Cross-cutting considerations in Georgia’s runoffs

Trump isn’t ignoring the Senate race, though. At a Dec. 5 rally in Valdosta, Trump was robust in saying the dual races are by far “the most important congressional runoff, probably in American history.”

The state faces runoffs because its laws require a majority for election. If no candidate earns a clear majority in the regular November balloting, the top two candidates face off again. In the November races, Perdue fell just short, earning 49.7% of the vote, with Ossoff earning 2% less. The other race was a special election (Loeffler was appointed last January), which included a cornucopia of candidates from both parties. Warnock ran first with 32.9%, with Loeffler second at 25.9%. But all the Republicans combined earned more than 52%, perhaps indicating an advantage for Loeffler entering the runoff.

In interviews with Georgian conservatives across the state, several things were clear. First, they have no interest in calls by embittered, out-of-state attorneys calling for them to boycott the election, and they resent the outside interference. Also, despite them all being very disappointed that Joe Biden will be inaugurated in January, they are still excited to show up and make their voices heard.

Always on their mind, though, is Trump. Consider, as case studies, two voters who stridently support him and one who did so more grudgingly. Of the two strong Trump backers, one is, perhaps surprisingly, leaning toward Democrats Ossoff and Warnock. The non-party-line thinking should remind national pundits that voter behavior is a much more complicated phenomenon than pundits’ pat storylines indicate.

The Defender:

Jeff Brookshire, who is voting for Republicans Perdue and Loeffler, has been a conservative voter all his life but shies away from being called a Republican.

“When I was very young, I was mostly independent,” he said. “As I’ve grown and got more knowledgeable, I’m conservative. But I am more libertarian than anything.”

Born in Jonesboro, Georgia, just north of where he lives in suburban Atlanta, the 49-year-old went into the Marine Corps right after graduation. After seven years in the military, he came home and entered the commercial construction industry, in which he has owned his own business since 2006.

“It’s all commercial,” he said. “We do kitchen equipment, seating packages, doors, hardware, accessories and cabinetry for commercial buildings … We do a lot of millwork and seating packages. We go all over the country. I have been to every state in the country, traveling to do work, and even been overseas.”

Politically, Brookshire said he tends to side with Republicans except on social issues.

“I don’t care who you’re with, or you can marry whoever you want,” he said. “You can date whoever you want. Just don’t mess with my money, and let me spend my money the way I want to. That’s my philosophy.”

He continued: “Even though I spent seven years in the Marine Corps, I’m definitely against never-ending wars where these kids are getting killed over stuff that they shouldn’t be getting killed over. And so, that’s my political leanings mostly. Definitely, I’m real big into immigration, but it needs to be legal immigration. You can’t open a flood gate and let just anybody come in willy-nilly without us knowing what’s going on.”

He voted proudly for Trump in 2016 and 2020, supported both Loeffler and Perdue for the Senate, and will again come January. He is unsure, though, which way the races will go, citing concerns about the integrity of the voting process.

“Based on my disbelief of what happened back in November, it is so hard to tell,” he said. “The conservatives, they feel like this election was not a fair election so [they are] a little disheartened, but I think they’re going to rally to try to hold on to the Senate because they really do understand what is at stake.”

Brookshire dismisses calls to boycott the election: “I figure if you don’t vote, you have no reason to complain about anything. I honestly believe Congress is more important than the presidency when it comes to a lot of things. The Congress is the only one who can pass laws, so I definitely think it’s very important that we stick to getting them back in the majority. And honestly, I haven’t heard anybody in my round of friends speak of not going to vote just because … either they were cheated or that [state Republican officials] are not doing enough for Trump to win. They’re not just going to throw their hands up. I haven’t heard that bit at all.”

It’s complicated

At 23, Johnathan Ales is heading in the right direction. He has finished school, has found a career path in automotive shipping he enjoys, and he likes his life in Hampton, a southeastern suburb of Atlanta.

“I grew up with both of my parents in the medical field,” he said. “My dad actually dabbled in construction a little bit growing up. Both worked two jobs. My mother was part-time in school, part-time working as a nurse.”

He continued: “Where I grew up, McDonough, Georgia, was rural and farmland until I would say about the late 2000s where warehouses and more businesses began to grow. McDonough began to expand in the area and rapidly began to change.”

“I grew up playing in the woods, and I also was able to go to the creek. We played basketball. We played in the streets. I just lived, probably, a typical sort of rural, suburban kind of farmland, country life.”

And: “The majority of my life, I would claim to be a conservative libertarian. My problem with the Republican Party and Democrat Party is they tend to be too vague nowadays, and they seem too extreme. I like aspects of both parties. I see a middle ground that I’m not sure why the leaders we elect do not come to find.”

Ales proudly answers “Donald J. Trump” twice when asked who he voted for in 2016 and 2020.

Then he does what many voters do to conventional wisdom: He shatters it matter-of-factly. He says he voted for Democrats Warnock and Ossoff for Senate.

He is leaning toward voting for both of them again in January, but he is also considering the consequences seriously.

Ales said he was turned off of Loeffler by allegations that she engaged in insider stock trading, and he also prefers Warnock’s pro-abortion rights position to her anti-abortion one.

Then there’s the other race, where he says it’s a close call.

“My biggest worry,” he said, “especially with candidate Jon Ossoff, is Jon Ossoff holds a high position for a media company. Now, one criticism I had is with the media. I firmly believe that President Trump hasn’t been represented fairly by the media. I also believe that just the division that the media brings amongst the people is a major problem. It’s almost a cancer amongst the American public.”

Then again, Ales said he thinks Republican Perdue has shown a “lack of character,” evident in his ducking a recent debate, that might lead Ales to vote for Ossoff anyway. Really, he’s just not certain.

“I think we have a few more weeks to decide, a little bit more time to think this over,” he said. “I’m not really sure what could really sway me though. I try to look into things before I do it, especially when it comes to politics. I think some people might find that they just go in and vote. Hopefully, I feel as if the best to my knowledge and my moral standing, that I am leaning towards the right candidates.”

Ales has one last thing to add, “I guess the only thing that would really sway my vote is if I could have some firm responses from the senators, maybe going into more detail on their policies or how they’ll stand for me and other Georgians in Washington.”

The Traditionalist

Savannah Simpson always thought she was a Republican, but after the last four years, she prefers just simply considering herself independent: “Nowadays, I like to say that I really can’t identify with a political party right now, because I’m so conflicted with everything that’s going on politically in the United States right now. I usually say I’m very conservative.”

The McDonough, Georgia, native is living in Athens, where she attends the University of Georgia, double majoring in political science and international affairs and also working toward “a certificate in applied politics.”

“I voted for Donald Trump,” she said, but not happily. “I voted for him because I felt like, out of the two candidates, he had the most policy ideas and issues that I agreed with. However, I was not fully excited that those [Trump and Biden] were my two candidates that I had to pick from.”

If someone granted her wish of her perfect candidate for president, she immediately says former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and current Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

“I think that a classic conservative candidate is what the United States needs in order to pull from this Trump-era of craziness.”

She freely admits her vote for Trump was on policy, not personality. And she rejects his claims of massive election fraud.

“If we can have an election, and at the end of the day, the results are out, and a candidate and a large group of people say, ‘Oh, he didn’t win. It has to be fraud,’ then how are we going to trust our elections ever?”

Noting that Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger is a Republican, she adds that, “You think that if there was fraud involved with the elections in his office, it would favor the Republicans. So, it’s just very hard for me to believe that there’s all this fraud that’s going to change the outcome, and all of these votes are going to come from somewhere. I just think that it’s highly unlikely, but you never know what can be true.”

Simpson, who has volunteered on several down-ballot state races on break over the past couple of years, says that while she will happily support both Purdue and Loeffler next month, despite social media pressure, especially at a somewhat liberal university.

“A lot of the people who go here and who are super politically involved tend to be very left-leaning,” she said. “And they are also the ones that are saying, ‘If you are Republican and you vote for Donald Trump, we are not compatible as friends. You need to unfollow me. I don’t ever want to speak to you.’”

She says she has tried to widen the variety of people groups she is in for that specific reason — “So that they can see that not all Republicans are crazy and all of us are not one type of person, which seems to be the only type of Republican that the press highlights or interviews.”