Biden puts skin in the game in Georgia

It’s a quandary that the two Democrats who preceded Biden, Clinton and Barack Obama, also faced in Georgia. In late 1992, shortly after winning the presidency, Clinton traveled to the state to rally support for Democratic Sen. Wyche Fowler, who ultimately lost his runoff. In 2008, Obama chose not to go to Georgia, instead recording a one-minute radio ad and a robo-call on behalf of Democratic Senate nominee Jim Martin. Martin lost to Sen. Saxby Chambliss, ending Democratic hopes of a filibuster-proof Senate majority.

Biden’s visit, a single event in Atlanta, marks the first political event he has attended since winning the Nov. 3 election. It comes just one day after the Electoral College voted to confirm his victory, which Trump has disparaged with baseless claims of election fraud.

Unlike Trump’s rally earlier this month, Biden’s appearance won’t be freighted with drama. Where Trump attacked — and continues to attack — fellow Republicans Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Biden has consistently broadcast a message of unity and a return to normalcy. An aide says Biden plans to amplify those themes Tuesday.

Democrats say Biden needs to return, both to cement the course of his first term and to help change Georgia into a full-blown swing state.

“Obviously, the president-elect coming will resonate with those moderate-to-conservative voters and him being in Georgia is absolutely critical in order for us to have any success on Jan. 5,” said Michael Thurmond, chief executive officer of DeKalb County in metropolitan Atlanta.

“It’s his coalition,” Thurmond said. “This is his coalition, and his presence and his endorsement will reassure those independent voters who are maybe concerned or on the fence.”

Thurmond’s comments, however, point to a deep concern Democrats have in Georgia. Biden’s win aside, Georgia is still a Republican-oriented state — and there’s a broad worry that the former vice president won only because Trump was viewed as too unpalatable by just enough voters, many of whom split their tickets in the November races.

While Biden won the state by roughly 12,000 votes, Ossoff received 88,000 fewer votes than Perdue. In the state’s other Senate race — the crowded, so-called jungle primary — Warnock and other Democrats got fewer votes in total than Loeffler and her fellow Republicans. The races went to a runoff only because no candidate in either race got more than 50 percent of the vote.

Republicans view the races as theirs to lose after those performances in November, particularly given the party’s past successes in runoffs in getting voters back to the polls. Their campaigns have portrayed Ossoff and Warnock as leftist radicals, aiming to turn off the center of the electorate, including voters who may have backed Biden. The GOP is counterprogramming Biden’s visit with a news conference from a group of sheriffs to highlight recent comments made by Biden about police reform.

Republicans also note that they’ve been vastly outspending Democrats in the state and they’ve had more surrogates visit than Democrats. Vice President Mike Pence returns to the state on Thursday.

“It suggests that, nationally, Democrats aren’t nearly as motivated about this race as Republicans are, that they don’t think they’ve got a great shot,” said Brian Robinson, who served as communications director for former GOP Gov. Nathan Deal. “I think Biden coming here is a way of sending some signal that he cares. That it matters. And I’m doing my part. This is checking the box: ‘did my bit.’”

Even Democrats privately acknowledge that Biden’s coattails are limited in a state that he won by less than a quarter of a percentage point. He isn’t a dynamic speaker. He doesn’t enthrall crowds and, in the era of the coronavirus, he actively discourages big rallies due to public-health concerns.

The president-elect’s event in Atlanta on Tuesday will be a drive-in rally that won’t have the visual appeal or energy of a newly elected president flexing his muscle. Instead, a select number of supporters attending in their cars will honk approval.

Biden’s campaign is still active and, according to a background briefing sent to reporters, it has “shifted over” about 50 staffers “to help with efforts on the ground during the runoff, including organizing, outreach to critical constituencies, and voter contact — particularly in suburban Atlanta and smaller cities where the President-elect overperformed in November.”

Overall, the Biden campaign says, it and the Democratic National Committee have raised about $10 million for Ossoff and Warnock, to ensure they have the resources they need to finish strong.

One Biden campaign adviser acknowledged that the stakes of the visit.

“His agenda is on the line,” said the adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

But Republicans also face challenges. A top Republican concern is that a civil war is erupting in their ranks — inspired by Trump.

Even as he implored the crowd last month to vote for Loeffler and Perdue, the president exhorted the senators to take his side in his feud with Kemp and Raffensperger. Trump has continued the attacks for more than a month after Election Day, keeping the issue in the forefront of the race.

“What a fool Governor @BrianKempGA of Georgia is,” the president wrote just after midnight Monday on Twitter. “Could have been so easy, but now we have to do it the hard way. Demand this clown call a Special Session and open up signature verification, NOW. Otherwise, could be a bad day for two GREAT Senators on January 5th.”

Democrats hope the president’s outbursts and the senators’ devotion to him will cause those November split-ticket voters to go with the Democratic senators once Biden reminds people of what’s at stake.

“They wanted sanity, they just wanted normal and for there to be some leadership in government,” said Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan, who represents a suburban Atlanta district.

Tharon Johnson, a senior adviser to Biden’s Georgia campaign, said critics are underestimating the appeal of Biden’s message and his persona.

“President-Elect Biden does not just excite the Democratic base,“ Johnson said. “He can excite moderate Democrats — which in Georgia is a long sought-after group — and he’s welcomed by disaffected independent and Republican voters who don’t like Trump. What he’s doing is having a base-plus level of excitement that’s proven, based on the election outcome in November.”

Without those Biden coalition voters, Ossoff and Warnock are in trouble.

In some of the biggest counties around Atlanta, Biden outperformed Ossoff both in raw votes and in percentage. In Fulton County, which includes much of metro Atlanta, Ossoff underperformed Biden by nearly 20,000 votes and more than 2 percentage points. He similarly underperformed in neighboring DeKalb, Cobb and Gwinnett counties by small margins, but enough to make a difference.

The rally will give the two Democrats Biden’s “stamp of approval saying, ‘listen, these folks can work with me,’” said Roy Barnes, the former Democratic governor of Georgia. “‘They’re not going to be way out there in left field because I’m not going to be way out there in left field.’ That helps.”

Warnock and Ossoff previewed their messages at a rally in Atlanta Tuesday. Warnock said the state would “seal the deal” in the runoffs after Biden’s victory last month. Ossoff said the priorities of Biden and Democrats could be easily blocked by a GOP-led Senate.

“If Mitch McConnell keeps control of the U.S. Senate, he will try to do exactly to Joe and Kamala like he did to President Obama,” Ossoff said, predicting Republicans would block Covid relief and other popular Democratic goals like increasing the minimum wage and civil and voting rights legislation. “We can’t afford paralysis in the midst of a crisis like this.”