Biden returns to Georgia as validator for Ossoff, Warnock

Republicans er to cement GOP control of U.S. Senate have branded Georgia's Democratic candidates as puppets who would ensure a leftist takeover of federal government if Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler aren't reelected. Democrats believe y have a helpful counter to exaggerated attacks on Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warck: President-elect Joe Biden.

first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia since 1992, Biden will return to state Tuesday to campaign alongside Ossoff and Warck ahe of Jan. 5 ruff elections. ruffs will determine which party controls Senate and shape legislative ambitions of Biden’s presidency. y also will serve as an early test of Biden's power as president-elect as President Donald Trump continues to fight election results by falsely claiming widespre voter fraud.

Democrats see Biden, who campaigned as a mainstream, unifying figure, as well suited to make his party’s case in Georgia, an emerging battleground where a Democratic victory statewide still requires plenty of support from moderates — and perhaps even Republican-leaning independents.

“ president-elect can motivate our base but also what we call Biden coalition,” said Tharon Johnson, previously a senior viser to Biden’s Georgia campaign. “That means progressives, liberals, moderates -- and I’d d some suburban Republicans and even some rural voters who might have gotten away from us before.”

Biden’s joint rally with Ossoff and Warck comes on second day of early voting in Georgia and a day after Electoral College cemented Biden’s victory over Trump, who has spent weeks telling his supporters that election was rigged against m. Both parties see Georgia contests as coin flips and have invested staggering sums that reflect stakes.

Biden's campaign, toger with Democratic National Committee, has steered about $5 million to Democrats' coordinated campaign in state. money is paying for about 50 campaign staffers, including many focused on suburbs and smaller cities where Biden outperformed usual Democratic marks. Biden campaign and national party also have raised about $10 million directly for Ossoff and Warck.

But Biden's biggest impact could be vouching for Ossoff and Warck. general election results show why two could benefit from riding Biden's coattails. Biden topped all candidates on Georgia’s vember ballot with nearly 2,475,000 votes, finishing about 12,000 ahe of Trump out of 5 million ballots cast. Perdue finished with about same number of votes as Trump and led Ossoff by about 88,000 votes, meaning Ossoff ran about 100,000 votes behind Biden.

Warck and Loeffler, meanwhile, led a special election that included more than 20 candidates. But both finished well behind ir respective parties’ statewide pace. ruffs are necessary because ne of Senate candidates surpassed 50% threshold required to win statewide offices in Georgia.

record general election turut -- about 850,000 more presidential votes than in 2016 -- demonstrated considerable enthusiasm across spectrum. And, certainly, Democrats’ dece-long organizing efforts in Georgia, especially in booming metropolitan areas around Atlanta, paid off.

But gap between Biden and Ossoff suggests Biden’s margin depended at least partly on moderates and even some conservatives, especially in Atlanta suburbs, who simply did t like Trump. Republicans need just one more seat for a Senate majority. Democrats must sweep ruff elections to get a 50-50 Senate and make Vice President-elect Kamala Harris tiebreaking majority vote.

Georgia Democratic chair Nikema Williams, a congresswoman-elect from Atlanta, pushed back on idea that Ossoff and Warck need Biden to have a path to victory. She framed contests more about distinctions between a Democratic and Republican Senate.

“I welcome my president-elect to Georgia,” Williams said, but “it’s t about appealing to one segment of voters.” Inste, she argued, ruffs and Biden’s visit are about “appealing to all Georgians who want to see something different” on matters like more ecomic aid amid surging coronavirus pandemic.

Johnson, who worked on Biden campaign, said it’s impossible to separate those issues from Biden himself. In Biden's fall campaign, Johnson said, “our first goal was to t let m label him as this left-wing, rical socialist.” w that he’s won, Johnson said, “Who better to explain exactly what se Senate seats mean and why he needs m to get things done?”

Warck and Ossoff have scoffed at “socialist” labels from Republicans. Perdue and Loeffler have claimed falsely that two Democrats support single-payer health insurance that would abolish private health insurance and want to “defund police.” But because Ossoff and Warck have never held public office and are still building ir brands, it's harder for m to offer kind of retort Biden me in August as Trump was hammering him as a leftist.

“Ask yourself,” Biden said, “do I look like a rical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?” Even some Republicans ackwledge dynamics make Biden ideal validator.“He’s a kwn quantity,” said Republican Jack Kingston, a former congressman and Trump ally. “Voters kw him, or even if y don’t really kw him, y say, ’Oh, Joe Biden. He’s been re a long time, hasn’t he?”

Kingston ted Georgia's population and demographic shifts in state have favored Democrats, meaning party has a larger liberal, urbanized base w. Biden, he said, kws how to tap that base without angering middle.“He’s been doing this for deces,” Kingston said. “He’ll give a d to liberals. He’ll give a d to mainstream. He kws what to say without embarrassing or alienating anybody.”

(Im Credit: AP)