More than 169,000 Georgians voted on the first day of early voting for the Georgia Senate runoffs, a number that eclipses the first day numbers from the general election.
Data from Georgia Votes, shows 168,293 state residents voted Dec. 14, almost 30,000 more voters than the first day of early voting for the general election. Voting rights activist Stacey Abrams noted the difference on her Twitter page.
BREAKING: More than 168,000 Georgians voted early in person yesterday for the Jan. 5 runoff election — a 23% increase from the first day of early voting in October.🙌🏾 (source: https://t.co/qql3A3lfyB)
Join them by making your voting plan at https://t.co/lClnYYPro6.🗳 #gapol
— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) December 15, 2020
Additionally, 314,000 residents have already voted by mail, meaning almost 500,000 people have already voted. Abrams told CNN the Democratic Party is confident about its chances in the runoffs Rev. Raphael Warnock is taking on Kelly Loeffler in one race, while Jon Ossoff is going against David Perdue in the other runoff.
Early voting in Georgia has begun while Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, slammed his own party mates Loeffler and Perdue Tuesday for blaming him for President Trump’s loss in the state.
Raffensperger also took to Twitter to slam the two senators as they pushed for him to release data that he’s already made publicly available, but the two Senators do not believe is real.
“As embarrassing as it is for Sens. Perdue & Loeffler not to know that the data they want is already publicly available from the Secretary of State, it’s even worse that they’re not aware their own campaigns already have the data they’re looking for.”
In the general election Perdue won 49.7% of the vote over Ossoff who received 47.9% of the vote. However, Libertarian candidate Shane Hazel received 2.3% of the vote, keeping both Perdue and Ossoff from the 50% mark, leading to the runoff. Warnock took first place in the other senate race receiving 32.9% of the vote while Loeffler received 25.9%. Neither Warnock or Loeffler could come close to the 50% mark to win due to 18 other candidates receiving at least one vote.
President Trump Making Things Worse For Republican Senate Candidates
In addition to Republican infighting in the state between Raffensperger and the two Republican candidates, outgoing President Donald Trump is also hurting the two candidates with his attacks on Raffensperger and the state’s election systems.
The races are paramount to Biden’s agenda. If Warnock and Ossoff both win, the Democratic party would essentially have control of the House, Senate and White House and can implement Biden’s agenda with almost no resistance.
