ATLANTA (AP) – Merchandise on Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s online campaign store includes T-shirts and bumper stickers with Donald Trump’s name and the message, “He’s still my president.”
The Georgia Republican is posting television ads ahead of Tuesday’s Senate election that denounces his opponent, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, as “dangerous” and “radical.”
Meanwhile, Loeffler’s colleague, Sen. David Perdue, warns Georgians that Democrats will adopt a “socialist agenda” if their rival, Jon Ossoff, wins on Tuesday.
In the final days of campaigns that will decide control of the U.S. Senate, Republican incumbents are appealing to the more conservative part of the electorate. His constant embrace of the Republican Party’s right-wing and right-wing Trump wing (even repeatedly refusing to acknowledge Trump’s defeat) and his caricatures of challenging Democrats may seem like a risky approach in a state that voted for little Democrat Joe Biden as president in November after years of steady Democratic gains.
Still, the strategy reflects the predominant wisdom of the Republican Party in the Trump era: the clearest path to Republican victory, even in swing states, is to boost support among a motivated Republican Party base. for loyalty to the president and fear of Democrats. Still, the approach is at the expense of an increasingly broad Republican coalition that included more urban and suburban moderates and Republican-leaning independents who have rejected the Republican brand under Trump.
“The president resonates with a lot of people, and also the buzzwords, so you feel a lot of‘ Trump ’and‘ socialism, ’” said Michael McNeely, former vice president of the Republican Party of Georgia. “I’d like to live in a society where people talk about ideas, but that’s not where we are.”
Trump may have further complicated Perdue and Loeffler’s bet with the way he has handled his defeat against Biden.
The president has spread unfounded allegations of election fraud and blasted Republican officials in Georgia, including Gov. Brian Kemp, who has defended the election process. When Trump’s allies, including Perdue and Loeffler, backed the claims, some Republicans expressed concern that he might discourage some Trump loyalists from voting in the second round. Now, other Republicans are concerned that Republican Party candidates have disabled the more moderate voters repelled by Trump.
“No Republican is really happy with the situation we’re in,” said Chip Lake, a longtime GOP consultant and senior adviser to Loeffler’s defeated rival, Rep. Doug Collins. “But sometimes when you play poker, you have to play the hand you get, and for us that starts with the president.”
Trump will visit Georgia for a final rally with Loeffler on Monday evening, hours before the polls open. It is unclear whether Perdue will attend. The senator said Thursday he was in quarantine after being exposed to an aide who tested positive for coronavirus.
Democrats are right with the Republican Party senators’ decision to present themselves as Trump’s Republicans and use exaggerated attacks. Opposition to the president has been a unifying force among his grassroots supporters, and Democrats believe the Republican general tenor falls flat with voters in the middle.
“We are talking about something like the expansion of Medicaid. We’re talking about “extending Pell grants” for low-income college students, Ossoff said at a recent stop in Marietta, north of Atlanta. “David Perdue denounces these things as socialism?”
Ossoff noted Perdue’s claims that a Democratic-led Senate would abolish private insurance; In fact, Ossoff and Warnock are responding to Biden’s proposal to add a federal insurance plan to private insurance exchanges, not to abolish private insurance. “I just want people to have a choice,” Ossoff said.
November returns prove the GOP trap. Biden defeated Trump by about 12,000 votes out of 5 million cast in Georgia, making him the first Democratic presidential candidate to lead the state since 1992. Biden’s total record of votes for a Democrat in the state was fueled by racial and ethnic diversification of metropolitan areas, but also changes in key Atlanta suburbs, where white voters have historically leaned toward the Republican.
Still, Perdue landed a few thousand votes out of Trump’s total and led Ossoff with about 88,000 votes. Republican turnout also increased in small towns and rural areas, while Georgia Democrats had a disappointing downward vote in the general election, which did not achieve the expected gains in legislative races.
“We’ve already won this race once,” Perdue says at some of his second-round campaign stops, echoing his advisers ’belief that his top priority is to keep enthusiasm from Trump’s base. They add that they can correct the narrow portion of voters based on arguments they warn against Democrats controlling the House, Senate and White House.
Lake and McNeely, however, predicted that right-wing attacks and Trump-centered appeals will not vote beyond the base, especially amid a large number of publicity in a secondary campaign the total spending of the which could exceed $ 500 million.
“A long time ago we got to the point of declining yields,” Lake said.
They also lamented Trump’s continued grievances over his defeat even after his own attorney general said there was no evidence that the election was marred by fraud and that courts across the country rejected the challenges to the outcome.
“If, for some reason, Republican candidates lose,” Lake said, “it will be difficult to write a post-mortem about this runoff and not look directly at the chaos that has been created about election fraud.”
Early voting ended Thursday with just over 3 million Georgians voting in absentia or in person. This marks the final count of early votes of 3.65 million before the general election. But early voting has already set a statewide turnout in Georgia.
Jen Jordan, a Democratic state senator who in 2017 won an Atlanta suburban district that Republicans had long maintained, acknowledges that her party has also moved on to grassroots strategy. But Jordan argued that Democrats continue to root their tone more in political ideas, especially in access to health care and public education, which he said has great appeal. He said Perdue and Loeffler undermined their warnings of “socialism” by separating from most Republicans in Congress to support the president’s call to pay $ 2,000 in pandemic aid to every American.
“I’ve never heard so much of the word socialism in my life, and then both of them are like, we give everyone $ 2,000 checks,” Jordan said.
McNeely, the former Republican Party state leader, lamented that even if Perdue and Loeffler win, their campaigns move Georgia away from a more centrist tradition. He cited Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson, whose retirement paved the way for Kemp to appoint Loeffler.
Unlike many southern Republicans of his generation, Isakson was never a Democrat. But it went through the Georgia General Assembly at a time when Democrats dominated the state. In Washington, Isakson was a reliable Republican vote, but shunned just partisans and carefully avoided talking about Trump whenever possible.
“Sen. Isakson learned to see things from a different perspective, “McNeely said, adding that Republican politicians should” think beyond the campaigns and what the president is thinking “and that more voters should decide. that “you don’t become a bad guy you commit to.”