Republicans have a real problem in the Georgia runoffs

| 4:00 pm EST December 16, 2020
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With Joe Biden officially declared the president-elect following the Electoral College vote, the nation’s full attention is fixated on the Georgia Senate races, where early voter turnout is already exceeding expectations. This is a big reason to be optimistic about the elections that pit Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock against Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Now, a new poll is showing even better news for the Democratic candidates, and a whole new reason for Republicans to be concerned.

For some time, pundits began to suspect that Trump’s baseless claims about a stolen election might negatively impact the GOP down the ballot, but there hasn’t been much evidence to support that. Trump did go down to Georgia and campaign on behalf of both candidates last week after he repeatedly slammed the state’s governor, secretary of state and even the entire Republican Party because they wouldn’t magically grant him re-election, and a record number of people in Georgia requested ballots.

However, there’s a few reasons to be optimistic: First of all, Donald Trump isn’t on the ballot and candidates he stumped for in 2017, 2018 and 2019 underperformed in their elections. Even his primary picks didn’t always do too great. Second, polls have predicted a surge in the demographics that won Georgia for Biden, and now a new poll is revealing something that’s sure to make the GOP even more anxious.

The poll reveals nearly 20% of Republican voters and Trump voters who reported they were “less likely” to vote after the 2020 election, compared against only 5% of Biden voters who said the same. This could suggest that the division within the party is having a negative effect on the election that Loeffler and Perdue were probably not hoping for. This certainly doesn’t mean we get complacent – but it’s yet another reason to reach out to more voters – phone banking, driving up registration – and seize the momentum while it’s on our side. If we can elect Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to the Senate, we can finally bring down Mitch McConnell.