Crowded Ga. Senate battle likely won’t end until 2021
Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga.
Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga
ATLANTA — Less than a month after being sworn in as Georgia’s new U.S. senator, Republican Kelly Loeffler faces a 2020 election battle that’s already shaping up to be so contentious that odds are it won’t be over until 2021.
Loeffler, a wealthy businesswoman and political newcomer, is running her first campaign to fill the remaining two years of a Senate vacancy after the governor appointed her in December. Georgia law requires a free-for-all special election where all contenders face off Nov. 3, allowing multiple Democrats and Republicans on the same ballot.
And in the past week, Loeffler picked up potent challengers on either side of the political spectrum, underscoring the necessity — and the risks — of courting loyal Trump voters as Loeffler tries to keep her seat in a state where the GOP still dominates but Democrats have gained ground among suburban women and an increasingly
Rev. Raphael G. Warnock diverse electorate.
To her right there’s U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, a fellow Republican who’s well-known to viewers of Fox News Channel as an ardent defender of President Donald Trump. On her left is the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the activist pastor of the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached whose campaign was quickly endorsed by one of Georgia’s most popular Democrats, Stacey Abrams, as well as the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Two other contenders, both Democrats, are also running for the seat that opened when GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson retired in December. And more could still join. No deadline for signing up has been set, though Georgia’s secretary of state is eyeing the first week of March.
“There will be other people getting in the race, Republicans and Democrats,” predicted Democrat Michael Thurmond, the elected CEO of metro Atlanta’s DeKalb County, who said he hasn’t ruled out joining the Loeffler race. “This thing is extremely fluid and that’s not going to stop.”