Republicans have secured 50 seats in the next U.S. Senate compared to Democrats’ 48 (including two independents who caucus with them). Control of the next Senate comes down to Georgia’s runoff elections. In The Runoff Report, we provide the latest on each race and the fight for Senate control.
Regular election updates
David Perdue made stops in Musella, Americus, Leesburg, and Cataula Dec. 16.
Jon Ossoff released an ad discussing his work for former Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and his ideas for a new Civil Rights Act and a new Voting Rights Act.
This election is for a full six-year term ending January 2027. Perdue was first elected in 2014. Ossoff ran against Karen Handel (R) in the 6th Congressional District special election in 2017.
Click here for more coverage of the regular election.
Special election updates
Kelly Loeffler campaigned in Bartow and Paulding counties Dec. 16.
Raphael Warnock will make a campaign stop in Marietta today, according to a campaign email.
The special election will fill the remainder of the term Johnny Isakson (R) won in 2016. He resigned in Dec. 2019, and Gov. Brian Kemp (R) appointed Loeffler, co-owner of the WNBA team Atlanta Dream. Warnock is senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church. The winner will complete the term ending in January 2023.
Click here for more coverage of the special election.
Overall campaign updates
- The Ossoff and Warnock campaigns released an ad featuring President-elect Joe Biden saying he will sign a COVID-19 relief package with free testing and vaccination for every American and with small business assistance. Biden said he needs Ossoff and Warnock in the Senate to get it done.
- Ossoff and Warnock also held a livestream with Alyssa Milano, Leslie Jones, and Misha Collins.
- Vice President Mike Pence is headlining two “Defend the Majority” rallies today in Columbus and Macon. It’s Pence’s fourth visit to Georgia since the Nov. 3 elections.
- Local news outlet News4Jax published comparisons of runoff candidates’ backgrounds and statements about their positions on 18 issues:
Today: Runoff campaign stops by political region
Where are candidates focusing their facetime ahead of the runoff elections?
We thought it would be interesting to consider that question alongside The Washington Post‘s breakdown of the state’s political geography. The Post delineated six political regions in Georgia: Atlanta, Atlanta Burbs, Black Belt, North Georgia, Piedmont, and South Georgia. David Weigel wrote:
Atlanta and its suburbs are bluer than ever; the Black Belt is strongly Democratic, but with some Republican opportunities. North Georgia, South Georgia and the Piedmont region drive any Republican win, and the Senate races may come down to whether loyal conservative voters decide, amid all the noise, to hit the polls again.
Click here to see a map of the regions and more information on each.
We emailed campaigns and pored over social media posts, events pages, and news articles to document campaign stops since the Nov. 3 election. The table below shows the number of individual days we found so far that a candidate held or plans to hold one or more in-person campaign events in a region through Dec. 20. Most-visited regions for each candidate are highlighted in yellow. We’ll update this table on our site each weekday.
Note: Warnock’s campaign sent us a list of campaign events that fell within each of the six political regions. We’re working on obtaining dates for all those stops. Those for which we found dates are included below.
