President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are putting their fundraising muscle in the Democratic Party’s efforts to win control of the Senate, soliciting contributions to the “Flip Georgia Fund” supporting candidates running in two critical Jan. 5 runoff elections.
The move by the Biden/Harris campaign comes as the president-elect prepares to head to Atlanta on Tuesday to stump for Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, who are challenging incumbent Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, respectively. If Democrats win both runoffs, they will control the Senate for the next two years by virtue of Harris’s tie-breaking vote.
“These races are so important that I will be traveling to Georgia next Tuesday,” Biden said in an email fundraising appeal announcing the Flip Georgia Fund.
Biden narrowly won Georgia Nov. 3, becoming the first Democratic nominee to carry the state’s electoral votes since 1992. The president-elect has spent most of his time since defeating President Trump focused on staffing his incoming administration. But with the runoff contests less than a month away and the control of the Senate on the line, the president-elect is acting for the first time to boost Ossoff and Warnock.
Biden was a formidable fundraiser during the campaign, collecting $1.69 billion. His first trip to Georgia follows Trump, who campaigned in Valdosta on Saturday. Prominent Republicans, including Vice President Mike Pence, have flooded Georgia since the runoff campaigns kicked off last month.
Ossoff lost to Perdue by 1.8 percentage points in the general election, but the first-term Republican failed to crack 50% of the vote, forcing a runoff. In a special election held the same day to elect a permanent successor to Republican Johnny Isakson, Warnock topped Loeffler by 7 points in a crowded field. But the Democrat also fell short of 50%, necessitating a second runoff. Polls suggest each of the contests could be close.
Loeffler was appointed to the Senate in January by Gov. Brian Kemp after Isakson resigned for health reasons. If she wins on Jan. 5, she would finish out the remainder of the term Isakson won in 2016 and be on the ballot again in 2022.
