Sen. Tom Cotton is working closely with Sen. Kelly Loeffler to boost her prospects in a critical Georgia runoff election set for Jan. 5, with the Arkansas Republican and potential 2024 presidential contender raising money and advertising for her campaign.
Cotton and his political team are in regular contact with Loeffler and her campaign and have been traveling to Georgia regularly since October. Cotton typically offers his colleague advice on messaging and delivers attacks on Raphael Warnock, Loeffler’s Democratic challenger, that some Republicans have hesitated to carry out. His top political aides have interacted similarly with their counterparts on the Loeffler campaign.
“Radical liberals want to defund the police. Radical Raphael Warnock even called police officers thugs and gangsters,” said the voice-over of a digital advertisement paid for by Cotton’s Senate campaign. “Raphael Warnock hates our police, and he’ll put your family at risk. Stop him now.”
Loeffler was appointed to the Senate in January by Gov. Brian Kemp after Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson resigned for health reasons. She finished second in the special election held Nov. 3, the same day as the presidential contest, but she advanced to a runoff after Warnock fell short of 50% of the vote. A second runoff between Republican Sen. David Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff for Georgia’s other Senate seat is also scheduled for Jan. 5.
If Democrats are victorious in both, they will claim 50 seats and win control of the Senate based on Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote. With Democrats retaining the House in the Nov. 3 elections and President-elect Joe Biden ousting President Trump, Republicans are contributing to an all-hands-on-deck effort to keep Georgia’s Senate seats in the GOP column. That includes Republicans, like Cotton, who have an eye on 2024.
But Cotton’s partnership with Loeffler runs deeper than politics.
The two bonded in the Senate earlier this year after Loeffler supported Cotton’s controversial proposal to use federal troops to stop rioters and prevent protesters from tearing down statues honoring military veterans. Cotton returned the favor when Loeffler came under fire for denouncing the Black Lives Matter movement. Over the course of the year, Cotton has collaborated more with Loeffler on legislation than he has with any other senator.
Since Cotton began lending Loeffler a hand in her runoff campaign, he has volunteered to launch and amplify the most searing attacks on Warnock, a reverend who has made provocative remarks about law enforcement and the United States military. In particular, Cotton volunteered to hit Warnock over his arrest on allegations that he obstructed a police investigation into suspected child abuse at a youth church camp he supervised, tweeting out the broadside in mid-November.
The charges against Warnock were later dropped, and he was commended by the prosecutor for his cooperation in the case.
