# Democrats take their campaigns for Georgia Senate seats to the streets on day after Christmas

The two Democrats are challenging Republican incumbents Kerry Loeffler, an Illinois-born former business executive and GOP donor whose husband heads the company ICE, +0.45% that owns the New York Stock Exchange, and David Perdue, the former CEO of Dollar General
DG,
+0.05%.

The Georgia Senate runoffs have major implications for the incoming administration of President-elect Biden. Wins in both races by the Democratic candidates would mean the Senate is split 50-50, with Vice President–elect Kamala Harris, having only just vacated her seat in the chamber as a Democratic senator from California, eligible to cast tie-breaking votes.

A day after the Christmas holiday, campaign volunteers for Ossoff and Warnock set up small operations around Clayton County, a county that both candidates won during the November election.

On a cold morning a group of four people held signs that read “Honk 4 Warnock” and “Reverend Raphael Warnock U.S. Senate” on the corner of Mt. Zion Road and Tara Boulevard, a heavily trafficked section of the mostly Democratic county.

A man with a red bullhorn stationed himself in the grassy median on Tara Boulevard to better be able to rally the support of the cars speeding past on the eight lane state highway.

Miles away in the Riverdale Town Center in Riverdale, two volunteers for both the Ossoff and Warnock effort set up a table in a parking lot. A sign hanging from the table read “Vote Warnock, Ossoff & Blackmon Jan. 5” and the table had boxes of campaign flyers ready for door-knock volunteers to pick up for distribution throughout the city of nearly 17,000.

Similar to the other larger precincts in Clayton County, Riverdale voters voted heavily in the November election for Ossoff, Warnock and Daniel Blackmon who is in a runoff to unseat incumbent Lauren “Bubba” McDonald for the District 4 Public Service Commission seat.

More than 1.6 million early votes have been cast in Georgia and recent polls have shown both races are close with Warnock ahead of Loeffler by a small margin and Ossoff behind Perdue by an even smaller margin.

In November Clayton County cast 110,988 votes cast for the Senate and Ossoff received 93,654 in his favor. Perdue received just 14,835 according to the Clayton County government election summary. Warnock outpaced Loeffler by an equally large margin 65,640 to 7,083. Getting similar levels of support in the most Black county of the state is crucial to either Democratic candidate winning their respective election. Clayton County is 80% Black and Hispanic, according to recent data provided by Georgia Demographics.

Warnock and Ossoff each raised more than $100 million in campaign funds in a two-month period, setting a blistering fundraising pace in their quest to topple the two Republican incumbents in Georgia and seize control of the US Senate, according to CNN.