President-elect Joe Biden renewed the Democratic base in Atlanta on Monday, ahead of the major Senate election in Georgia.
Biden urged voters to vote for Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, as they face current Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Republicans can hold their position in the House if only one of their candidates wins, while Democrats must win both to get a 50-50 split, which would make Vice President-elect Kamala Harris the tiebreaker.
“We have won three times here,” Mr. Biden joked, a reference to Republican challenges against the election results that ultimately resulted in his victory.
The president-elect directly linked Democratic candidates to the $ 2,000 stimulus verification bill, according to which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell denied the vote in the Senate.
“If you send Jon and the Reverend to Washington, those $ 2,000 checks will come out the door, restoring hope, decency, and honor to so many people who are struggling right now,” Biden said.
On Monday, Mr. Biden is not the only person of great renown in Peach State. President Trump is gathering his supporters in the state Monday night, and Vice President Mike Pence urged voters to help the Senate maintain its Republican majority in a Monday rally as well.
Biden won Georgia by more than 11.00 votes, one of the biggest surprises of the 2020 presidential race. Over the weekend, President Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and pressed to him and other officials to “find” enough votes in the state presidential election to make him the winner, according to the audio of the call obtained by CBS News.
During the call, which Trump revealed in a tweet last Sunday, the president told Raffensperger, “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we have won the state.”
A source familiar with the matter told CBS News that Raffensperger’s office has received 18 attempted phone calls from Mr. Trump since Nov. 3, but Saturday was the first time the two officials have connected.
Both parties hope that the results of the presidential election will motivate their bases to come out.
Republican incumbent Perdue led Ossoff, his Democratic opponent, by more than 80,000 votes, but failed to get the 50% needed to avoid a second round. The other race was a special election to occupy the retired seat of Senator Johnny Isakson. Warnock received the most votes in his career, but prominent Republicans, current Loeffler and Congressman Doug Collins, received more combined votes than he did.
More than 3 million Georgians voted in advance, with 2.07 million voters in person and 928,000 by mail, according to Georgia Votes.