While Team Trump continues to contest the writ-large 2020 election with a new Supreme Court filing, a little runoff election in Georgia that could mean everything is heating up. For those off the grid living the Luddite life, the Peach State is the site of a white-hot battle for the Senate that will either see the Republicans retain control of that chamber or put the Democrats firmly in charge of both the executive and legislative branches of government.
Liberty Nation's Mark Angelides recently supplied the boots-on-the-ground facts about the race and its implications:
"The fate of the United States Senate hangs in the balance. Presently, Republicans have 50 seats, and Democrats (with Independents included) have 48. The two remaining seats are both in Georgia and are engaged in runoff elections – as per the state constitution. The shape of the 2021 Senate is arguably more important than who wins the presidency."
Kelly Loeffler and Raphael Warnock
According to Georgia state law, a candidate must receive at least 50% of the vote to win. This means that Republican David Perdue's 49.7% was not enough to dispatch Democrat Jon Ossoff's 47.9% -- although it would have been in most other states. In the other race, Republican Kelly Loeffler has a polling lead against Democrat Raphael Warnock and the ostensible advantage of being able to count on the 24% of votes cast for Republican Doug Collins, who ceded his support when he lost to her.
A recent Rasmussen poll showed that 47% of Americans think the presidential election was stolen from Trump, including 79% of Republicans and -- astonishingly -- 20-30% of Democrats. This is the tinderbox zeitgeist in which the Georgia runoff will be decided on Jan. 5.
With a wealth of statistics from the general election -- much of it, unfortunately, slanted to favor the left's desired outcomes -- why is there a relative dearth of surveys on this state contest?
Some of it is because both voters and the media typically overlook runoff elections. But just as there were more votes cast in the 2020 presidential election than ever before, the Georgia Senate contest is sure to have record-level participation because so much is at stake. So why have so few pollsters been canvassing Georgia to take the pulse of voters?
A cynic might answer that what polling has already been done appears to give Loeffler and Perdue a margin of victory, and that is news the largely leftist media don't want to amplify by reporting it. Up to this point, only one major poll showed a slight advantage for Perdue. But an Emerson College survey found that the two conservative candidates are favored to win, with 51% of respondents indicating they'll vote for the Republicans versus 48% for the Democrats. The differentiation is within the 3.9% margin of error, making the race virtually a tie.
The same poll also gauged Americans' foremost concerns at this key inflection point: 31% said the economy was their main issue, followed by 24% for the COVID-19 response, and health care with 15%. Only 12% were concerned about social justice, but perhaps they are virtue-signaling leftists or media-obedient conservatives such as Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT).
Control of the Senate is crucial for both parties. Democrats consider it a winner-take-all that will position them to easily enact the radical agenda endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and triage the damage done to Barack Obama's legacy by the bazooka known as President Trump. Republicans see it as do-or-die to stave off the transformation of America into a corporate constellation of identity politics, social justice, and absolute rule by a fringe minority.
Both parties understand the stakes all too well.
Another poll this week indicated a slight edge for Republicans, no doubt inciting Democratic king-makers to yank the levers of backroom power more furiously than the puppeteers who operate Pete Buttigieg. And, rest assured, if the Republicans eke out a win in Georgia to retain control of the Senate, the state’s failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams will scream her default: "Stolen!" Just don your noise-canceling headphones if that consummation comes to pass.
All eyes on Georgia.
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