Georgia
'One state can chart the course': Biden rallies
in Georgia on eve of Senate runoffs
President-elect speaks at Atlanta rally alongside
Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and the Rev Raphael Warnock
Lauren
Gambino in Washington
@laurenegambino
Tue 5 Jan
2021 02.53 GMTFirst published on Mon 4 Jan 2021 19.45 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/04/georgia-senate-runoffs-trump-biden-rallies
Joe Biden
urged Georgia voters to surprise the nation once again by sending two Democrats
to the US Senate, on the eve of a pair of critical runoff elections that will
determine the balance of power in Washington and the scope of the
president-elect’s ambitious legislative agenda.
Biden,
speaking at a drive-in rally in downtown Atlanta alongside the Democratic
candidates Jon Ossoff and the Rev Raphael Warnock on Monday afternoon, did not
mention Donald Trump’s increasingly brazen efforts to overturn the results of
the November election, which escalated this weekend when the president
pressured Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” enough votes to reverse his
defeat in the state. Instead, he focused on what Democrats could accomplish
with control of the Senate.
“Georgia,
the whole nation is looking to you,” he said. “Unlike any time in my career,
one state can chart the course not just for the next four years but for the
next generation.”
Meanwhile
Trump, who spoke hours later a rival rally for the Republican candidates in
Dalton, Georgia, continued to deny that he lost the presidential election and
to recite debunked claims about election fraud.
“If the
liberal Democrats take the Senate and the White House – and they’re not taking
this White House,” Trump said of Democrats, “we’re going to fight like hell.”
If
Democrats win both seats – no easy feat – the Senate would be evenly divided,
with Kamala Harris, the vice-president-elect, serving as the tie-breaking vote.
If Republicans win at least one of the races, Mitch McConnell will remain the
Senate majority leader, making it far more difficult for the president-elect to
deliver on top policy priorities such as healthcare, taxation and climate.
Three
million Georgia voters cast ballots during the early voting period, which ended
on Thursday – a record for runoff elections in the state. Nearly half a billion
dollars has been spent on the twin races, as residents are bombarded with
political ads and messaging urging them to vote in Tuesday’s elections.
Biden and
Trump’s duelling visits to the state on Monday highlight the urgency – and the
stakes – of the contests, which will shape the political landscape for the
first years of the incoming administration.
Biden was
the first Democratic presidential nominee in nearly three decades to win
Georgia, where changing demographics, long-term voter mobilization efforts and
a political realignment across the Atlanta suburbs have turned this once
reliably Republican southern state into a presidential battleground.
The state
has certified Biden’s 11,779-vote victory in Georgia, but that hasn’t stopped
Trump, who has refused to concede his defeat, from continuing to amplify false
claims about the state’s election process and its results. On Monday, Biden
thanked Georgia voters for electing him and joked that he had won the state “three
times” because of the two statewide recounts.
In an
hour-long phone call to the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, on
Saturday, Trump implored him to “find 11,780 votes” – just enough to reverse
Biden’s victory in the state’s presidential election. A day after a recording
of the conversation was made public, Gabriel Sterling, a top election official
in Georgia, delivered a point-by-point denunciation of the meritless claims and
debunked conspiracy theories cited by the president as evidence that the
election was stolen from him.
At the
rally on Monday, Trump suggested that Pence should use a ceremonial role on
Wednesday, when he will preside over the Senate convening to certify the
electoral college vote, to reject the outcome of the election. “I hope Pence
comes through for us,” Trump said, adding he would not “like him quite as much”
if he did not.
Alluding to
Trump’s machinations in recent weeks, Biden said he would never demand loyalty
from the state’s senators, who he said were elected to serve the people of
Georgia and the constitution, not the president.
“Politicians
cannot assert, take or seize power,” he said. “Power is given, granted by the
American people alone.”
The tape of
Trump’s call with Raffensperger has rattled Republicans in Georgia, who were
already nervous that Trump’s fixation on his electoral loss could depress
turnout among his supporters. During a rally in Georgia last month, Trump
devoted considerably more time to airing his own political grievances with the
state’s Republican leaders than promoting the Republican candidates he was
there to campaign for.
With
control of the Senate at stake, the races have drawn firepower from some of the
biggest names in politics. In a tweet on Monday, Barack Obama cast the runoffs as
an opportunity to safeguard democratic institutions from an assault on American
democracy.
“We’re
seeing how far some will go to retain power and threaten the fundamental
principles of our democracy,” the former president wrote. “But our democracy
isn’t about any individual, even a president – it’s about you.”
Earlier on
Monday, Mike Pence was in Milner, Georgia, to campaign on behalf of the
Republican candidates, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Speaking to supporters
at a megachurch, the vice-president made no mention of the call between Trump
and Raffensperger. Nor did he reconcile his support for an effort to reverse
Trump’s defeat with his argument that Republicans need Perdue and Loeffler in
the Senate to serve as a bulwark against the incoming Democratic
administration.
“We need
Georgia to defend the majority,” he said, adding: “A Republican Senate majority
could be our last line of defense.”
Pence’s
visit came a day after Harris held a drive-in rally with the Democratic
candidates Ossoff and Warnock in Savannah. In her remarks, Harris assailed
Trump for his call with Georgia’s secretary of state, calling it a “bald-faced,
bold abuse of power” and “most certainly the voice of desperation”.
Trump’s
sustained assault on Georgia’s election system has further cleaved the party at
the very moment they would benefit from unity. Since the November election,
Trump has relentlessly attacked Georgia’s Republican leaders, whom he has
accused without evidence of ignoring instances of voter fraud. Last month,
Trump called Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, a “fool” and said he
should resign.
In Atlanta
on Monday, Ossoff and Warnock seized the shared stage with Biden to galvanize
their supporters one last time before polls opened on Tuesday morning for
in-person voting.
Warnock
envisioned a “new Georgia” represented by “a young Jewish man, the son of an
immigrant, and a Black preacher, the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist church, where
Martin Luther King Jr used to serve and where John Lewis used to worship”.
Osoff
declared that Democrats were on the “cusp of a historic victory”.
Lois Beckett contributed reporting
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