The contrast couldn’t have been more striking.
When Jill Biden made her first in-person visit to Georgia of the campaign season on Monday, Democrats made clear that pandemic safety was paramount.
Hula hoops were meticulously arranged in a parking lot near the Decatur Square, spaced six feet apart around the outdoor stage. Masks were required, temperature checks conducted for each of the attendees and an organizer made clear there was to be no malarkey.
“Stay in your hoops,” he repeatedly told the gathered crowd before Biden’s arrival.
Credit: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@ajc.com
Credit: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@ajc.com
A few hours later, Donald Trump Jr. headlined a Republican rally in Kennesaw, at a massive indoor gun range that has previously been the stage for GOP rallies.
While masks were available at the doors, they were optional only. And only a few of the hundreds crammed under a canvas-like roof of the gun range chose to don them. Social distancing was impossible, aside from the area around the stage and the press pen, and the crowd massed closely together in front of the stage, near the wings for selfies with Trump Jr. and at choke points around the exits after the speechifying was over.
That cavalier approach to events is on display up and down the GOP ticket in Georgia, with Republican candidates holding packed indoor rallies with optional masks while Democrats hold more limited outdoor gatherings.
Credit: Patricia Murphy
Credit: Patricia Murphy
We expect to see more of that strategy when Trump returns to Georgia on Friday to stage a rally at the Middle Georgia Regional Airport outside Macon, just days after the president’s physician says he’s rid himself of the virus.
On that point, The New York Times has this note from the nation’s top coronavirus expert this morning:
Dr. Anthony Fauci said yesterday that the Trump campaign was “asking for trouble” by beginning to host crowded outdoor rallies again. Just hours later, President Trump hit the stage at his first rally since testing positive for the coronavirus less than two weeks ago. He also has rallies planned for tonight in Pennsylvania and Wednesday in Iowa.
“We know that that is asking for trouble when you do that,” Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, told CNN, referring to Trump’s plans to hold campaign rallies. “We’ve seen that when you have situations of congregate settings where there are a lot of people without masks, the data speak for themselves. It happens. And now is even more so a worse time to do that, because when you look at what’s going on in the United States, it’s really very troublesome.”
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Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC
Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC
Long lines at early-voting sites on Monday weren’t limited to the metro Atlanta area, though they were particularly brutal at some suburban locations.
Some voters reported waiting as long as 12 hours to cast their ballots on the first day of the three-week period, and the crowds will only get larger.
Consider this: About 128,000 Georgia voters cast their ballots on Monday - more than the first day of any previous early-voting period in Georgia. But that’s still far shy of the expected peak three weeks from now. On the final Friday of early voting in 2016, about 253,000 Georgians cast their ballots.
Elsewhere around the state, the Savannah Morning News reports hours-long wait times in Pooler and Savannah, too, with multiple factors piling up to make for extensive polls wait times, including computer failures, high enthusiasm and locals taking advantage of the Columbus Day holiday.
And the Augusta Chronicle found more lines, but even more voters willing to wait as long as it takes to get the job done. “I’d go through shreds of glass to make sure my vote counts this year,” said one.
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Republican Rich McCormick is rolling out a list of 100 “health care heroes” -- doctors and nurses who back his bid for Georgia’s 7th Congressional District.
The move is meant to counter a letter written last week by 120 healthcare professionals asking the Medical Association of Georgia to rescind its endorsement of McCormick, an emergency room physician who has echoed President Donald Trump’s approach to the virus.
Those healthcare professionals, some of whom are supporters of Democratic opponent Carolyn Bourdeaux, said McCormick has used his medical background to spread misleading information about the pandemic and ways to treat the virus.
McCormick has been endorsed by former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, along with former White House Physician Ronny Jackson and eight Republican physicians currently serving in Congress.
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The Cook Political Report, Washington’s crystal ball of House and Senate races, has rated a Georgia Senate race as even more competitive. And it may not be the race you’re thinking of.
In the Tuesday update, Cook moves the race for Kelly Loeffler’s seat from “Lean R” to “Toss up.” Two recent polls of the special election have shown Democrat Raphael Warnock gaining ground and pulling ahead of both Loeffler and her chief Republican rival Rep. Doug Collins. But the 20-way contest is still keeping all three under 30% in many polls.
A January runoff between some combination of the three seems to be where this is headed, but if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected.
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Joe Biden’s campaign is expanding his ad onslaught in Georgia with a volley of new TV spots in battleground states. Here’s an example of one of the six new ads airing today:
Everytown for Gun Safety’s political arm is spending another $1.3 million on a new ad targeting 6th Congressional District voters, this one focusing on health care.
The ad repeats attacks already made by Democratic U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath against opponent Karen Handel: mainly that she is aligned with President Donald Trump and once expressed support for a GOP proposal that would have dismantled the Affordable Care Act.
This campaign brings the total amount spent by Everytown in support of McBath to $3 million so far. In 2018, the group spent $4 million backing the Democrat in unseating Handel.
Handel’s campaign has said that accusing her of supporting the health care bill is misleading because she wasn’t in Congress at the time and never took an official vote. She said at the time she supported the proposal, but she wanted Republicans to replace it with a new law that kept the most popular provisions like coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.
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Stay tuned for the second day of the Atlanta Press Club debates. Tuesday’s lineup features the 6th and 7th District showdowns, and two matchups between Public Service Commission candidates.
