. His views on Trump’s handling of COVID-19 strike a sharp contrast with those of his opponent.
“The Trump administration’s response to the pandemic has been a total failure,” Ossoff said. “They lied about the scope of it to the public, sidelined public health experts and allowed the virus to spread.”
While Ossoff and Perdue agree that Congress needs to pass another economic stimulus package, Ossoff faulted Perdue and his Senate Republican colleagues for not taking up a $3 trillion relief bill U.S. House Democrats passed in May.
“The Senate went on a monthlong vacation, during which emergency loans expired,” Ossoff said.
Perdue said the Democrats’ plan is too expensive. He favors a $660 billion Republican alternative.
“This targeted approach is to get companies open again, people back to school and beat the virus,” he said.
Another issue dividing Perdue and Ossoff – and Republicans and Democrats in general – is how to respond to the deaths of Black Americans at the hands of white police officers, incidents in Georgia and elsewhere that have prompted massive street protests.
“We urgently need criminal justice reform and reform of policing,” Ossoff said. “We need to pass a new Civil Rights Act to establish and secure equal justice under the law for every American.”
Republicans have jumped on the “defund the police” slogan some elements of the Black Lives Matter movement have espoused, arguing Democrats don’t support law enforcement.
Perdue, however, has shown support for some of the more moderate goals of policing reform, including community policing.
“Our police forces need to reflect the communities they serve,” he said.
At the same time, Perdue said Americans are worried when they see peaceful protests turn into violence and looting.
“People are concerned that we support our police and that they serve the community in a fair and even way,” he said. “We have to make sure we maintain law and order.”
Ossoff is an investigative journalist by trade whose business delves into political corruption, organized crime and abuse of power. That plays into his campaign’s emphasis on the need to clean up corruption in Washington, starting with Perdue.
Ossoff is accusing Perdue of misleading voters with an ad in which the Republican endorses health insurance coverage for Americans with pre-existing conditions while voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act and the protection for pre-existing conditions it provides. The nonprofit PolitiFact, which fact checks political advertising, rated the Perdue ad “false.”
“Senator David Perdue voted to allow health insurance companies to deny coverage to Georgians with cancer, diabetes, high-blood pressure and other pre-existing conditions, then ran ads lying about his voting record and was caught doing it,” Ossoff said.
Perdue said there’s a difference between opposing the Affordable Care Act and covering people with pre-existing conditions.
“I did vote against the Affordable Care Act a number of times,” he said. “But I also voted to protect pre-existing conditions a number of times. … This is a total misrepresentation by the Democratic side.”
Going on offense, Perdue is accusing Ossoff of conducting a campaign right out of the national Democratic playbook.
“He is supporting the Democrats’ radical agenda of defunding the police, abolishing ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and a government takeover of health care,” Perdue said. “We’re trying to reopen our economy and get schools reopened.”
Ossoff told an interviewer at the University of Georgia student newspaper The Red & Black recently he does not support defunding the police. He also opposes both abolishing ICE and the Medicare for All plan championed by some Democrats, his campaign spokesman said.
Swint said the outcome of the Perdue-Ossoff contest will go a long way toward deciding whether Georgia Democrats continue building on the momentum of the 2018 elections. Two years ago, Democrat Lucy McBath won a suburban Atlanta congressional seat the GOP had held for decades, while former state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams lost the gubernatorial race to Republican Brian Kemp by a narrow margin.
On the other hand, a Perdue reelection victory could key a Republican rebound in Georgia from 2018, Swint said.
Georgia also will play a large role in which party controls the Senate next year. Besides the Perdue-Ossoff race, a second Georgia Senate seat will be up for grabs Nov. 3, with 21 candidates on the ballot in what is essentially a special election to replace retired GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson.
Like the closely contested presidential contest, it might take weeks to decide the two Georgia Senate elections. It’s practically a given that the special election will forced into an early January runoff between the top two vote-getters, given the number of candidates.
Bullock said if Libertarian candidate Shane Hazel can siphon off at least 3% of the vote in the Perdue-Ossoff race, it could deny an outright majority to Perdue or Ossoff on Election Day. That would require a second Senate runoff.
“We may not know which party controls the Senate until January,” Bullock said.
ISSUES BOX
In their own words, here is how David Perdue and Jon Ossoff stand on some key issues:
On President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic:
DAVID PERDUE: “Early on, he shut down travel from infected areas and quarantined people coming back into the country. He started a task force to work on PPE and testing.”
JON OSSOFF: “The Trump administration’s response to the pandemic has been a total failure. They lied about the scope of it to the public, sidelined public health experts and allowed the virus to spread.”
On the congressional response to the pandemic’s economic impact:
JON OSSOFF: “Too little, too slow”
DAVID PERDUE: “We did what we had to do to try and maintain the relationship between the employer and employee.”
On the need for policing reform following the deaths of Black Americans at the hands of white police officers:
DAVID PERDUE: “We have to make sure we maintain law and order.”
JON OSSOFF: “We need to end racial profiling and police brutality.”
On health insurance:
JON OSSOFF: “We should strengthen and build upon the Affordable Care Act. Folks should be able to buy into a public option if they want to.”
DAVID PERDUE: “Every consumer of health insurance should be afforded the same benefits.”
On immigration:
DAVID PERDUE: “We have to secure our borders and at the same time have a balanced immigration system that allows us to import the right workers to grow our economy.”
JON OSSOFF: “ We need to secure our borders, put American workers first and live up to our values as Americans committed to human rights. … We need border security, not cruelty.”
ATLANTA – Georgia’s economy isn’t back to pre-pandemic levels, but it’s making significant strides.
Unemployment in Georgia fell by 2 percentage points last month to 5.6%, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday. That’s well below the national unemployment rate for August of 8.4% and less than half the 12.6% state jobless rate back in April.
“We anticipated a drop in the unemployment rate, as we have seen many businesses reengaging in the economy and bringing employees back to work,” Georgia Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler said.
Initial unemployment claims for August were down by 50% from July to 247,623, while new claims have dropped by more than 1.1 million since April.
“We have recovered more than 65% of the jobs lost since the pandemic began in mid-March,” Butler said. “After the substantial decline in employment in April, these types of increases are exactly what we need to get us back on course.”
The labor department issued $485 million in state and federal benefits last week, including the first checks provided through the Lost Wages Assistance (LWA) program, an initiative President Donald Trump announced last month after Congress failed to reach an agreement to extend an earlier federal program that expired at the end of July.
The LWA, funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is providing six weekly $300 supplements to unemployed workers, half of the amount they were getting under the earlier program. The first three weeks were paid out last week, to be followed by the other three weeks of checks this week.
From March 21 through the end of last week, the labor department has processed nearly 3.7 million first-time unemployment claims, more than the last eight years combined.
During that period, the accommodation and food services job sector has accounted for the most claims with 883,369. The health care and social assistance sector is next with 430,498 claims, followed by retail trade with 394,342.
Nearly 151,000 jobs are listed online at EmployGeorgia.com for Georgians to access, more than double the total listed at the beginning of the pandemic.
ATLANTA – Georgia Tech, already a leader in undergraduate cybersecurity education, is launching a School of Cybersecurity and Privacy.
The new school will be the first of its kind among top research universities. It will weave together Georgia Tech’s three existing cybersecurity degree programs with other interdisciplinary course offerings.
“The new School of Cybersecurity is a reflection of Georgia Tech’s strengths and commitment to serving the needs of our society and our state,” Georgia Tech President Angel Cabrera said Tuesday.
“[It] will focus on applied research collaborations with the fast-growing cybersecurity industry in Georgia and meeting a critical workforce need.”
There is a plentiful supply of cybersecurity jobs in Georgia. Besides the cybersecurity needs of the state’s rapidly growing fintech sector centered around Atlanta, Fort Gordon near Augusta is home to the U.S. Army’s Cyber Command Headquarters.
The Georgia Cyber Center in downtown Augusta opened two years ago and is considering constructing a third building at the complex to keep up with demand for space.
There are more than 500 cybersecurity researchers spread across Georgia Tech’s Midtown Atlanta campus, who bring in more than $180 million in research awards annually.
“Our excellence in the field is well established,” said Rafael L. Bras, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Georgia Tech. “The school will create the necessary synergy to multiply our impact and make our national security – and the personal security of individuals – safer from the threat of cyberattacks.”
Gov. Brian Kemp is easing restrictions on elderly long-term care facilities imposed at the start of the coronavirus pandemic six months ago. (Photo by Beau Evans)
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp late Tuesday lifted restrictions on elderly long-term care facilities that have been in effect in Georgia since the coronavirus pandemic hit the state in March.
Effective at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, nursing homes, personal-care homes, assisted-living communities, hospices and other elderly-care facilities were allowed to reopen subject to continuing measures aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19.
“The state has collaborated with appropriate agencies, long-term care associations and other stakeholders on how to responsibly ease restrictions in long-term care facilities while COVID-19 remains in communities across the state,” Kemp wrote in an executive order.
Under Kemp’s order, elderly-care facilities will be allowed to reopen by progressing through three phases, the third phase being the least restrictive.
Decisions on which phase to implement at any given time must be based on considerations including the number of coronavirus cases in the local community or inside the facility, access to personal protective equipment (PPE), whether a facility’s staffing is adequate and hospital capacity in the local community.
The governor issued a statewide shelter-in-place order in March with the coronavirus pandemic taking hold across Georgia. He has since lifted the order as it applied to most residents and businesses but left it in place for elderly-care facilities, as they were being hit particularly hard by the virus.
The governor emphasized in his order that the number of COVID-19 cases in Georgia continues to grow and that the virus remains “a severe threat to public health.”
Under the Phase I restrictions, visitation to an elderly-care facility will not be allowed in most instances. Non-medically necessary trips should be avoided, while screening of residents and staff will be conducted three times daily under both phases 1 and 2.
Visitation will be allowed under phases 2 and 3, with outside visits preferred. Limited non-medically necessary trips also will be permitted under the second and third phases. Screening of residents and staff will only be required once a day under Phase 3.
The elderly-care facilities order will remain in effect until the conclusion of the public health state of emergency Kemp declared in Georgia back in mid-March.
ATLANTA – A lack of places for big rigs to park in Georgia is threatening the safety of both truckers and the rest of the motoring public, transportation experts said Tuesday.
Truck drivers who have driven the maximum number of hours allowed under industry regulations frequently find truck stops and highway rest areas full and are forced to park along roadsides, Daniel Studdard, manager of freight planning for the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), told members of the Georgia Freight & Logistics Commission during a hearing at the state Capitol.
“When a truck is parked in an unauthorized location, it really creates a crash risk,” Studdard said. “This is personal for [truck drivers]. They need somewhere safe to park.”
The shortage of truck parking was among the findings in a report the Georgia Freight & Logistics Commission released last January. The General Assembly formed the panel of lawmakers and logistics industry executives last year to look for ways to expedite the movement of freight across the state.
Jannine Miller, director of planning for the Georgia Department of Transportation, said the demand for truck parking has increased during the coronavirus pandemic, which has sparked huge growth in e-commerce.
“We’ve all benefited from at-home deliveries during the pandemic,” she said. “[E-commerce] has been growing several-fold.”
Miller said another factor driving demand for truck parking is the industrial growth taking place in Georgia despite COVID-19.
The state Department of Economic Development reported $7.4 billion in private investment took place in Georgia during the last fiscal year, even though the economic lockdown resulting from the pandemic crippled business activity during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020 last spring.
“Eighty-four percent of that investment was in companies that require logistics to move their goods,” Miller said.
Studdard said most of the current supply of truck parking spaces in the Atlanta region is limited to Fulton County and edge counties including Coweta, Henry, Jackson and Hall. Other counties in the region have few available spaces, and Gwinnett County has none, he said.
More than 90% of truckers traveling through the region reported it typically takes them at least a half hour to find parking, according to a study the ARC completed in 2018.
“That’s a waste of their time and fuel,” Studdard said. “If they’re driving around looking for somewhere to park, that also affects our traffic congestion.”
Potential solutions to the problem other states have been exploring include converting large highway medians or undeveloped parcels in areas zoned for commercial use into truck parking, or simply building no-frills truck parking lots equipped only with restrooms, lighting and some form of security.
Miller said the current supply of truck parking in Georgia is too concentrated in metro Atlanta. Savannah, in particular, has a need for more truck parking to accommodate the growth of the containerized cargo traffic in and out of the Port of Savannah, she said.
“We need to have more truck parking areas scattered around the state,” she said.
The Georgia Freight & Logistics Commission will continue to meet this fall and expects to deliver recommendations by early December.
