BIDEN RALLIES FOR DEMOCRATS FACING RUNOFFS IN GEORGIA
Says he needs a Senate majority to govern effectively
President-elect Joe Biden told Georgia voters on Tuesday they must deliver two Democratic Senate runoffs victories in January so his administration can forcefully confront the coronavirus pandemic and other national challenges.
Fresh off the Electoral College affirming his victory, Biden campaigned alongside Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock as they try to unseat Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeff ler in Jan. 5 runoff elections that will determine which party controls the Senate. The president-elect, who won Georgia in November, warned that Republican victories would leave him to face the kind of GOP obstruction that hampered former President Barack Obama for most of his two terms.
“We can get so much done, so much that can make the lives of the people of Georgia and the whole country so much better,” Biden said at a drive-in rally outside downtown Atlanta on the second day of early voting. “And we need senators who are willing to do it, for God’s sake.”
Biden criticized Perdue and Loeff ler as “roadblocks” for not supporting a sweeping new economic aid package as the coronavirus pandemic surges. In contrast, he said Ossoff and Warnock would “fight for progress and not just get in the way.”
“Are you ready to vote for two United States senators who know how to say the word ‘yes’ and not just ‘no’?” Biden said as supporters gathered in the railroad yard honked their horns.
Perdue and Loeff ler have not yet publicly acknowledged Biden is president-elect, and they’ve joined President Donald Trump in questioning the integrity of the election results in Georgia and in other battleground states Biden won.
Loeff ler tweeted midday Tuesday: “I will never stop fighting for @realDonaldTrump because he has never stopped fighting for us!” The two senators’ campaign aides did not respond to a fresh inquiry Tuesday asking whether they acknowledge the reality of Biden’s election.
Biden mocked Perdue and Loeff ler for publicly backing a failed lawsuit by Texas essentially asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the election results in Georgia and other battlegrounds. The nation’s highest court rejected the request unanimously.
Despite their reticence to accept Biden’s victory, Republicans have tacitly acknowledged Biden’s win in the way they talk about the importance of the runoffs. Perdue, Loeff ler and their allies have issued dire warnings that a Democratic Senate would ensure a leftward lurch in the federal government. Democrats would need to win both Georgia seats to force a 50-50 Senate, and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be the tiebreaking vote.
Republicans need one of the two Georgia seats for Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to remain majority leader and set the Senate agenda. McConnell has repeatedly described himself as the barrier for Democrats’ policy ideas on health care, overhauling the nation’s energy grid and reducing the carbon pollution that causes climate change, among other matters.
Speaking before Biden, Ossoff took on the matter most directly. “If Mitch McConnell controls the Senate, they’re going to try to do to Joe and Kamala just like they tried to do President Obama,” he said, alluding to McConnell’s years of blocking legislation and Obama’s court appointments. “They will block the COVID relief that we need. They will block the $15 minimum wage. They will block the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act that we need. They will block affordable health care. We can’t let that happen, Georgia.”
Warnock declared the outcome a “a matter of life and death” because of COVID-19 relief and health care legislation.