Georgia voters head to the polls to decide two critical Senate runoff elections Tuesday, but Republicans face a choice between fighting against President-elect Joe Biden or for President Trump.
That’s not how the combatants in the 2020 presidential election put it. Trump and Biden held dueling campaign rallies Monday night, each supporting their parties’ candidates for the two Senate seats. If Democrats sweep both races, they will win control of the Senate thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote. Otherwise, Republicans will retain the majority.
But Trump isn’t conceding that Harris will succeed Vice President Mike Pence later this month. He hasn’t conceded the presidential race nationally or in Georgia, one of several states where he is still contesting the results — in this case, putting him at odds with local Republican leaders. “You will see the real numbers tonight in my speech, but especially on JANUARY6th,” Trump teased on Twitter ahead of the Georgia rally.
Trump has called on Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican who won the party’s gubernatorial nomination thanks in part to the president’s 2018 endorsement, to resign. He has also clashed with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, another Republican, who released audio of a call in which Trump called for action to overturn Biden’s victory in the state. Trump has blasted the “‘Surrender Caucus’ within the Republican Party” who “were willing to accept the certification of fraudulent presidential numbers.”
Republicans have worried that Trump will demoralize their base by casting doubt on Georgia’s electoral process, though the president has broken with allies who call for boycotting the Senate elections. But his insistence that he will prevail in his own election cuts against a major motivating factor for conservatives to return GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler to Washington: as a backstop against Biden.
“They could go for broke like they did with Obamacare,” said a conservative activist in Georgia who is working to support the two Republicans against Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Rafael Warnock, pointing out the controversial legislation passed even though it helped cost Democrats control of the House in the ensuing midterm elections. “They may be willing to burn the ship and deal with the political repercussions later.”
“Pro-life victory in these two Senate seats is crucial to give the pro-life movement a fighting chance at combating the worst of the pro-abortion agenda, including expanding the Supreme Court and forcing taxpayers to fund abortion on demand through birth,” Women Speak Out PAC national spokeswoman Mallory Quigley in a statement. While the presidential race went unmentioned, none of these things is likely to happen without President Biden’s signature. If Trump and Pence remain in office, Ossoff and Warnock cannot by themselves even flip the Senate.
A small business group was more explicit. “The race in Georgia will affect small businesses around the country,” said Alfredo Ortiz, CEO of the Job Creators Network, in a statement. “Without a Republican check on the Biden Administration and Nancy Pelosi in the House, small business owners will be looking at higher taxes, more regulations like unsustainably high minimum wages, and policies that reduce employment just as they are trying to recover from the pandemic. The importance of this election cannot be understated, as the fates of hundreds of thousands of small businesses in America are in the hands of Georgia voters.”
“It’s very dangerous to have Washington be controlled by a single party, especially when that party does things like mock the opening prayer of the new Congress last night, tries to foist a radical agenda on the rest of us,” former counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway told reporters on Monday. Conway managed Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign before working for him in the White House.
Trump’s continued support for Perdue and Loeffler could override these considerations. It is also possible that Republican anger at the election could actually motivate them to turn out. Republican Paul Coverdell was elected to the Senate in a runoff after Bill Clinton won the 1992 presidential race, including Georgia’s electoral votes.
“The whole world is looking toward your state,” said a national conservative activist who has gone to Georgia to support the Republican candidates. “They really feel it.” Some conservatives remain bullish on the GOP’s chances to hold the Senate.
“This is why there is a growing belief here in Georgia the day before the election that Perdue has probably won and the Loeffler-Warnock race is too close to call,” Erick Erickson, a nationally known conservative commentator who lives in the state, wrote in his newsletter on Monday. Erickson cited analysis showing Perdue’s appeal to black farmers in south Georgia.
But concerns about Trump’s handling of his own election continue to color some perceptions of the Senate races. “Trump’s behavior over the past six weeks is bordering on unhinged,” said a veteran Republican operative in Washington, D.C. “He’s obsessed with the fact that he lost and was totally unengaged with the budget and the COVID bill negotiations, even with his treasury secretary in the room.”
