Incumbent Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler clearly prepared for her debate against Democratic challenger Rev. Raphael Warnock.
Loeffler repeatedly called Warnock “a radical liberal” during their Sunday showdown. She also routinely pulled from Warnock’s most inflammatory sermons, including quoting Ebenezer Baptist Church’s senior pastor preaching that police officers were “thugs” and saying it was impossible to “serve God and the military.”
“I’m fighting to make sure that the Republican majority is retained in the Senate because we are the shock absorber for commonsense policies that bring Americans together, that lift everyone up,” she said.
Loeffler and Warnock’s Jan. 5 Georgia Senate special election runoff coincides with sitting Georgia Republican Sen. David Perdue and Democratic filmmaker Jon Ossoff’s runoff for the state’s other seat in the chamber. The races will decide the Senate’s balance of power next Congress.
Loeffler also regurgitated her attacks of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as she sought to peg Warnock to national Democrats.
“As promised by Chuck Schumer, ‘Now we take Georgia, then we change America.’ That’s my number one focus: making sure that Georgians know what’s at stake,” she said.
Warnock, though, adopted an equally assertive stance.
Arguing his opponent was taking his sermons out of context, Warnock criticized Loeffler for using a negative strategy against him, claiming that was because she couldn’t defend her own record.
He scrutinized her for being appointed to the seat as well. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp chose Loeffler to temporarily replace retired Sen. Johnny Isakson in January.
While Loeffler refused to say whether she agreed with President Trump’s insistence that his Nov. 3 election against President-elect Joe Biden was “rigged” nor stood up for Kemp against Trump’s broadsides, Warnock dodged on whether he supported court-packing. He simply said he was “not hearing” Georgians talk about that issue.
