Moving on to Georgia ...

November 7, 2020 9:47 PM

How winnable is either U.S. Senate race in Georgia? And how best to help the Dems win?
posted by NotLost to Law & Government (17 answers total)

Have you checked out Vote Save America? They have opportunities to help Georgia’s Democratic candidates.

And you could also check out VoteForward to learn more about writing GOTV letters to Georgia voters. They’re pretty easy to write!
posted by golden at 10:05 PM on November 7, 2020 [6 favorites]

You can also volunteer with or donate directly to Warnock’s and Osoff’s campaigns. You don’t need to live in Georgia to phone bank or give!
posted by stellaluna at 11:00 PM on November 7, 2020 [4 favorites]

Stacey Abrams’ organization, FairFight, earned a big part of the Georgia presidency flip. From her Twitter she suggests donating here: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/georgiasenate
Splits a donation between the two senate campaigns and FairFight.
posted by nat at 12:12 AM on November 8, 2020 [17 favorites]

Get Your Booty to the Poll is entirely dedicated to mobilising Georgia voters.
posted by DarlingBri at 4:06 AM on November 8, 2020 [4 favorites]

Best answer: As a Georgian, I think both are winnable. Perdue has done very little for Georgians in his 12 years in office. No one ever answers the phone at either of his offices. He responds to emails and letters with the same form letter every time. He lives on Sea Island, a private island off the coast, and rarely comes to the mainland except for fundraisers in wealthy enclaves. Before being elected, he was CEO of Dollar General, which has killed community grocery stores across the south. Before that, he was CEO of the textile company Pillowtex, where he presided over several mill closings as the company shipped all their jobs overseas. As a senator, is best known for his unwavering support for Trump, who just lost Georgia.

Loeffler has only been in office for 11 months. During that time, she has devoted no time to the people of Georgia and our issues in the Senate. She has really only been campaigning, which was almost entirely self-financed. She contributed $20 million of her own money to her campaign. She has so much money because her spouse's company owns the New York Stock Exchange. Before Kemp appointed her Senator, she was best known as a part owner of the WNBA Atlanta Dream, which she has gone on to disavow and then wage active war against after they supported Black Lives Matter. Once the campaign started in earnest, her entire focus was on her Republican challenger Congressman Doug Collins. The two of them competed to try to prove who loved Trump more and who hated BLM more.

In contrast, Warnock is the much beloved pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Dr. King's church, and an important community leader in Atlanta. This is his first foray into politics, but he has been marching in the streets and organizing activism for years while preaching social justice from the pulpit. Ossoff is also new to elected office, but he worked for Congressman John Lewis for years and received Lewis' endorrsement before his death.

If you want to help fight against voter suppression, giving to Fair Fight Action is the way to go, wlong with donating directly to Ossoff and Warnock.
posted by hydropsyche at 6:21 AM on November 8, 2020 [39 favorites]

It's going to be difficult to win both seats. In Georgia typically Republicans normally turn out more in special elections than Democrats, the net margin between Trump and Biden was small, and across the country Democrats did worse down ballot. So I'd say that Republicans start out as favourites to take at least one of the seats and maybe both. But difficult is not impossible by any stretch.
posted by plonkee at 7:24 AM on November 8, 2020 [4 favorites]

Whoever is on the ground in districts that didn't turn out NOW getting new democrats registered. Whoever is getting dems to those places, give them $$. This includes outside metro areas; it includes reaching deep into local communities with boots on the ground.

Whoever is promoting the fact that this is almost as important for the USA as removing trump.

promoting the fact
that

#Georgia We've got good news from some upcoming birthdays. If you are turning 18 by January 5th, 2021 you will be eligible to vote in the next election as we head into runoffs in the state.

Tell ALL THE HIGHSCHOOLS! I emailed a bunch of student orgs at colleges in georgia last night.
posted by lalochezia at 8:13 AM on November 8, 2020 [4 favorites]

Here's a twitter thread with a list of ideas (a pinned thread that will continue to be updated).

Along with ones already mentioned, those ideas include:

* Donating to Georgia based, BIPOC-led voter outreach organizations (list here).

* Following the lead of on-the-ground people in Georgia in terms of strategy and tactics.

* Per this tweet, "directing donations and purchases to GA businesses, teachers, non-profits with a note saying 'I am investing in your business/project because it represents the values of John Ossoff and the America I want to see. Please check him out!'"
posted by overglow at 8:38 AM on November 8, 2020 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Lived in Atlanta from 2001-2011, and my husband's family lives in Georgia, so we've been following the GA races for the past 2 months as we wrote GOTV letters and textbanked. As I see it, there are 3 categories of donations that could really move the needle between now and the runoff:

Expand the electorate and fight voter suppression.
Georgia flipped blue by expanding the electorate in the face of systemic voter suppression. Registration for the runoff doesn't end until Dec 7, so there's still time to do more of this. Stacey Abrams founded the New Georgia Project before she went on to found and run Fair Fight. Fair Fight is a PAC, primarily leveled at fighting voter suppression, and isn't just focused on Georgia. New Georgia Project is a nonprofit charity that registers new Georgia voters, and has a significant focus on digital and youth turnout. Black Voters Matter Fund is also based in Georgia, but is not solely focused on Georgia. Concentrating on young voters of color for registration and GOTV looks like smart tactics: 57% of GA voters aged 18-29 broke for Biden, but 90% of black voters in the same age group did.

Support Georgia Democrats to keep Georgia blue.
If you donate to the Democratic Party of Georgia, you'll help them do outreach, hire staffers, and build infrastructure and data that will support Ossoff & Warnock's campaigns, but will also be shared with up and down ballot candidates in the state for a decade to come. GA Dems seem to have their act together: they mustered an aggressive ballot curing campaign that ran throughout early voting and into the cure deadline on Friday, saving at least 11,000 ballots (link goes to Twitter account from one of the more active out of state volunteers) from being discarded due to signature issues, etc.

Fund the campaigns.
Donating to Ossoff & Warnock's campaigns gives them direct funds to hire up staff and buy ad time. Both very important, but these will get the lion's share of national fundraising appeals.

Honorary mention: support GA mutual aid efforts. There was a great Twitter thread on this yesterday with some suggestions of where to donate. I can't seem to find it now, but if I see it again I'll come back with a link. It's harder to draw a direct line between these donations and one more vote for Ossoff or Warnock, but it's unreasonable to expect people and communities in crisis to prioritize going to the polls.
posted by deludingmyself at 9:34 AM on November 8, 2020 [11 favorites]

Oh, and as far as how winnable these races are, if we learned one thing this week it should be that at least in 2020, prognostication is dead and no one knows. Personally, I have a hard time imagining low propensity Trump voters turning out for this race, but there are so. many. unknowns. Here's a thread from that same GA Dems volunteer on reasons to feel optimistic about Warnock & Ossoff's chances.
posted by deludingmyself at 9:38 AM on November 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

To donate to a slate of grassroots ground in GA (including the New Georgia Project) already hard at work turning out the vote, you can use the Movement Voter Project portal here.
posted by heyforfour at 9:56 AM on November 8, 2020 [4 favorites]

Best answer: As a gentle counter to hydropsyche's excellent comment:

I'm a Georgian and have been carefully observing (and voting in!) every single election for 30+ years.

I do not think the Democrats can win either of these runoffs. I thought Warnock's only chance was to get 50% in the first ballot and avoid a runoff. Evidence: every single statewide race of the last 20 years.

I have also been wrong about everything regarding Trump (his crowds are paid, he'll quit, he'll be convicted, it'll be a landslide loss for him, etc.) so what do I know. But in my opinion, Georgia is still too red to elect a Democrat to the Senate, much less two. The only way that happens in the current-day South is if the GOP mistakenly nominates a Roy Moore.

Not gonna stop wishing and trying, though.

I do wish there was some way to narrowly invest in local broadcast media, because with Georgia now being a battleground state, they are going to make an absolute killing in ad revenue over the next four years.
posted by intermod at 11:47 AM on November 8, 2020

The other thing about making a big push for these two Senate seats is that even if the odds are not as good as they could be, the potential prize is huge. And, getting wins or just very narrow losses cements the narrative that began with Stacey Abrams bid for governor: Georgia is a swing state if you put in enough effort into the ground game. That is also important.
posted by plonkee at 1:58 PM on November 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you all. These are a lot of good ideas. I will contribute both time and money.
posted by NotLost at 9:16 PM on November 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

I received a Stacey Abrams email soliciting donations as a 3 way split between Warnock, Ossoff, and stacey’s organization, Fair Fight which focuses on stopping and preventing voter suppression. I thought that was a great split and therefore donated my contribution to GA that way, given that I have lost my faith in DSCC judgement and strategy for successfully funding senate races. I will not be giving more money to DSCC during this election cycle. hopefully they will get their act together in the future. C’mon Georgia, we are counting on you!
posted by Lylo at 11:46 PM on November 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

Just featured on Kottke quick links: A toolkit for volunteering for the Georgia US Senate runoff races supporting the Raphael Warnock & Jon Ossoff campaigns. Includes places to donate, local orgs to support, how to phonebank, etc.
posted by cybertaur1 at 11:57 AM on November 9, 2020 [2 favorites]

6 Black women organizers on what happened in Georgia — and what comes next (Vox, Anna North) also mentions Georgia Stand-Up and five other organizations.
posted by kristi at 7:08 PM on November 11, 2020 [1 favorite]