For anyone thinking that yesterday’s official end to the presidential election in Georgia would also bring an end to the brutal infighting between Republicans in the state - think again.
Look no further than the public insults hurled between Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Ga. GOP chair David Shafer.
After Shafer announced last night that he and the Republican National Committee are suing Raffensperger, ostensibly for blocking Republicans from observing absentee ballot signature verification during the state’s ballot count, Shafer said on twitter that he’s suing to get Raff and other elections officials “to do their job and obey the law.”
Raffensperger shot back this morning, saying that Shafer had been told repeatedly that Georgia’s signature verification is public and he and Republicans could always have watched it happen.
Raff closed by slamming the GOP chair, “From one Republican to another, please start focusing on what matters. If you put as much effort into the January runoffs as you have put on blaming others for your failures, we can’t lose.”
David- from one Republican to another, please start focusing on what matters. If you put as much effort into the January runoffs as you have put on blaming others for your failures, we can’t lose.
— GA Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (@GaSecofState) December 8, 2020
Also last night, President Donald Trump tweeted that Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan is, “Too dumb or corrupt to recognize massive evidence of fraud in GA & should be replaced!”
Duncan has taken an increasingly visible role telling Trump that the election is over and he lost, most recently in numerous appearances on CNN. But instead of a back-and-forth with Trump, which never ends well, Duncan took the when-they-go-low-we-go-high approach to the president.
“Thank you for 4 years of conservative leadership @realdonaldtrump,” Duncan wrote, before layering in some flattery about Trump’s achievements in office. “Let’s agree that re-electing @kloeffler & @sendavidperdue should be your top priority.”
Thank you for 4 years of conservative leadership @realdonaldtrump. You’ve proven that a business minded outsider can be effective in DC and your legacy will last a generation in our Supreme Ct. Let’s agree that re-electing @kloeffler & @sendavidperdue should be your top priority. https://t.co/lzXuSixUOn
— Geoff Duncan (@GeoffDuncanGA) December 8, 2020
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President Donald Trump, properly this time, filed a lawsuit in Fulton County on Monday that accused felons, out-of-state residents and underage residents of casting ballots in the November election. The lawsuit was originally filed Friday, but was rebuffed when Trump’s attorneys didn’t initially pay the proper filing fee or fill out paperwork correctly. We have your copy of the 64-page document below -- though note the Friday timestamp:
Asked about the “tens of thousands of illegal votes” alleged in the suit, Voting Implementation Manager Gabe Sperling said, “I have no idea what they’re talking about, but they need evidence to make that kind of claim.”
Let the armchair lawyering begin.
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The very busy state GOP also filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission over the weekend claiming that attacks against U.S. Sen. David Perdue were improperly coordinated between Jon Ossoff and a super PAC supporting his bid.
The complaint cites a memo released by Ossoff’s campaign in mid-November accusing Perdue of leveraging insider knowledge to profit from the pandemic, an accusation the Republican’s camp has denied. A few weeks later, an ad from The Georgia Way targeted him with a similar message.
“Based on the timing, messaging, conduct, and context of the campaign update and the advertisement, Jon Ossoff for Senate is coordinating its message against Senator Perdue,” said Stewart Bragg, executive director for the Georgia GOP.
The process isn’t a new one, and super PACs often draw on publicly available information to form their attacks.
Ossoff has leveled broadsides at Perdue for months accusing him of well-timed stock transactions and accused him of being a “crook” at a debate in October.
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For the third time in a month, Vice President Mike Pence is returning to Georgia to stump for U.S. Sen. David Perdue and U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler.
The vice president will travel this time to Augusta after trekking to Canton, Gainesville, Atlanta and Savannah at previous trips.
It’s just another sign that Republicans are putting their top assets into the effort to keep the Senate in GOP hands -- even as Pence and other Republican leaders refuse to acknowledge President Donald Trump’s defeat.
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The TV spending in Georgia’s Senate races is reaching an astronomical height. According to media strategist Rick Dent, the total amount spent or reserved on ads has now topped $380 million.
That’s enough to write a $76 check to every voter who came out in November to do it again in January. But of course, that’s against the rules.
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The U.S. House will vote today on the defense policy bill that includes a provision that will start the process of renaming Georgia’s Fort Benning and Fort Gordon military bases and others around the country named after Confederate leaders. The Senate vote is scheduled for Wednesday.
President Donald Trump has threatened to veto the National Defense Authorization Act if the base renaming provision is left in and if a clause that limits the power of social media companies is not added. Republicans and Democrats in both chambers are expected to pass the measure overwhelmingly and with enough support to override any veto.
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We’ve noted that the Republican strategy toward the Democratic ticket in the U.S. Senate runoffs has been to focus more heavily on Rev. Raphael Warnock as opposed to Jon Ossoff. Here is the New York Times with more on what’s behind such thinking:
Making Mr. Warnock, the pastor of Atlanta's storied Ebenezer Baptist Church, the face of the opposition for the Jan. 5 election — rather than Mr. Ossoff, a young white documentary filmmaker — represents a two-pronged strategy.
Spotlighting a Black candidate and linking him to the state's most prominent African-American Democrat, Stacey Abrams, amounts to a strategy to motivate turnout among white conservatives, especially those who harbor racist views and are uneasy about Black leadership. Mr. Warnock would be the first Black Democratic senator from the South.
The run-against-Warnock approach, though, also takes a page out of the national Republican Party's playbook for the 2020 campaign. Republicans found great success in down-ballot races, against mostly white candidates, by tying them to the most liberal figures and ideas in the Democratic Party — like defunding the police, which Mr. Warnock does not support.
We’ll pause to note here that this strategy didn’t always work here in Georgia. Democrats Lucy McBath and Carolyn Bourdeaux faced similar attacks in their 6th and 7th Congressional District races; both emerged as the winner. Bourdeaux was the only Democrat nationwide to flip a GOP seat this cycle.
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Sen. David Perdue refused to debate Jon Ossoff last weekend, he doesn’t publicly announce details about campaign events, and he continues to dodge questions from media other than conservative outlets. CNN posted video of a reporter following him on a recent bus tour and attempting, unsuccessfully, to get some questions in. The Perdue supporters interviewed by CNN said the lack of access doesn’t bother them.
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Both of Georgia’s U.S. senators say the Senate Ethics Committee looked into their stock trading during the coronavirus pandemic and found no wrongdoing. But our AJC colleagues Tamar Hallerman and Brad Scrade report that the ethics panel doesn’t exactly have the strongest track record of serving as the Senate’s watchdog.
The committee of three Republican senators and three Democrats almost never finds fault with the 100 members of the U.S. Senate. An analysis of the committee’s publicly available annual reports from 2007 through 2019 shows it received 1,189 complaints of alleged violations. Not one resulted in a disciplinary sanction, records show.
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Democrats are sounding more alarms over Cobb County’s decision to cut down early voting during the Senate runoffs from 11 sites to five. Cobb’s elections director said staffing limitations were behind her decision to reduce the number of locations.
Democratic candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff recently issued a joint statement saying the cutbacks will have the biggest effect on communities of color. Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight group echoed those concerns and asked the Cobb elections board to reconsider before early voting begins on Dec. 14.
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The eyes of Texas are upon Georgia, or at least its politicians, with both U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tex.) and former HUD secretary and San Antonio mayor Julian Castro in Georgia ahead of the Jan. 5 Senate runoffs. Castro is with both Warnock and Ossoff today for a drive-thru sign pick up and a Latino business forum in Gainesville.
Crenshaw stumped with Sen. David Perdue over the weekend. The Houston Chronicle notes both are poised to “gain some national exposure along the way.”
