#Georgia Senate Runoff 2022

[ausetkmt]

On the eve of Georgia’s Senate runoff, Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, warned his supporters about being overconfident. Herschel Walker urged Republicans to flood the polls on Tuesday.

ATLANTA — In the final day before Georgia’s Senate runoff, Senator Raphael Warnock pleaded with supporters to tune out pundits predicting his victory and instead vote “like it’s an emergency” in a bitterly contested race that is closing out the midterm election cycle.

His Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, the former football star recruited into the race by former President Donald J. Trump, made a circuit of north Georgia counties he won easily a month ago, urging Republicans who have avoided early voting to hit the polls Tuesday. “Got to get out the vote,” he said.

The two men are vying in an election with major symbolic as well as practical ramifications. A Warnock victory would deliver Democrats a 51st vote in the Senate, where the party has for the past two years relied on Vice President Kamala Harris to break 50-50 ties. If Mr. Walker wins, Republicans would maintain joint control of Senate committees and two centrist Democratic senators, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, would maintain effective veto power over all legislation in the chamber.

But the broader political stakes are just as significant. Democrats believe a victory would deliver proof they have transformed Georgia into an indisputable battleground, heralding a new era of Sun Belt politics and reshaping their strategies for winning the White House. A Walker victory, after his deeply troubled campaign and the G.O.P.’s clean sweep in statewide races this year, would reassert Republican dominance in the state.

And for Mr. Trump, who three weeks ago began his third presidential campaign, Tuesday’s contest represents his last chance to claim victory in a battleground for one of his closest political acolytes.

More than $380 million has been spent on the race, the most of any election this year, according to OpenSecrets, a group that tracks money in politics. The runoff was prompted when neither candidate received 50 percent of the vote in last month’s general election.

The number of early votes cast has topped 1.89 million, about half the turnout on Nov. 8. Both campaigns believe that group skews heavily Democratic. Republicans involved and allied with Mr. Walker acknowledged that tilt left the candidate needing to win about 60 percent of the in-person vote Tuesday to catch up. He won 56 percent of the Election Day vote in November, according to data from the Georgia secretary of state’s office.

“There is still a path for Herschel Walker to win this race — he still could win,” Mr. Warnock told reporters after speaking to supporters at Georgia Tech on Monday. “We had a massive lead during the general. And so we know that there are differences in how people show up when they vote in this state. And so if there’s anything I’m worried about is that people will think that we don’t need their voice. We do.”

In some ways, Mr. Walker was running a final-day get-out-the-vote campaign ripped from a generation past, when the vast majority of votes were still cast in person on Election Day. Mr. Warnock — who also won a runoff election two years ago — had adjusted to modern voting patterns and Georgia’s voting rules, which allowed for a week of early voting.

At Mr. Warnock’s recent events, it was difficult for him to find supporters who are waiting until Tuesday to vote. When asked who had voted early, nearly every hand went up at stops at colleges and Black churches the last two days.

“I’ve been preaching long enough to know that I am preaching to the choir,” Mr. Warnock, the pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, said on Sunday at a Black church in Athens.

On Monday, when a food delivery app driver dropped off sandwiches for the Warnock campaign at its event at Georgia Tech, a pair of energetic volunteers pressed him about whether he had voted already. (He hadn’t, and said he wasn’t sure he would on Tuesday.)

“This final push is all about building enthusiasm and momentum into Election Day,” Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, a close Warnock ally who has appeared at many of his campaign stops, said during an interview Monday. “We want to mobilize as much energy as possible to get out the vote to reach folks who might not otherwise hear from campaigns.”

In November, Mr. Warnock finished 37,700 votes ahead of Mr. Walker out of nearly four million cast. Mr. Warnock consolidated Democratic voters, while Mr. Walker struggled to rally his party behind him.

At Mr. Walker’s final rally on Monday, at a gun range in Kennesaw, a conservative exurb about 45 minutes from Atlanta, former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina spoke to a crowd of about 100 supporters. She encouraged them to turn out to vote and get others to the polls.

“There is no red wave. There’s either turnout or not,” she said, adding that she asked Mr. Walker to fill up his campaign bus with voters to take them to polling places.

“We can show America that we’re about to right the ship.”

In the runoff, Black voters, a slice of the electorate that has overwhelmingly rejected Mr. Walker’s bid, make up about 32 percent of early voters, a figure six percentage points higher than in the November election.

“I come from a family where we’ve all done early voting,” said Jordan Artis, a 21-year-old international affairs student at Georgia Tech who said she waited 80 minutes to vote last week and came to see Mr. Warnock on Monday. Her close friends, Ms. Artis said, have already voted too.

While his advisers and allies quietly lowered expectations, Mr. Walker on Monday said he was feeling “pretty good” as he shook hands and took photos with voters at a popular diner in Flowery Branch, an Atlanta exurb in a county where he took 71 percent of the Nov. 8 vote.

He later delivered unusually short remarks — free of his signature long tangents — to about 75 supporters at a vineyard in Gilmer County, another Republican stronghold.

“Tomorrow is a big day,” he said, asking the group who had voted. Two-thirds of the crowd raised their hands. “This is what we’ve got to do — we’ve got to vote.”

Mr. Walker’s supporters on Monday brushed off worries that poor weather — rain is in the Tuesday forecast for the Atlanta area and North Georgia — or low energy would diminish Election Day turnout.

“I’m feeling very encouraged. I think he’s got this,” said Judy Shinall, 77, a Walker supporter from Ackworth. Ms. Shinall acknowledged the party has fallen short at clutch time, most recently two years ago when Mr. Warnock won a runoff for a special election. “Republicans sometimes, you know, won’t get out there. And this is crucial. Tomorrow is it,” she said.

Mr. Walker was wrapping up a campaign that appears to have failed to consolidate the disparate wings of his party. He ran hard toward the party’s Trump-aligned base, repelling moderate elements of the coalition that propelled Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, to victory.

Mr. Walker was pummeled by damaging headlines throughout the campaign, including accusations from women he has dated and been married to that he was physically abusive. Two other former girlfriends said he urged them to have abortions, although he ran as an abortion opponent. (Mr. Walker denied the claims.) He also faced questions about his residency, after living in Texas for decades before moving back to Georgia when he began this campaign.

Mr. Kemp kept some distance from Mr. Walker during the general election. But in the runoff, he turned over his political operation to help, recorded a television ad and appeared at one campaign event alongside Mr. Walker.

Other Republicans never got onboard. In recent days, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan of Georgia, who did not seek re-election this year after repeatedly condemning Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election, has done a media tour explaining why he stood in an early-voting line for an hour but then declined to vote for Mr. Walker.

“I think Herschel Walker will probably go down as one of the worst Republican candidates in our party’s history,” Mr. Duncan told CBS News in an interview broadcast Tuesday.

The runoff is taking place under new voting rules written by Georgia’s Republican state legislators and signed into law by Mr. Kemp. After the victories by Mr. Warnock and Mr. Ossoff in January 2021, Georgia law now forbids new voter registration between the general election and the runoff.

Republicans also cut in half the period of time between the two contests, limited the early-voting period and made voting by mail more difficult, among other restrictions on mail voting and drop boxes.

Some Republican voters expressed confusion about the runoff rules.

David Mathews, 74, a retired manager at a petroleum company who was having breakfast with his fiancé and a friend at the Flowery Branch diner, where Mr. Walker began his Monday campaign swing, said he did not realize that his polling location had been open for early voting, which ended on Friday.

“They didn’t have the signs out,” he said, before digging into biscuits and gravy with bacon. Mr. Mathews said he planned to cast his ballot Tuesday for Mr. Walker.

Mr. Warnock’s campaign and his allies spent millions pushing supporters back to the polls. “One more time, Georgia,” screamed his ads on billboards and cellphones that urged supporters to vote early for him. By the campaign’s final hours, he acknowledged that his supporters might be worn out.

“I know you might be tired,” he said at a Black church on Sunday night in Athens. “I get tired, too.”

#Georgia Senate Runoff 2022 #Georgia #Black Votes Matter #Raphael Warnock #Warnock Claims Momentum in Georgia #as Walker Banks on Election Day Turnout

[fangirlofall]

Y’all IK we won the senate and it’s definitely important to celebrate, but if you’re in Georgia please, please, please vote in the runoff on December 6.

If we can get 51 instead of an exact tie it will give us a little wiggle room. For the past two years, a lot of the improvements Biden has attempted to make haven’t made it passed the Senate because one or two Democrats voted no and that was all it took; if we can get Georgia too, one Democrat can vote no and the legislation will still pass. The more seats we have the better chance we have for serious, meaningful change.

Please vote December 6th.

#senate #vote #Georgia #election #election 2022 #american election #Georgia runoff #runoff #runoff elections #democrat #ralph warnock #warnock #raphael warnock

[spennythespoon]

Georgia Senate race really be like

Edit 12/07/2022: Hell Yeah Warnock won

#in all seriousness I'm glad the democrats did better than expected last night #the gop will probably take the house but hopefully not too big of a majority #and Pennsylvania voted blue for the senate!!! #also super happy that the state measures for abortion were pro choice - even in a state like Kentucky holy shit #also the night went bad for trump but went great for desantis #i hate them both though #its too close to call for Arizona and Nevada but hopefully the dems can get those seats and keep the senate #because id rather have incompetent dems than a gop that's literally a death cult and wants to murder lgbt people #us politics #bernie sanders #2022 midterm elections #Georgia #raphael warnock #herschel walker #republican copium #no red wave #kung pow penis #runoff elections

[stupidcowboykid]

you young people decided--and saved-- this year's midterms.

dont let yourself become disheartened by the election results. we held the line.

because young people voted, we did not see the "red wave" that conservatives so desperately wanted. because young people voted, we saw people of color elected, women elected, LGBTQ+ people elected, small amounts of marijuana decriminalized, antislavery ballot measures approved (i know, in 2022). Because young people voted, we have pro-choice, anti-racist, pro-union, candidates in office. Because young people voted, trump-endorsed candidates lost their elections.

the fact that we did not lose is a win. it could have been so, so much worse. thank you, young voters.

P.S. to the people with runoff elections (see Georgia), go vote again. we are so close.

#please please please vote in the georgia senate runoff yall #the senate is 46 to 48 (and 2 independents) #WorkingAmerica has a letter-writing campaign for the Georgia runoffs. they want 100k+ letters in the next few weeks. go sign your ass up. #ill make a list of general shit people can do maybe and stick it in a rb #politics #us politics #midterm #2022 midterm elections #local politics #news #workers rights #young voters #voting #vote blue #democrats #republicans #school board #local elections #senate #house of representatives #congress #cowboy talks

[jenneferofjengaberg]

So anyways, the midterms didn't turn out as horrible as I feared, but there are things to talk about.

First, we lost the House. There are lots of races still uncalled, but it's pretty much a given. But Republicans will likely only have a narrow majority there.

Currently there are three outstanding Senate races that will decide control of the Senate. Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada. We have to win two of these to maintain control of the Senate.

I think we're going to win in Arizona. There are a lot of votes still coming in, but most of the outstanding votes are coming from blue counties and early ballots, which tend to favor Democrats.

Nevada isn't looking good. The Republican candidate is leading by almost two points and there's a lot less outstanding votes there. And Cortez Masto (D) is underperforming even in blue counties like Clark (Las Vegas) and Washoe (Reno).

That leaves us with Georgia. Warnock (D) just barely edged out Herschel Walker (R), but because Georgia's election rules say that the winner must reach 50% of the votes, it's going to a runoff on December 6th. This is really important. We pretty much have to win Georgia in order to control the Senate, and stop all kinds of Republican nonsense for the next two years (impeaching Biden, national abortion ban, legislation banning the forgiveness of student loans, disruption of aid to Ukraine, etc.)

There's also reason to worry because there was a Libertarian candidate on the ballot in Georgia who probably drew some votes away from Walker (In America, Libertarians are just Republicans with extra steps or Republicans who like weed), and they won't be present in the runoff election. If even half of that guy's voters decide to vote for Walker, Warnock will be toast.

Consequently, he'll need a big fundraising/advertising push, so that he can motivate everyone who voted for him in the midterms to turn out and vote again on December 6th, less than a month away. Here's what you can do to help:

If you live in Georgia, vote in the runoff election! It's too late to register to vote for that election, but you can submit a request now for an absentee ballot for that election if you're already registered.

You can also volunteer for the Warnock Campaign. Things like phone banking and knocking on doors to get out the vote are crucial.

Donate. If you can afford it, even small contributions can help the campaign buy advertising and get the word out about the runoff election.

#politics #midterms 2022 #senate #georgia runoff election #raphael warnock

[tomorrowusa]

One of the biggest differences between a 50-50 Senate and one with a 51-49 Democratic majority is committee assignments. In a 50-50 chamber, all of the committees are also evenly divided. That gives Republicans extra procedural tools to slow down business, even if they can’t stop things up entirely. But in a 51-49 Senate, Democrats will have majorities on all of the committees. This really comes to play in confirmations of presidential appointments, where the GOP has been able to gum up the works for the past two years. With 51 senators, Biden will be able to get a lot more appointments through, including those very important lifetime judicial appointments. And with Republicans controlling the House, the chances of Congress doing any substantive legislation is slim, so confirmations will be an even bigger part of the Senate’s business.

Jacob Rubashkin at FiveThirtyEight on why the Democratic net gain of one US Senate seat makes a huge difference.

#us senate #senate majority #raphael warnock #warnock victory #midterm elections #election 2022 #georgia #georgia us senate runoff #118th congress #jacob rubashkin

[uvmagazine]

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D), also a pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, has won the Georgia runoff.

Warnock defeated former football star Herschel Walker (R), winning 50.6 percent of the vote to the Republican’s 49.4 percent, as of an Associated Press call late Tuesday evening.

#raphael warnock #senate #senate runoff #herschel walker #2022 midterm elections #georgia #georgia senate runoff

[ausetkmt]

On Tuesday, incumbent Sen. Raphael G. Warnock faces off against Republican challenger Herschel Walker in a Georgia runoff election. While Warnock received more total votes than Walker on Election Day, he didn’t reach the 50 percent threshold mandated by state law, forcing a final runoff between the top two candidates.

The runoff provision marked the culmination of nearly a decade of efforts to revise Georgia’s election procedures in response to federal government mandates to end Jim Crow racial segregation and Black voter disfranchisement. Beginning in 1954 with Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned racial segregation in public schools, while Congress passed two federal civil rights acts, in 1957 and 1960, seeking to protect the right to vote. Civil rights activists took advantage of these changes and held voter registration drives and registered voting-age Black citizens. It worked. The proportion of Black voters enrolled to vote in Georgia had soared to 44 percent in 1964, up from 29 percent in 1960.

In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered another blow to maintaining white supremacy by overthrowing Georgia’s unique county unit system of representation that had laid the foundation for rural domination of the state legislature and restricted Black political influence. Codified in 1917, the county unit system gave each of Georgia’s 159 counties twice as many unit votes as it had representatives in the lower State House. This allowed 121 rural counties to control nearly 60 percent of the unit votes even though they represented only 32 percent of the state’s population. This ultimately disadvantaged cities such as Atlanta that contained the bulk of registered Black voters. Both the arch-segregationist governor Eugene Talmadge and one of his moderate-segregationist successors Carl Sanders agreed that the county unit system kept Georgia government “conservative … and [kept] liberals and radicals from taking over.”

In response to all of these changes in the mid-20th century, Georgia political officials devised ways to evade or minimize such challenges to white racial domination. That included Denmark Groover of Macon, a prominent lawmaker and staunch white supremacist, who mounted a campaign for a majority-vote proposal in local and statewide elections.

Here was the idea. Most elections in Georgia featured multiple White candidates running in a winner-take-all, plurality election. That meant that even though only 40 percent of Black Georgians were registered to vote, their support increasingly could prove decisive for one White candidate or another. Groover wanted to avoid that. So his proposal required that if no contender received a majority of the vote, then there would be a runoff election between the two top vote-getters. Groover envisioned that if a Black-endorsed candidate made it to the runoff, then the majority-White electorate would rally around the other candidate. Thus, with the county unit system struck down and given the perceived danger posed by the plurality system, Groover favored a majority-vote provision that “would again provide protection” from rising African American political influence.

In 1964, Groover’s runoff bill passed the state legislature handily, and Sanders signed it into law. His willingness to support it exposed how widespread the desire to maintain White control over Georgia’s government was. Unlike Groover, Sanders was a moderate segregationist. As a state senator, he supported measures to evade the Supreme Court’s Brown decision and affirmed his loyalty to the “Southern way of life” and Georgia’s “sovereign states’ rights,” slogans wielded in the campaign to maintain racial segregation. He parted company, however, with politicians such as Groover by refraining from stirring up racial antagonism in his speeches and promising to preserve segregation through lawful means.

The election law signed by Sanders also contained a literacy test, which had long been a feature of state politics designed to thwart Black Georgians from registering to vote. The substance of the exam had been revised throughout the years. The new law established a 20-question standardized literacy exam for voter registration and required a passing grade of 15 correct answers. One of the act’s strongest legislative supporters summed up the reasoning behind its adoption, insisting it would continue to ensure that “illiterate [B]lack voters don’t get on the registration lists.” Actually, literacy for African Americans made little difference in passing the test, as biased White registrars determined who successfully met the requirements.

The adoption of the majority-vote, runoff requirement along with the literacy test clearly reflected Georgia’s pervasive racism and White leaders’ intention to keep themselves in power. Despite the passage of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act and the abolition of literacy tests, Georgia has maintained the majority-vote system to dilute Black voting power along with other voter suppression measures that target Black voters. Although civil rights groups have launched legal challenges to these discriminatory laws, they currently remain in effect.

Still, the Voting Rights Act has reshaped Georgia politics. Progress has come despite the 2013 Supreme Court decision in Shelby v. Holder, which eviscerated key sections of the statute. Even so, while the decision provided states like Georgia new opportunities for reducing Black voter participation, Black voters still now constitute approximately one-third of the statewide electorate. Black candidates have also chalked up significant victories for the U.S. Senate, Congress, state legislature and mayor of major cities such as Atlanta. This spectacular transformation brings us to the current moment in the runoff race between Warnock and Walker.

Even Denmark Groover could not have anticipated such sweeping political changes. He could not have foreseen that today, two Black candidates are competing against each other in a runoff election for U.S. Senate — a mechanism that he hoped would keep even White candidates who appealed to Black voters from power. He would have been no less surprised that one of those candidates, Warnock, had narrowly defeated his White opponent, Kelly Loeffler, in a runoff election in 2021.

However, the racial effect of the majority-vote, runoff election requirement persist in 2022. White voters will be the deciding factor in the outcome of the runoff election between two Black contenders, just as Georgia’s political leaders intended in 1964. If Walker — who is expected to receive greater White support — defeats Warnock, he can thank Denmark Groover and Carl Sanders, who designed Georgia’s electoral system to allow White voters the final say on who governs the state.

#Georgia #Run Off Elections and Racism #stolen votes #voter disinfranchisement #The racist origins of Georgia’s runoff elections #Racism in Elections #Georgia Senate Run Off 2022 #Raphael Warnock #Black Votes Matter #Black Voters Matter #Black Senators #Black Elections Matter

[decolonize-the-left]

The legal offensive, led by Dana Remus, who until 2022 served as President Biden’s White House counsel, and Robert Lenhard, an outside lawyer for the party, will be aided by a communications team dedicated to countering candidates who Democrats fear could play spoiler to Mr. Biden. It amounts to a kind of legal Whac-a-Mole, a state-by-state counterinsurgency plan ahead of an election that could hinge on just a few thousand votes in swing states. The aim “is to ensure all the candidates are playing by the rules, and to seek to hold them accountable when they are not,” Mr. Lenhard said.

WHAT???

You're telling me that this guy

Suddenly gives a single shit about the rules???

The headlines about this are fucking insane also

"will giving voters access to vote for whatever candidate they want dooming democracy"

Normal headline for a country that definitely isn't being run by fascists.

Btw this is Dana Remus

"In August 2022, President Biden questioned in a 60 Minutes interview “how anyone can be that irresponsible” when asked about classified documents in the possession of former President Trump. But when President Biden said this, he knew he had stashed classified materials in several unsecure locations for years, dating back to his time as vice president and even as U.S. senator."

[...]President Biden’s attorneys claim to have first discovered classified material at Penn Biden Center on November 2, 2022. However, President Biden and his lawyers kept it secret from the American people before the midterm elections. CBS News broke the story in January 2023, leaving Americans to wonder if the White House had any intention of ever disclosing that President Biden hoarded classified documents for years.

You know what else they did together? Lied about codifying Roe v Wade if they won mid-terms. 6months AFTER dems won a narrow majority, Rie v Wade was overturned.

And like not to be a wacky conspiracy theorist who's right again but

"The case concerned the constitutionality of a 2018 Mississippi state law that banned most abortion operations after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Mississippi law was based on a model by a Christian legal organization, Alliance Defending Freedom, with the specific intent to provoke a legal battle that would reach the Supreme Court and result in the overturning of Roe"

Guess what the Alliance Defending freedom works with and serves an agenda for?

Project 2025 yeah, the heritage foundation lists them as partners

Yeah remember how Dana Remus worked with Samuel Alito? Guess who's vote helped overrule abortion rights?

Samuel Alito, correct. Guess who else? Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett.

All Trump appointments.

Odd company to find yourself in without having ANY ties to the ADF or heritage foundation or project2025.

I wonder who the lawyers involved were?

Scott G Stewart. Interesting. Well who appointed him, right?

In 2021, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch appointed Scott G. Stewart as Solicitor General for the State of Mississippi.

Oh so she was voted in.

Well im sure it was a normal election that Democrats didn't tamper with or anything. Like SURELY they didn't intentionally platform this woman using the Pied Piper method? SURELY NOT after platforming Trump and making the entire 2016 elections about anti-Trumpism. SURELY, they wouldn't have tried to make themselves look better by positioning themselves against extremists only to LOSE the bet they were making.

SURELY WE DIDNT LOSE ROE V WADE BECAUSE DEMOCRATS WONT STOP USING THE PIED PIPER STRATEGY TO WIN ELECTIONS? R I G H T???

Riley Collins, 53, is running against the state's treasurer, Lynn Fitch, who was the chair of the group Mississippi Women for Trump in 2016. Riley Collins is running an explicitly anti-Trump message, saying Monday that she doesn’t understand how Donald Trump's Christian supporters can reconcile their politics with their faith

Oh.

Welp.

Everyone thank democrats for Trump and the stacked supreme court and the loss of Roe V Wade. It Truly couldn't have happened without them blasting primetime tv with alt right candidates 24/7.

One day democrats will stop platforming right wing extremists and election tampering but I guess it won't be anytime soon.

Let me ask, what's the biggest argument for voting blue this year?

Right.

And how's that going? Y'all feel confident in that strategy right now?

And don't forget what they did to Bernie. Because Biden is very poetically doing the same fucking shit to sabotage 3rd parties right now.

Remember to act surprised when Trump wins.

Like voters and progressives and leftists haven't been saying for MONTHS that we won't vote Biden. Like swing states aren't voting uncommitted. Like labor unions aren't voting uncommitted. Like he isn't tanking the polls.

You know I will say that this election is a little different. Clinton didn't have nearly this much pushback so early in the race.

Biden's massive gap of votes compared to Trump is gonna look like the grand fucking canyon.

#vote #dont vote #biden #3rd parties #trump #roe v wade #2024 #2025 #project2025 #politics #news #current events #facsism #democrats #Republicans #RFK #usa elections

[odinsblog]

“True the Vote” is a right-wing Republican proxy group, comprised of of racist, angry and sometimes armed white people—because we are talking about the “former” confederate states of the South, where the lax gun laws are just as crazy as their judges and governors—who methodically “challenge” the votes of anyone waiting in line to vote who isn’t white and who they deem to be not voting for the Republican candidate on the ballot.

👉🏿 https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/14/true-the-vote-big-lie-election-fraud/

👉🏿 https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/true-the-vote-voter-intimidation-case-goes-to-trial-in-georgia/

👉🏿 https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/voter-testimony-intimidation-and-disenfranchisement-in-the-georgia-senate-runoffs/

👉🏿 https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/section-11b-of-the-vra-protects-voters-from-intimidation/

#politics #republicans #voter intimidation #voter suppression #true the vote #voter disenfranchisement #ttv #election integrity #election interference

[mariacallous]

Democrats will keep their narrow Senate majority for the next two years, CNN projects, after victories in close contests in Nevada and Arizona. Democrats now have 50 Senate seats to Republicans’ 49 seats. 

In Nevada, CNN projects that Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a former prosecutor and state attorney general, will defeat Republican Adam Laxalt, her successor in the attorney general’s office and the son and grandson of former senators.  

In Arizona, CNN projects that Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, will defeat Republican Blake Masters, a venture capitalist who was endorsed by Trump and supported by tech mogul and emerging GOP megadonor Peter Thiel. 

Georgia’s race between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker is headed to a December runoff after neither candidate cleared the 50% threshold on Tuesday.  

Even if Republicans win the Georgia runoff, though, Vice President Kamala Harris would continue to cast the tie-breaking vote in an evenly divided Senate to guarantee the Democratic majority. 

Only one Senate seat has changed hands so far in the 2022 midterm elections: Pennsylvania, where Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who campaigned as he recovered from a May stroke, defeated Republican Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump.  

Republicans successfully defended seats in hard-fought races in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin, while Democrats retained their seats in competitive contests in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Hampshire.  

More on the Democrats’ Senate win: Retaining Senate control is a huge boost to President Biden over the remaining two years of his first term in the White House.  

It means Democrats will have the ability to confirm Biden’s judicial nominees — avoiding scenarios such as the one former President Barack Obama faced in 2016, when then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to hold a vote on his Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. It also means that Senate Democrats can reject bills passed by the House and can set their own agenda.  

[swagyna]

A "Quick" Guide to Independent US President Candidates of 2024

Regardless of the party you usually vote for, I encourage you to go over this list

Jill Stein, Green Party

Ballotpedia

Wikipedia

A Jewish Doctor, she's been running in different campaigns for 21 years. This will be her third time running for presidency; her announcement was in direct response to President Biden's lack of action in regards to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Her main concerns are to reinvigorate our lacking Green New Deal, for the right of a living wage in a revised Economic Bills of Rights, an end to discrimination of women, BIPOC, and LGBT+ members; the removal of US influence in wars across the globe, as well as an end to our politicians being bought out by lobbyists.

Dr. Stein learned of the impacts of environmental pollution first hand while she was a practicing physician; her patients' were suffering from the nicknamed "Filthy Five" coal plants in her area. This spurred her into activism, which did eventually lead to the removal of these coal plants. While involved in this activism, she heard how many people had been demanding the removal of the plants for years. Local politicians refused to heed the people's words. Stein eventually learned it was due to lobbying, and helped to pass the Clean Elections Law. This law would only last for 5 years before Democrats removed it. A/N: Dr. Stein has only declared her running just this month on Nov. 9th. This may explain her lacking platform.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

Chase Oliver, Libertarian Party

Ballotpedia

Wikipedia You could describe him as sort of an "average Joe". Before entering politics, he worked restaurant jobs for 13 years. He's previously ran for Georgia's 5th district for House in 2020, as well as running for Senator in 2022 of the same state. He got enough support during his run for Senate that it caused a runoff election. His campaign is addressing many different problems, from positive immigration reform to being prochoice. Here's the list and a brief summary of what his plans are:

○ Healthcare system overhaul, swap to Direct Primary Care ○ Addressing Student Loans, making current loans interest free, ending FAFSA entirely, using Department of Defense money to pay for interest fees lost by this move. Also addressing high tuition costs. ○ Education, removal of the Department of Education to allocate money directly back to the states. ○ Allowing free market on Marijuana, signing full pardons for anyone with a non-violent drug-only criminal charge. ○ Changes to the Justice System, from courts to prisons to cops, removal of immunity from those in power, removal of mandatory minimum sentences, removal of prosecution of victimless crimes. ○ Work Changes, adjustments to taxes to make it easier on lower-income families, as well as law adjustments for people looking to open their own businesses. ○ Immigration reform, simplification for immigrants to become citizens to allow them to work and better integrate into our society. ○ Government invasion of Privacy, the potential repeal of the Patriot Act as well as any other invasive laws the government has passed in the guise of "safety". ○ The rights of bodily autonomy and Abortion, which should be codified. The exception here is that tax money cannot be used for it.

○ Ending the Death Penalty ○ Reducing Inflation by reducing government spending [a/n: this is not what causes inflation] ○ Removal of any Gun Restrictions and will strike down any new one that come up in the future What spurred him into activism roughly 2 decades ago, was President Bush's war campaign in Iraq. In 2008, he initially supported President Obama but later left the Democratic Party as he found that their policies were not anti-war and had no intention of becoming anti-war. He's spoken against regulations that prevent that feeding of the homeless and hungry in the City of Columbia [agenda], and has also made a public comment to the Atlanta City Council against Cop city (time stamp is 2:17:00).

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Independent Party

Ballotpedia

Wikipedia

An avid environmentalist lawyer who has won exceptional lawsuits for Indigenous People. This will be the first time RFK Jr. has officially ran for an election. In prior years, he's considered running for a Senator seat, NY's Attorney General seat, and has previously declined NY's Senate seat.

RFK Jr.'s campaign also has quite an extensive list of problems to address: ○ Housing Crisis and Cost: raising minimum wage to $15 an hour, changing zoning laws, changing taxes, opening ownership to local abandoned housing/buildings ○ Environment: restoring USDA and EPA control, incentivize companies to go green on a global scale, change agricultural practices ○ Ending of Lobbying: prosecution of officials and politicians who have been bought out by corporations, restoration of individual privacy, full government transparency. ○ Ending Party Division: RFK Jr. acknowledges that the Left vs Right is not helpful to the average person and seeks to remedy this divide by listening and compromising. ○ War: the removal of our troops and bases from countries in which we do not belong. The stop of unnecessary and profligate spending in our military machine. ○ Southern Border: Tighten control on checkpoints, restore lighting and motion detectors, but also allocate money into our courts to move asylum cases thru faster. This ties back with his stance on war, however; he wants the removal of our forces and weapons from the hands of the cartel. The US needs to stop funding the displacement of civilians in their own nations. ○ Restoration of Rights: Write into law that tech companies cannot ban, shadowban, or suppress someone if the government asks them to. Removal of government surveillance. ○ Civil Rights: to do this, a complete overhaul of these systems will happen - community repair, prison/police reform, focus on the working class and disenfranchised schooling, find addiction care that is long term, expanded youth programs, and free IDs for US citizens. ○ Native Americans: the restoration of land, the complete adherence to previous treaties that have been written and ignored by the US. ○ Veterans: optimization of the VA, creating a federal Veteran's council, to provide ways veterans can still "serve" in their communities. ○ Student Loans: the repeal of Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act which will allow people to file bankruptcy on student loans, allow people to refinance their student loans, remove interest on student loans, to hold universities accountable and not banks for loan defaults to prevent the rising prices of tuition.

Some things to note; Robert is a member of Children's Health Defense, which is an anti-vax organization that claims vaccines cause autism. Robert doesn't believe that HIV causes AIDS which he writes about in his book The Real Anthony Fauci (pg numbers: 298, 332, 347, 348, 351).

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Cornel West, Independent Party

Ballotpedia

Wikipedia

Another Doctor on the list, Cornel is a philosophy professor at Union Theological Seminary. In his practice, he focuses on how American society treats differences between gender, race, and class. This is his first time running for office, and had previously been with the People's Party which he dropped for the Green Party. In October '23, he left the Green Party to be Independent. Here is a list of what Dr. West is looking to address during his presidency: ○ Environmentalism: Canceling any and all national oil projects, codifying informed consent (FPIC) for Indigenous people and their land, end water privatization by making a clean water committee ○ Racial Justice: Reparations for black residents, following thru on the Civil Liberties Act of '88, public review commissions for all police stations, creating a committee dedicated to finding missing and murdered Indigenous women ○ Prison/Police Reform: End the death penalty, abolish current privatized prison practices, shutting down Cop City, end and ban police training thru military forces ○ Voters' Rights: Election day is to be a national holiday to ensure everyone can vote, term limits for all elected officials, ban on past elected officials from becoming lobbyists, term limits for SCOTUS members ○ Gun Control: Create national gun registry, reduce gun sales at shows, similar requirements for driver licenses to gun ownership ○ Economics: Tax billionaires, remove tax loopholes for the super rich, end Wall Street housing market holdings, ban stock trading for elected gov. officials, national minimum wage of $27/hr, create UBI commission ○ Workers' Rights: Four day work week, review US trade agreements and ban any that exploit domestic and international workers, free pre-K childcare, all for-profit companies must allow the creation of unions ○ Healthcare: Free healthcare, codify abortions, address addiction and help those affected by it, create federal panel to oversee the creation/safety/effectiveness of vaccines, focus on giving more power back to disabled people ○ Education: Redistribute tax money equally across all public schools based on student count (this way rural students still receive the same schooling as urban students), minimum wage of 80k for K-12 teachers, abolish state laws that obfuscate our US history, cancel student debt ○ LGBTQIA+: establish standards for trans healthcare, end assaults on trans people, ban on state anti-LGBTQIA+ laws, codify equal rights for LGBTQIA+ people ○ Global Influence: Removal of military support in all current wars, establish Truth Commission for the global south, disband NATO, cut the military budget, end global patriarchy and help women in Iran and Afghanistan, cancel IMF debts

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A note to end on: Firstly, I will not be discussing who I will be voting for on this post. Secondly, I want to add that just because a candidate has a large list of issues they're addressing doesn't mean they will actually get it done while in office. We regularly see candidates come in with large promises only to "forget" about them once they reach office.

Remember: the presidential election is important, but getting out and voting during midterms is infinitely much more impactful because those are our lawmakers!! A president cannot change anything if there is no house or senate backing her/him!

#yes. green and lib are established parties. #but they fit the bill bc of the massive discrepancy in funding between them and red/blue parties #just in case y'all can't tell - their campaign pages are embedded on their names #and for the love of god PLEASE read this list thoroughly and do your own research #a rb that would be nice :') idc about numbers but i KNOW a bunch of people are going to be asking “who do i vote for” in 2024 #doing research ahead of time is extremely important #i'd make a list for every midterm but there's literally hundreds if not thousands of total candidates for some of those uhm :') i'm sorry #2024 elections #presidential election #2024 presidential election #us politics #for later

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Herschel Walker has been accused of committing "election fraud" following reports he received a primary residence tax exemption for his home in Dallas, Texas, whilst running for the Senate in Georgia.

Walker faces Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock in a runoff election on December 6, after neither candidate won an absolute majority of the vote in the initial poll on November 8.

Analysis of tax records by CNN showed Walker got a homestead tax exemption for a property in Dallas this year, saving him around $1,500.

Under Texan law the exemption is only valid on a person's "principal residence."

This was claimed despite Walker registering to vote in Georgia in 2021, ahead of his Senate bid.

According to the 2020 Georgia code, residence of the state can be rescinded if an individual moves to another state "with the intention of making it such person's residence."

It adds: "If a person removes to another state with the intention of remaining there an indefinite time and making such state such person's place of residence, such person shall be considered to have lost such person's residence in this state."

Arguably by listing a property in Dallas as his "principal residence" Walker made the property his "place of residence" under Georgia state law.

Speaking to CNN a tax official from Tarrant County, where Walker's Dallas home is located, confirmed the former NFL running back claimed a principal residence tax exemption for the property in both 2021 and 2022.

Newsweek has approached Walker for comment regarding the allegations.

#us politics #news #newsweek #2022 midterms #2022 elections #2022 #georgia #herschel walker #texas #primary residence tax exemption #election fraud #cnn #us senate #sen. raphael warnock

[tomorrowusa]

The last undecided race in the 2022 midterms has a winner. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock has defeated Trump Republican Herschel Walker by at least 2.6% of the vote in the Georgia runoff. That may increase to 2.8% when some still uncounted ballots from Democratic areas are added to the tally.

This win gives Dems a 51-49 advantage in the US Senate.

This victory is an example of what old school GOTV can do. Sen. Warnock and the Democratic Party invested heavily in staff to get out the vote. The result was a disproportionately Democratic increase in turnout than in the November 8th  general election.

Dems improved more in populous cities and metropolitan areas and in counties in central Georgia with a relatively high percentage of African-American voters. The GOP improved over November 8th in the northern tiers of counties including Marjorie Taylor Greene‘s Congressional district in the northwest.

There’s no substitute for personally contacting voters one on one. Slacktivism on social media just doesn’t cut it. Facebook ads will get you only so far. To be a success politically it’s necessary to have local visibility. Dems in other states (we’re looking at you, Florida!) can learn a thing or two from the successful Warnock campaign.

#georgia #georgia us senate runoff #raphael warnock #warnock victory #gotv #get out the vote #community organizing #midterm elections #election 2022 #herschel walker #trump republicans #trump's handpicked candidate lost

[megacosms]

The 2022 United States Senate elections will be held on November 8, 2022, with 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate being contested in regular elections, the winners of which will serve six-year terms in the United States Congress from January 3, 2023, to January 3, 2029. Senators are divided into three groups, or classes, whose terms are staggered so that a different class is elected every two years. Class 3 senators, who were last elected in 2016, will be up for election again in 2022.

All 34 Class 3 Senate seats are up for election in 2022; Class 3 currently consists of 14 Democrats and 20 Republicans. Two special elections will also be held—in California to fill the final weeks of Kamala Harris's term[1] and in Oklahoma to serve the four remaining years of Jim Inhofe's term.

Six Republican senators, Richard Shelby (Alabama), Roy Blunt (Missouri), Richard Burr (North Carolina), Rob Portman (Ohio), Jim Inhofe (Oklahoma), Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania), as well as one Democratic senator, Patrick Leahy (Vermont), have announced that they are not seeking re-election; 15 Republicans and 13 Democrats are running for re-election.

Numerous other federal, state, and local elections, including the 2022 House elections, will also be held on this date. The winners of this election will serve beginning in the 118th United States Congress. Democrats have held a majority in the Senate since January 20, 2021, following the party's twin victories in the runoffs for Georgia's regularly-scheduled and special 2020 Senate elections, and the inauguration of Democrat Kamala Harris as vice president. There are 48 Democratic senators and two independent senators who caucus with them; with Harris's tie-breaking vote, the Democrats hold an effective 51-seat majority in the chamber.

This will be the first US Senate election in history in which multiple races are contested between two African-American nominees (Georgia and South Carolina).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_Senate_elections

[greater-than-the-sword]

can you pls explain to a non-american what is the whole deal with this election? I can’t find a decent unbiased explanation

This is so vague, where do I start? From scratch?

So, in the US every 4 years we elect a new President, which most non-Americans know.

We also have a bicameral legislature with two houses, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Senators are up for re-election every 6 years, and House members are up for re-election every 2 to 4 years.

With that in mind, then, the US actually holds 1 election every year with every even year being a federal election and the odd years being limited to local and state-level elections.

What this means is that every even-numbered year, 1/3 of the Senate is up for re-election, and ALL of the House is up for re-election. This is also true during the Presidential years but it is overshadowed by the Presidential election.

The Midterm happens to be the 4 year mark for the Representatives with the long terms as well, so (factoring in our 3-branch system) during the Midterm approximately 20% of the Federal government can be overturned. That's why it's such a big deal.

Now, everybody was expecting a big turnout for the Republicans this year because of all the dissatisfaction with the gas prices, inflation, and radical left wing policies such as forced gender ideology and sexualization of children, the grating propaganda, demonization of political opponents, and the left's loss of traction with minorities, as well as their draconian forced vaccination campaign in late 2021/early 2022. Republicans were leading strongly in the polls.

What happened was a lot less spectacular than anticipated. Although some states pulled in key victories, ultimately not much has changed about the party composition of the House and Senate from where we were before. Significantly, the Senate is currently at a tie being evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, literally 50 members to 50 members. Since party members usually vote with their party, if the Senate remains this way, the Vice President Kamala Harris will cast tiebreaking votes, according to the Constitution.

However, there are 3 Senate races still undecided. It appears likely that one will go Republican, the other will go Democrat, and the 3rd, in Georgia, will be too close to call and will have to go to a runoff election.

If a Democrat wins this runoff election in Georgia, we will have a tie in the Senate, with the Democrat Kamala Harris as tiebreaker. If a Republican wins the runoff, the Republicans will control the Senate. Let me know if that answers your questions.

#politics #midterms