Money dump in Perdue-Ossoff race is sign of national impact
ATLANTA — For the last two decades, Georgia Republicans have cornered the market in U.S. Senate races.
In five of the six Peach State Senate elections since the turn of the century, the GOP candidate has won comfortably with margins of victory ranging from nearly 53% of the vote to more than 58%. The other contest also went to the Republicans, although it took a runoff to decide the winner.
But 2020 is different. With about six weeks remaining until Election Day, polls show incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue and Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff within the margin of error.
A sure sign the outcome is in doubt is how much the candidates and the national super PACs backing them are spending to bomb the airwaves, to the dismay of political ad-weary TV viewers. Total TV/ radio ad spending in the race, including future bookings, is now more than $83.4 million, political advertising broker Medium Buying reported last week.
“Money is being poured into Georgia because it could go either way,” said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.
What’s turned a close race in Georgia into a critical contest nationally is that Democrats need to gain only three or four seats to control the Senate, depending on which party wins the vice presidency. The vice president presides over the Senate and can break tie votes.
“Both parties are really interested in what happens here,” said Kerwin Swint, a political science professor at Kennesaw State University.
Like President Donald Trump, Perdue, 70, came to Washington after a career in business. Perdue was elected to the Senate in 2014 after 40 years in the corporate world, including stints as CEO of Reebok and Dollar General.
He has spent his first term in the Senate as one of Trump’s closest allies, supporting the president’s tax cut legislation in 2017, Trump’s get-tough trade policy with China, and, more recently, the president’s much-criticized handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
“Early on, he shut down travel from infected areas and quarantined people coming back into the country,” Perdue said. “He started a task force to work on PPE (personal protective equipment) and testing.”
After the pandemic shut down the nation’s economy, Perdue supported a congressional package of $2.9 trillion in relief to unemployed Americans and struggling businesses including the $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program.
“That was a tough vote for me. I’m a fiscal hawk,” he said. “(But) we saved 1½ million jobs in Georgia.”
Ossoff, 33, is making his first run at statewide office after losing a special election for a congressional seat in Atlanta’s northern suburb three years ago. His views on Trump’s handling of COVID-19 strike a sharp contrast with those of his opponent.
“The Trump administration’s response to the pandemic has been a total failure,” Ossoff said. “They lied about the scope of it to the public, sidelined public health experts and allowed the virus to spread.”
While Ossoff and Perdue agree that Congress needs to pass another economic stimulus package, Ossoff faulted Perdue and his Senate Republican colleagues for not taking up a $3 trillion relief bill U.S. House Democrats passed in May.
“The Senate went on a monthlong vacation, during which emergency loans expired,” Ossoff said.
Perdue said the Democrats’ plan is too expensive. He favors a $660 billion Republican alternative.
“This targeted approach is to get companies open again, people back to school and beat the virus,” he said.
Another issue dividing Perdue and Ossoff — and Republicans and Democrats in general — is how to respond to the deaths of Black Americans at the hands of white police officers, incidents in Georgia and elsewhere that have prompted massive street protests.
“We urgently need criminal justice reform and reform of policing,” Ossoff said. “We need to pass a new Civil Rights Act to establish and secure equal justice under the law for every America.”
Republicans have jumped on the “defund the police” slogan some elements of the Black Lives Matter movement have espoused, arguing Democrats don’t support law enforcement.
Perdue, however, has shown support for some of the more moderate goals of policing reform, including community policing.
“Our police forces need to reflect the communities they serve,” he said.
At the same time, Perdue said Americans are worried when they see peaceful protests turn into violence and looting.
“People are concerned that we support our police and that they serve the commu
nity in a fair and even way,” he said. “We have to make sure we maintain law and order.”
Ossoff is an investigative journalist by trade whose business delves into political corruption, organized crime and abuse of power. That plays into his campaign’s emphasis on the need to clean up corruption in Washington, starting with Perdue.