Mike Pence: Georgia senators are last line of GOP defense

Vice President Mike Pence campaigned with Georgia's two Republican senators Friday, trying to hold off their Democratic challengers in Jan. 5 runoffs that will determine who controls the Senate at the outset of President-elect Joe Biden's administration.

The trip highlights a critical juncture for the Republicans and Pence, who is trying to balance his own political future against his loyalties to a president who has yet to concede defeat.

Pence appeared with Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler on the outskirts of metro Atlanta's sprawling footprint, on the same day Georgia's Republican secretary of state certified that Biden is the first Democratic presidential nominee  to carry the state since 1992.

Although Pence has joined President Donald Trump in not yet conceding to Biden, the vice president held fast Friday to more careful language than the president's repeated and baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.

“As our election contest continues, here in Georgia and in courts across the country, I’ll make you a promise,” Pence said in a prepared speech he delivered in Canton and Gainesville, towns north of Atlanta. “We’re going to keep fighting until every legal vote is counted. We’re going to keep fighting until every illegal vote is thrown out."

That position has grown increasingly fraught as more states certify election returns, and even federal judges appointed by Trump reject the president's specious claims of a fraudulent election. Pence, almost certainly a future presidential candidate himself, cannot yet afford to distance himself from Trump, but also must be careful not to attach himself to mistruths that undermine confidence in U.S. elections.

Pence focused Friday on securing the Republican Senate majority by helping Perdue and Loeffler defeat Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, respectively. Having won 50 Senate seats in the new Congress, Republicans need one more for control. A Democratic sweep of the Georgia runoffs would yield a 50-50 Senate, giving Vice President-elect Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote to tilt the chamber to Democrats.

With some irony, the Republicans’ chief argument in the runoff contest has been to warn against giving Democrats complete control, a position that tacitly acknowledges that Biden will be sworn in as president on Jan. 20. Pence implied as much when he said Friday that a “Republican Senate majority could be the last line of defense for all that we’ve done."

Speaking before Pence, Perdue explicitly acknowledged Biden’s win when he warned that if Georgia doesn’t elect him and Loeffler, Democrats will “have the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. They’ll do anything they want.”

(Image Credit: AP)