Congressman Doug Collins (left) and U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (right) on the campaign trail in the Senate race on Aug. 28, 2020. (Photos by Beau Evans)
Top Republican candidates in Georgia vying to fill former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term in the U.S. Senate rolled out big-name backers on the campaign trail this week ahead of the Nov. 3 special election.
U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed to the seat in January following Isakson’s retirement, launched a second statewide tour set to feature Gov. Brian Kemp, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.
She held a campaign rally in Marietta Friday with Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr and Cobb County District Attorney Joyette Holmes. U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., joined her for a private event earlier in the day, campaign staff said.
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, campaigned in Alpharetta and Gainesville Friday with 6th Congressional District Republican nominee Karen Handel, retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell and former Georgia First Lady Sandra Deal.
Former Gov. Nathan Deal attended the rally in Gainesville but did not make a formal endorsement of Collins.
Still, the presence of Deal evoked tension in the Georgia Republican Party sparked by the Senate race with the appearance of a former governor lined up against Kemp, who tapped Loeffler to hold Isakson’s seat until the special election.
The campaigns of Loeffler and Collins have lobbed grenades at each other in recent months through attack ads and social-media messages as each tries to woo Republican voters while several Democratic challengers, including party frontrunner Rev. Raphael Warnock, wait in the wings.
Recently, though, the two Republican campaigns have each stepped up efforts to cast themselves as the race’s staunchest conservative candidate while trumpeting support for President Donald Trump, particularly amid this week’s Republican National Convention.
Trump, a Republican who has a track record of swaying local races with his Twitter profile, has not yet endorsed either Republican candidate in Georgia.
In Marietta on Friday, Loeffler highlighted dozens of bills she has filed in the Senate over the past eight months that align with her strong anti-abortion stance, gun-rights support and opposition to calls to reduce funding for police agencies amid nationwide protests.
Loeffler has also pushed to portray herself as an outsider candidate akin to Trump, noting her background as a businesswoman and framing the four-term Congressman Collins as entrenched in establishment politics. She had loaned her campaign $15 million from her own money as of mid-July.
“I don’t owe anyone anything except you,” Loeffler said Friday. “I can’t be bought.”
With both candidates angling for the title of most conservative, Collins has touted endorsements from several dozen Georgia sheriffs and accused Loeffler of adopting conservative views only after she was appointed to the Senate. He has also criticized her use of wealth in the campaign.
In Gainesville Friday night, Collins stressed his vocal defense of Trump during impeachment hearings last December during which he hounded congressional Democratic leaders in his role as the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.
“I’m going to give you three people you can call and ask if I’m a conservative,” Collins said. “It’s Jerry Nadler, Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi.”
As the Republican candidates continue in-person campaigning, Warnock, the senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church who has drawn broad support from state and national Democratic leaders, has kept to virtual town halls and talks alongside county Democratic groups amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Warnock has homed in recently on Georgia’s health-care system during the pandemic and virus-prompted economic fallout, especially with two rural hospitals set to close in Jackson and Randolph counties in the coming months.
In a new ad released Wednesday, Warnock highlighted his experience counseling people who have lost loved ones and jobs due to coronavirus, emphasizing the need for expanded health-care access and financial assistance while criticizing the state and federal responses to the pandemic.
“All too often these are people whom government has forgotten or for whom it was never there in the first place,” Warnock said. “I’ll always work for you.”
Nearly two dozen candidates including Loeffler have qualified for the Nov. 3 special election to complete the remaining two years of the Senate term formerly held by Isakson. Candidates from all parties will be on the same ballot, and a runoff will be held in January if no candidate wins more than 50% of votes in November.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Monday outlined steps election officials are taking to curb long lines and issues with mail-in voting requests ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.
Around 6,000 poll workers have been recruited with help from the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the American Civil Liberties Union to boost staff numbers at polling places after many poll workers abstained from the June 9 primary due to health risks from COVID-19, Raffensperger said.
To head off technical issues and equipment gaps, Raffensperger’s office has sent spreadsheets to county election officials so they can track inventory and training needs to smooth over any future hiccups quicker than was done during the primary.
County election officials have also started tapping grant funds to install drop boxes for voters to deposit absentee ballots rather than vote in-person on Election Day, Raffensperger said. So far, 175 drop boxes have been installed in the state.
Additionally, Raffensperger’s office is set to launch an online absentee ballot request portal in the coming days to ease the burden local election officials had ahead of the June 9 primary to process a wave of mail-in ballot requests.
Overall, Raffensperger said local officials and poll workers should be better equipped to handle potential technical issues that may crop up on Election Day based on lessons learned from the coronavirus-impacted primary.
“While no election is ever perfect, it is likely November will have its issues,” Raffensperger said Monday. “We have dedicated time, effort and significant resources to make November a success.”
Raffensperger’s comments came during a virtual roundtable with most Republican members of Georgia’s congressional delegation and U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., ranking member on the U.S. House Committee on House Administration.
The roundtable also featured input from some election officials in Fulton County, where voters faced among the longest lines and technical issues in the state during the primary.
Mark Wingate, a Republican member of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, said the county will be back up to its full roster of 210 polling places on Election Day after several sites closed for the primary due to worker shortages and COVID-19 safety concerns.
He also said county officials received a flood of poll-worker applications after the primary, enabling them to now tap a reliable supply of workers to be fully staffed on Nov. 3.
“I can assure you that through the staff and the board and all the help from the county in particular, we’re ramped up and we’re moving this as well and as humanly possible as we can,” Wingate said Monday.
In Augusta, poll workers are set to receive an extra $40 per day in hazard pay to support increased responsibilities for workers to keep voting equipment clean and make sure people are spaced out in line to curb the chances for coronavirus transmissions.
“The last thing we want are overcrowded conditions in our polling places,” said Lynn Bailey, executive director of the Richmond County Board of Elections.
The roundtable also drew concerns from several congressmen over mail-in voting and the chances for voter fraud, echoing Republican criticism of widespread vote-by-mail efforts amid the pandemic that President Donald Trump has repeatedly highlighted.
Raffensperger, a Republican, stressed Georgia law requires voters to request absentee ballots before they can be provided and that all counties are required to match signatures before counting ballots.
Raffensperger noted around 500,000 Georgia voters will be automatically sent absentee ballots after requesting one for the June 9 primary. Those voters consist of people age 65 and older, disabled persons and voters living overseas or in the military, Raffensperger said.
The state is not sending out absentee ballot request forms to every Georgia voter for the general election as occurred ahead of the primary, though a few counties like DeKalb have individually decided to send out those forms to all local registered voters, Raffensperger said.
With huge numbers of people expected to vote by mail across the country during the pandemic, Christy McCormick of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission said absentee voters should plan to mail their ballots no later than a week before Nov. 3 to avoid the possibility of slowed postal services.
“They do claim that they are going to give election mail special priority,” McCormick said of the U.S. Postal Service. “We’ll have to see how that goes.”
Georgia voters can start mailing in their absentee ballots on Sept. 15. Early voting for the Nov. 3 election begins on Oct. 12.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidates Jon Ossoff (left) and Rev. Raphael Warnock (right) held a joint virtual townhall on Aug. 19, 2020. (Jon Ossoff Facebook video)
Democratic candidates for Georgia’s two U.S. Senate seats linked hands Wednesday night in a show of campaign unity aimed at invigorating the state’s Democratic voters ahead of the Nov. 3 general election.
Candidates Jon Ossoff, an investigative journalist challenging U.S. Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., and Rev. Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church running against U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., held a virtual town hall leading into the third night of the Democratic National Convention.
The event sought to highlight criticism of the Republican senators and to strengthen the Democratic frontrunner status of Warnock, who is competing alongside several other Democratic candidates in the race against Loeffler including Matt Lieberman, the son of former Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
“This is a winning ticket,” Warnock said. “We represent the continuation of a grand tradition that is multi-racial, that is multi-religious … this is America at its finest.”
“It’s just an honor to be running alongside you, reverend,” Ossoff said. “Thank you.”
Warnock’s campaign estimated more than 123,000 supporters watched Wednesday’s event.
Democratic leaders view Georgia as a key battleground state with two Senate seats in play and shifting demographics that saw former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams lose by a slim margin to now-Gov. Brian Kemp in 2018.
Voter turnout is expected to top 5 million in November with a presidential contest and double the usual number of Senate seats in play, after former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson retired at the start of the year due to health issues. Loeffler was appointed to hold his seat until the November election.
Warnock, who has held off on in-person campaigning so far amid the COVID-19 pandemic, used the virtual talk to stress his platform of expanding health care including Medicaid coverage and strengthening voter protections, a key Democratic stance that has been bolstered by Abrams.
Recent polls have shown Warnock running closely with Lieberman, who has raised far less in campaign contributions and took heat this month for a self-published novel criticized for containing racist tropes.
The presence of multiple Democratic candidates on the Nov. 3 ballot could play a huge role in deciding whether a Democratic candidate makes the likely runoff in January, with Loeffler also fielding stiff competition within her own party from U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville.
Ossoff, who lost a tight race to Republican Karen Handel for the 6th Congressional District seat in 2017, won the primary election outright in June to avoid a potentially expensive and divisive runoff for the Democratic nomination against former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson.
Tomlinson has also backed Warnock’s campaign, as has 7th Congressional District Democratic nominee Carolyn Bourdeaux and a host of state and national Democratic leaders, including Abrams.
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.
Candidates vying to unseat U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler in Georgia put out campaign ads Wednesday as the race enters a new voter-outreach phase, notably via the first television spot aired by the leading Democratic contender.
Rev. Raphael Warnock, the Democratic challenger who has amassed millions in donations and endorsements from top party leaders, released his campaign’s first ad Wednesday highlighting his background and focus on health care, workers’ issues and voting rights.
The senior pastor from Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church is angling to boost his name recognition after sitting on the airwave sidelines so far in the campaign. In the ad, he emphasizes his roots growing up in a Savannah housing project while walking down the sidewalk outside his childhood home.
“I’m Raphael Warnock and I realize that a kid growing up here today and struggling families all across Georgia have it harder now than I did back then,” Warnock says in the ad. “That’s gotta change, and it will.”
Also releasing a new ad Wednesday was U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Gainesville, who has peppered Loeffler with attacks for months as he seeks to pull Republican support from her ahead of the special election on Nov. 3.
Collins in the ad touts his support for President Donald Trump and recent praise the president has given him, marking a departure from Collins’ last ad that homed in on controversial stock trades Loeffler made at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Casting Collins as the president’s “most tested, proven, trusted defender,” the latest ad features footage of Collins backing Trump during last year’s impeachment proceedings in the U.S. House of Representatives and glowing words the president made about Collins at a recent stop in Atlanta.
Trump, a Republican, has a track record of giving GOP candidates a big boost with his endorsement but so far has stayed out of the battle between Loeffler and Collins. Both have received public praise from the president in recent weeks.
Loeffler, an Atlanta businesswoman who was appointed to retired Sen. Johnny Isakson’s seat earlier this year, has tapped her huge campaign war chest to run ads touting her early work in the Senate and attacking Collins’ background as a former criminal defense attorney.
Ads supporting Loeffler, who has put $15 million of her own money into the campaign so far, have also aired from a political action committee with ties to Gov. Brian Kemp, who appointed Loeffler.
The Nov. 3 election is an open election, meaning candidates from all parties will be on the same ballot. It has drawn 21 candidates including Loeffler. A runoff between the top two finishers will be held in January if no candidate gains a simple majority.
U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) speaks at a campaign stop with Georgia First Lady Marty Kemp (center) and state Rep. Jodi Lott (right) at the Penley Art Gallery in Buckhead on Aug. 18, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., defended her background as a successful businesswoman during a campaign stop in Atlanta Tuesday to mark the 100-year anniversary of the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote.
Loeffler, an Atlanta businesswoman who has poured $15 million of her own money into her U.S. Senate bid so far, has faced criticism from opponents over large attack ad buys and her use of a private jet on the campaign trail.
Speaking at the Penley Art Gallery in Buckhead Tuesday, Loeffler embraced her background as an example of American capitalistic success while stressing that she knows “what it’s like to live paycheck-to-paycheck” after working her way through college and in the business world.
“I’ve been attacked for my success,” Loeffler said. “And I’m going to keep fighting against that because in this country, I’m fighting for every single American’s right and opportunity to live the American Dream.”
Flanked by paintings of historical figures and a replica 1957 Porsche Spyder, Loeffler described her upbringing in an Illinois farm family and waitressing in college before joining Intercontinental Exchange Inc., which now owns the New York Stock Exchange. Her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, is the company’s founder and CEO.
“Not only am I the true conservative in this race, but I know how to create jobs and economic opportunity that lifts all Americans up, that promotes equality in our country,” Loeffler said. “And on this 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, that message is more important than ever.”
Loeffler also hailed local community leadership work by Georgia women amid the anniversary of the 19th Amendment’s ratification and noted she has fielded support from many conservative women during her campaign so far.
“We can no longer be a silent majority,” Loeffler said. “We need to speak out.”
Loeffler’s comments came as millions of Americans including more than 3.4 million people in Georgia have filed for unemployment benefits in recent months amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Loeffler and her Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, have opposed extending $600 weekly federal unemployment checks.
Loeffler has also faced broadsides from Collins’ campaign over her financial resources, which the four-term Republican congressman from Gainesville has sought to cast as an effort to buy her way to winning a Senate seat she was appointed to in January, following former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson’s retirement.
“Loeffler was picked because she was a wealthy self-funding moderate who could compete for more liberal suburban voters,” said Dan McLagan, a spokesman for Collins. “When Doug Collins got in the race, she had to pretend to be a conservative – to ‘out-Doug Doug’ as it were.”
Collins’ campaign most recently took issue with an ad from Loeffler that dinged Collins for voting in favor of a 1% infrastructure tax referendum while he was a state lawmaker in the General Assembly. His campaign has dismissed the ad as disingenuous.
The campaign pointed out Loeffler supported the tax referendum in a news article while International Exchange, where she was head of investor relations at the time, spent $100,000 in campaign contributions to back the referendum.
“This election may well be the biggest test of whether money can overwhelm truth in a statewide campaign,” McLagan said.
Loeffler is scheduled to hold a 14-county campaign tour starting next month with appearances by U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Gov. Brian Kemp, who appointed her to hold Isakson’s seat until the special election on Nov. 3.
She will also be joined by Kemp’s wife, Georgia First Lady Marty Kemp, who heads up Loeffler’s “Women for Kelly” women-driven supporter group and who also spoke at Tuesday’s stop in Buckhead, along with state Rep. Jodi Lott, R-Evans.
Collins, meanwhile, is set for a swing through South Georgia next week alongside state Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, following a stop in Fayetteville Tuesday evening for a meeting of the Greater Fayette Republican Women’s Club.
The race’s leading Democratic candidate, Rev. Raphael Warnock, has held virtual campaign appearances since last week with influential state Democratic leaders like former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson and 7th Congressional District Democratic candidate Carolyn Bourdeaux, and is poised to stump via video feed later this week with Augusta, Macon and Spalding County Democrats and U.S. Senate candidate Jon Ossoff.
Warnock, the senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, has made voting rights a focal point of his campaign and praised the women of the suffrage movement in honor of the 19th Amendment’s ratification centennial on Tuesday.
“We still have a long road ahead of us,” Warnock said. “The wage gap for female entrepreneurs in Georgia is the largest of any state. But today, we celebrate and honor the women who have taken the first steps down that path toward equality and recommit ourselves to working even harder for change.”
This story has been update to revise the headline and to clarify Sen. Loeffler’s comments as well as provide additional comment from her speech.
Marjorie Taylor Greene (right) attends a protest over impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump in Sandy Springs on Oct. 9, 2019. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Controversial businesswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene won the Republican primary runoff election for Georgia’s 14th Congressional District Tuesday night, all but guaranteeing her a seat in Congress representing the reliably Republican northwestern part of the state.
Greene, who owns a construction company, fended off criticism of her residence outside the district and her apparent support for the QAnon conspiracy theory in uncovered videos to claim victory over her Republican opponent, neurosurgeon and toy store owner John Cowan.
She goes on to face the lone Democratic candidate Kevin Van Ausdal, an implementation specialist, in the Nov. 3 general election.
Barring a loss in the November election, Greene is poised to replace five-term U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ranger, who announced late last year he would not seek re-election to a sixth term in the 14th District, which stretches from Paulding and Haralson counties north through Rome, Calhoun and Dalton to the Tennessee line.
Originally signaling she would seek to challenge U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Roswell, for the metro Atlanta 6th Congressional District, Greene amassed a roughly $1.5 million campaign warchest in the 14th District race as she leaned heavily on pro-gun, anti-abortion and pro-President Donald Trump stances.
“The GOP establishment, the media and the radical left spent months and millions of dollars attacking me,” Greene said Tuesday night. “Tonight, the people of Georgia stood up and said that we will not be intimidated or believe those lies.”
Greene jolted into the national spotlight following her strong finish in the June 9 primary during which she won 40% of votes, not enough to avoid a runoff but nearly double the amount of the second-place finisher, Cowan.
Shortly after, Greene faced backlash over past online videos reported in the Washington Post and Politico in which she appeared to promote the anti-government conspiracy theory QAnon and dismiss the racial-justice underpinnings of the Black Lives Matter protest movement.
A slew of high-profile Republican leaders including Georgia’s Congressional delegation and U.S. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., quickly soured on Greene following the media reports on her apparent embrace of the QAnon theory and other inflammatory comments.
In a debate last month ahead of Tuesday’s runoff, Greene did not answer a yes-or-no question on whether she believes in the QAnon theory, opting instead to condemn former U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
She also voiced belief in the “deep state” theory concerning alleged conspiratorial acts by U.S. intelligence officials that have been discussed by many conservative media commentators.
“I, like many Americans, am disgusted with the deep state who’ve launched an effort to get rid of President Trump,” Greene said during the July 19 debate hosted by the Atlanta Press Club.
Greene staked her campaign on hardline conservative positions on immigration, gun-ownership rights, abortion opposition and denouncing Chinese trade practices. But most especially, she touted her staunch backing of the president.
“I’m 100% pro-life, 100% pro-gun, and I’m the strongest supporter of President Trump and always have been,” Greene said in a May debate.
