Jon Ossoff (D) shut down Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s (R-GA) criticism of her opponent Rev. Raphael Warnock (D) telling Fox News that she had been “campaigning with a Klansman.”
Said Ossoff: “She is stooping to these vicious personal attacks to distract from the fact that she’s been campaigning with a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. I mean we deserve better than that here in Georgia.”
Earlier: Loeffler took photo with KKK leader.
“Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) needs your help to keep the U.S. Senate in Republican hands. So blared a handful of Facebook’s ads that Cruz’s campaign committee purchased this month. But none of them were actually raising money for the Republican candidates in Georgia. Instead, every penny donated went directly to…Cruz,” the Daily Beast reports.
“The Cruz campaign bought 15 separate ads on Facebook over the past two weeks, each featuring a video of the senator dramatically hyping the need to hold two U.S. Senate seats in Georgia runoff contests.”
A new JMC Analytics poll in Georgia finds Democrats leading in the two Senate runoffs:
A new Trafalgfar Group poll shows closer races:
Nate Silver: Why a split verdict in Georgia isn’t that crazy.
Politico: “Democrats are buoyed by the strong early vote numbers, which show Black voters making up a larger percentage of the electorate than in November and higher early turnout in Democratic congressional districts in the state. Both are positive signs for Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, the two challengers, easing fears that the typical voter dropoff that has plagued Democrats in past years would doom the party’s chances with control of the Senate on the line.”
“Meanwhile, early-vote turnout has lagged in Republican-held congressional districts, likely leaving GOP Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue with a larger deficit heading into Election Day than they had to make up on Nov. 3, with early voting concluding this week leading up to the New Year’s holiday.”
The Washington Post reports President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris “will both travel to Georgia in the closing days before its pair of Senate runoff elections, underscoring the importance of contests that will determine which party controls the chamber next year.”
NBC News: “More than 2.3 million voters have cast their ballots, with more than 800,000 voting absentee by mail and 1.5 million voting early, in person, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office. The previous runoff turnout record was set in 2008, when Georgians cast 2.137 million total ballots in the entire election.”
“More than 78,000 Georgians who did not vote in the general election have already voted in the runoff race.”
A Wall Street Journal editorial accused President Trump of sabotaging Republicans’ chances of winning the Georgia Senate runoffs with his push for $2,000 stimulus checks, calling it an “in-kind contribution to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden.”
Axios: “It’s another sharp criticism from a newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch — co-chair of Fox Corp. and executive chair of News Corp — that comes one day after the New York Post said Trump is ‘cheering for an undemocratic coup’ with his efforts to overturn the election he lost.”
“A federal judge in Georgia on Monday ordered two counties to reverse a decision removing more than 4,000 voters from the rolls ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff elections that will decide control of the U.S. Senate,” Politico reports.
“The judge, Leslie Abrams Gardner — the sister of former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, a prominent ally of President-elect Joe Biden who has led voter registration efforts across the state — concluded that the counties appeared to have improperly relied on unverified change-of-address data to invalidate registrations in the two counties.”
Eight days out from Election Day in Georgia’s crucial senate runoff races, Jon Ossoff (D) and Raphael Warnock (D) are “sounding the alarm” about their ability to keep pace with GOP spending, calling for a “significant increase” in grassroots donations to prevent running out of money, NBC News reports.
Associated Press: “One thing helping line voters up is the decision of the candidates in both races to run as tickets, with joint appearances and advertisements.”
“With the candidates running as tickets, it’s unlikely the parties will split the seats. Two wins would put Democrats in control of the U.S. Senate with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris breaking a 50-50 tie. A split or two GOP wins would keep Republicans in control.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Georgia’s extraordinarily thin partisan divide set the stage for rampant misinformation, lawsuits and fights over election integrity after the presidential election.”
“With control of the Senate on the line Jan. 5, elections officials are bracing for a new round of drama — especially if the races are as close as polls, analysts and the campaigns suggest they will be.”
Atlanta Journal Constitution: “Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock’s ex-wife told Atlanta police officers that her husband was a ‘great actor’ after he denied her claims that he ran over her foot with his car, according to body cam footage of the March 2020 incident that aired late Tuesday on Fox News.”
Stacey Abrams tweets that 57,429 Georgians who already cast a ballot in the January 5th Senate runoffs did not vote at all in the presidential election.
And “half or more” are people of color.
New York Times: “As Georgia prepares to hold special elections that will determine which party will control the U.S. Senate, the state has become the focus of a misinformation campaign that is aimed at discrediting the results of the November elections and convincing voters that Democrats are trying to steal the upcoming vote.”
“A small group of ‘superspreaders’ is responsible for the vast majority of that misinformation, according to new research by Avaaz, a global human rights group. Not only are those accounts responsible for most of the misinformation swirling around the vote, they are drowning out accurate reporting by mainstream media outlets on Facebook and Instagram.”
Related from Axios: “In 2020, nearly one-fifth (17%) of engagement among the top 100 news sources on social media came from sources that NewsGuard deems generally unreliable.”
A new SurveyUSA poll in Goergia finds Jon Ossoff (D) leading Sen. David Perdue (R) in their U.S. Senate runoff, 51% to 46%.
In the other Senate runoff, Raphael Warnock (D) leads Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R), 52% to 45%
From the pollster: “Georgia is a hot mess and no opinion pollster could possibly say what will happen when votes are counted in 2 weeks… Any outcome is possible, including victories for the 2 Republican incumbent US Senators. But: the polling data at this hour does not support that, and heading into Christmas week, Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock appear to be benefiting — at least momentarily — from a GOP cacophony.”
Dan Pfeiffer: “It is almost impossible to overstate the stakes in the two January 5th runoff elections in Georgia. If Democrats win both races, Joe Biden has a chance to pass his economic, health care, and climate plans. He will be able to confirm his cabinet and appoint judges. Mitch McConnell will be nothing more than a dour annoyance — a grumpy speed bump on the road to progress. If Democrats don’t win both races, well … things get much more difficult. I can’t remember a non-Presidential election of this much consequence.”
Politico: “Something’s missing from Georgia’s high-stakes Senate runoffs: the polls. After a disastrous November election for the polling industry, when the polls again underestimated President Donald Trump (who lost regardless) as well as GOP candidates down the ballot, pollsters are mostly sidelined in the run-up to the Jan. 5 Georgia elections, which most observers regard as toss-ups.”
“The public polls that drove so much of the news coverage ahead of November — and generated tremendous distrust afterward — have all but disappeared in Georgia, and they are set to stay that way: Some of the most prolific, best-regarded media and academic pollsters told Politico they have no plans to conduct pre-election surveys in Georgia.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.