Georgia’s two-seat Senate by-elections have already recorded more than 2.56 million early voters, breaking the previous record for the number of voters in a run-off in the state.
The crucial election will determine the control of the US Senate. High-profile politicians are expected to stump on behalf of their party’s candidates in Georgia before the election. President Donald Trump is expected to appear on Monday in Valdosta, Georgia, for current Republican Georgian senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. On the same day, President-elect Joe Biden will appear in Atlanta during a rally for Democrats Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock.
According to the U.S. election project, early voters cast 2,566,332 votes in the Senate election on Dec. 30. The previous record vote for a Senate election in Georgia was 2,137,956 ballots, drawn up in the 2008 election between Republican Saxby Chambliss and Democrat. Jim Martin.
Biden visited Georgia earlier in December on behalf of Ossoff and Warnock and told a crowd in the campaign that it was critical that the Democrats be elected. “We can get so much done,” Biden said, “so much that the lives of the people of Georgia and the whole country can be made so much better. And we need senators who are willing to do that, for God’s sake.”
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Both Ossoff and Warnock must win the January election for Democrats to gain control of the Senate. A Democratic livestock in Georgia will divide the Senate evenly between Republicans and Democrats. Elected Vice President Kamala Harris will then cast the casting vote. Republicans need only win one Senate seat to retain a Senate majority.
Trump has been critical of Georgia’s electoral process and has unjustifiably claimed that widespread voter fraud helped Biden win the state. While Trump appeared on behalf of Loeffler and Perdue at a rally in December, Trump warned participants that the Democrats were also trying to manipulate the Senate election.
“And now [Democrats are] “Trump is trying to steal these two important Senate seats from Georgia,” Trump said. These seats are the last line of defense to save America and protect everything we have achieved. And we have achieved things that no other president has achieved, no other government. ‘
FiveThirtyEight polls suggest Tuesday’s election may be a close one.
On December 30, Ossoff was one point ahead of Perdue. Ossoff earned 48.5 percent of the support for the current 47.5 percent. The gap was larger in the race between Warnock and Loeffler. The Republican held 47.3 percent in the average polls, but Warnock was with Loeffler at 1.9 percent.
Loeffler sought to portray Warnock as a ‘radical’ and warned voters that Warnock and Ossoff could permeate the U.S. Senate with socialist ideologies.
“If we do not keep the line here in Georgia,” Loeffler told Fox News on Tuesday, “we will not lose just two Senate seats. We could lose the country to socialism.”
Newsweek reached the Georgia GOP and the Democratic Party of Georgia for comment.