#Georgia Senate Race 2022

[ausetkmt]

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is defending his Senate seat against Republican challenger Herschel Walker in a runoff election in Georgia Tuesday, after days of record-breaking early voting in the state. Polls close in Georgia at 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday 12/06/2022. 

What is a runoff election, and how will it work in Georgia's Senate race?   

Since Democrats flipped the seat in Pennsylvania and successfully defended the other seats in play in the November midterm elections, Democrats will retain control of the Senate, regardless of the outcome on Tuesday. But they will have more power if they control the chamber 51-49 since they will not have to work out a power-sharing agreement with Republicans. This will be the last election of the 2022 midterm cycle. 

Polls close in Georgia at 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday 12/06/2022. 

Although Warnock held a narrow lead over Walker on Election Day, he did not win more than 50% of the vote, which is required to avoid a runoff in Georgia. 

According to exit polls on Election Day, voters in Georgia were split in their views of the most important qualities in a candidate: 36% said it was most important that the candidate shared their values, while 32% said a candidate's honesty and integrity were most important to them.

Ahead of the general election, Walker's campaign was rocked in October by allegations that he paid for at least one woman to have an abortion. He has denied the allegations, and national Republicans stuck by him. 

A record-breaking number of early voters have turned out in the runoff, smashing all previous records. 

Former President Barack Obama campaigned with Warnock last week, although President Biden, who flipped the state in 2020, has not visited the Peach State to stump for Warnock. Former President Donald Trump has not campaigned in person with Walker in the runoff but was scheduled to hold a tele-rally for Walker Monday night.

Georgia played a key role in the 2020 elections, when the races for both Senate seats went into special runoff elections in January 2021, ultimately flipping both seats from Republican to Democratic. Republican incumbent Sen. David Perdue led Jon Ossoff after Election Night with 49.7% of the vote, but he ended up falling short in the runoff on Jan. 5, 2021. In the race for the other seat, Warnock led incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler in a 21-person race on Election Day, and he prevailed in the special election to fill the vacancy left when Sen. Johnny Isakson stepped down.

[aulunthe]

Georgia Senate Runoff Today 12-06-2022 Vote Rafael #Warnock

Return Warnock to the U.S. Senate to continue working.

[derogatoryapparently]

They'd push God aside to vote for Satan, as long as Satan was a white nationalist or a plant of the white nationalists. Their racism knows no bounds and Walker has no pride.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[h/t Scott Horton]

[bigotedsjw]

I expect Walker v. Warnok to end in a runoff

I get it. Since the Alt-Reich are just throwing ideas against the wall with zero sincerity or care for consistency, so long as it stirs crap up, I understand the temptation to rub the GOP's nose in with regard to candidate quality. Still, it sounds especially untoward for the "vote blue no matter who" crowd to even feign being aghast at how Mr. Fake Slave Catcher Badge Brandisher, Mr. "God Never Heard of Pronouns," Mr. "You Gotta Eat Right" is doing in polls ahead of tonight's election. Especially in rural parts of the evangelical south, True Believers find this election to be just as apocalyptical as democrats. They legitimately believe Rev. Warnock is a Molech worshiping "Groomer" enabling monster courting the "Kid Killing Caucus." So yes, Herschel absolutely is an utter embarrassment of republican senate candidate right up there with Todd Akin, Roy Moore and Christine O'Donnell. But his personal history with women and abortions do not matter to a sizable slice of the Georgia electorate. They only care about how he will vote. I still expect Herschel to lose.

[spennythespoon]

Georgia Senate race really be like

Edit 12/07/2022: Hell Yeah Warnock won

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Markos Moulitsas (kos) at Daily Kos:

Donald Trump had no shortage of potential vice presidential running mates. There were several seemingly serious contenders on the list, including Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Tim Scott of South Carolina, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Trump picked Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio. He was the worst possible choice.  In some ways, VP picks are overrated, rarely making a meaningful dent in the overall dynamics of the race. Usually, they work best when they mobilize the candidate’s base. Vance isn’t the worst pick in that regard, having made a hard-right turn in recent years that should delight the MAGA faithful. 

But this isn’t a normal election year. Vice presidential picks can serve a useful purpose as attack dogs when the presidential candidate needs to stay above the fray. Dick Cheney comes to mind, or Sarah Palin. The least effective running mates are those who have with zero credibility with the base, like Hillary Clinton’s pick, Sen. Tim Kaine.  Trump doesn’t need an attack dog. No one will mobilize the MAGA base more effectively than him, and he’s not shy about what he says. Trump isn’t staying above any fray.  Other VP picks help fill a hole in a presidential candidate’s resume, such as when Joe Biden shored up Barack Obama’s perceived lack of foreign policy experience (a thing no voter ever cared about, but in those days, the David Broders of the Capitol Hill commentariat had to be appeased). 

[...] All of those picks could’ve served Trump well strategically. Instead, he picked Vance, who once called Trump “America’s Hitler.”  Indeed, we have a vast catalog of Vance quotes lambasting Trump. Stories detailing the ripostes are forthcoming, but include such gems as, “a lot of people think Trump is just the first to appeal to the racism and xenophobia that were already there, but I think he’s making the problem worse," and, ”[Trump] is ultimately a destructive force." But there is nothing Trump loves more than a former enemy bending the knee—and Vance has done so with extreme relish and obsequiousness.  So what does Vance bring to the ticket? 

He can’t deliver the base any more effectively than Trump can. Electorally, he dramatically underperformed in his Senate race, winning by just 6 percentage points in 2022. His Republican predecessor, Sen. Rob Portman, won it by 21 points in 2016. (Trump won Ohio by 8 points in 2020 with a presidential-year electorate.) Vance was a disastrous candidate and hopeless fundraiser, forcing Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell to spend $32 million to save Vance’s ass. That was money that could have been spent against Democratic opponents including Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia, Sen. Mark Kelly in Arizona, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada, or John Fetterman in Pennsylvania. All four won by less than 5 points, and with that, Democrats held on to the Senate.  It figures that Trump would pick Vance, and not an actual winner. Trump rarely associates with competent, effective people. 

And despite Vance’s past criticism of Trump, his record is everything Democrats could wish to run against, including directly thanking the authors of Project 2025, the extremist blueprint for Trump’s next term in office.  Put another way, Trump needs all the help he can get to expand his base. By choosing Vance, he specifically demonstrated that he has no interest in doing that. 

The pick of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance to join Donald Trump on the ticket was all about doubling down on the MAGA base with no intent to reach out to swing voters, disillusioned Ds, and Trump-skeptical Rs. If Trump were serious about reaching beyond his base, then he would have picked either Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, or Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

This may be the pick that dooms Trump’s chances to win again.

See Also:

Wake Up To Politics: Trump’s confidence play

[misfitwashere]

October 18, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

OCT 19

The events of January 6, 2021, overshadowed those of January 5, 2021, but that day was crucially important in a different way: Georgia voters elected two Democrats, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, to the U.S. Senate. Warnock and Ossoff brought the total of Democrats in the Senate to 48, and since two Independents—Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont—caucus with the Democrats and because in an evenly split Senate the majority goes to the party in the White House, their election gave Democrats control of the Senate.

Without that majority, the Biden-Harris agenda that built the U.S. economy into what The Economist this week called “the envy of the world” would never have passed. There would have been no American Rescue Plan, no Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, no CHIPS and Science Act, no Safer Communities Act, no PACT Act, no Inflation Reduction Act. 

In an era when Republicans refuse to vote for any Democratic measures no matter how popular they are, control of the Senate is vital. The Senate majority leader decides what measures can come to the floor for consideration, so a leader can shut out anything his party doesn’t like. The Senate also controls the confirmation of federal judges, including members of the Supreme Court. 

During the Trump years, then–Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) stacked the courts with MAGA judges, some of whom are now so reliably handing down right-wing decisions that plaintiffs routinely “shop” for them to get the decisions they want. And with Trump’s three hand-picked extremists at the Supreme Court, challenging those decisions simply writes that extremism more fully into law. 

As Trump continues to crumble—he canceled another appearance today, and in a statement almost certainly designed to leak, an advisor said he was “exhausted”—and as Democrats are favored to take the House, Republicans are waging a fierce battle to take control of the Senate. 

They are starting with an advantage. There are 34 Senate seats on the ballot this year, and Democrats are defending 23 of them while Republicans are defending just 11. Republicans need to pick up one seat to control the Senate if Trump wins the White House, and two if Harris wins. 

The McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund PAC has, so far, spent more than $140 million in this year’s Senate races, with more than $136 million going to attack ads. In the four races that are most vulnerable for Democrats—Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—the Senate Leadership Fund has spent $17.85 million (MT), $55.5 million (OH), $38.1 million (PA), and $23.6 million (WI).

In each of those four races, that money is bolstering extremely wealthy Republican challengers. In Montana, Republican Tim Sheehy, running against Senator Jon Tester, would be among the ten wealthiest senators if elected: his financial disclosures put his net worth at between $74 million and $260 million. Republican Bernie Moreno, who is challenging Senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio, has a net worth between $38 million and $172.7 million. In the Pennsylvania race, David McCormick (who actually appears to live in Connecticut) reported assets of $116 million to $290 million in 2022. In Wisconsin’s race, Republican Eric Hovde (who lived in an ocean-view mansion in Laguna Beach, California, until he decided to run for the Senate from Wisconsin) would also be one of the Senate’s richest members. His financial disclosures say his net worth is between $195.5 million and $564.4 million. 

This is not a coincidence. Knowing that fundraising would be difficult this year with Trump steering funds from the Republican National Committee primarily to himself, Republican Party leaders actively recruited candidates who could pour their own money into their campaigns. By the end of June, Sheehy had put $10.7 million into his own race; Moreno had put in $4.5 million by mid-October. McCormick had loaned his campaign more than $4 million by the end of June; Hovde put in $8 million by the end of March. 

This moment echoes the late nineteenth century, when wealthy businessmen sought a Senate seat as a capstone to their success, a perch from which they could protect the interests of other men like themselves. In that era it was relatively easy for a man like Nevada’s William Sharon to buy himself a Senate seat because the Constitution had established that state legislatures would elect their state’s senators. Determined to win a Senate seat to protect his railroad interests “regardless of expense,” Sharon bought a newspaper to flood the state capital with his own praise. The legislature gave him the seat in 1874. 

By the 1880s, even the staunchly pro-business Chicago Tribune complained: “Behind every one of half of the portly and well dressed members of the Senate can be seen the outlines of some corporation interested in getting or preventing legislation.” In 1892 the newly formed Populist Party met in Omaha, Nebraska, “to restore the government of the Republic to the hands of ‘the plain people,’ with which class it originated.” They called for the people to bypass the corrupt legislatures and elect senators directly. 

In 1900, William A. Clark of Montana provided the kick their proposal needed. 

Clark had arrived at the newly opened gold fields in Montana Territory in 1863 and transferred the money he made as a mule trader into banking. He made a fortune repossessing mining properties when owners defaulted on their loans. He invested that fortune in smelters, railroads, a newspaper, and copper mining, becoming one of the state’s famous Copper Kings. In 1889 he was the president of the Montana constitutional convention, where he made sure that mine owners could run the state as they wished. 

By 1890, Clark had his eyes on a Senate seat. He failed to get the support of the legislature in that year, and for the next decade he and his rival copper magnate Marcus Daly of the Anaconda Company poured vast sums of money into influencing the economy of the state, the location of the capital, and the state’s politics. 

Clark finally won his election in 1899, but on the same day he presented his credentials to the Senate, his opponents filed a petition charging him with bribery. An extensive investigation revealed that Clark had bought his seat with bribes ranging from $240 to $100,000, equivalent to almost $4 million today. His representatives had paid debts, bought ranches, and even handed envelopes of cash to legislators. The investigation also showed that Daly had spent a fortune trying to block Clark’s election. 

Montana politics, it seemed, had become a rich man’s game.

Aware that the Senate would vote to remove him from his seat, Clark resigned in May 1900. In January 1901 a new Montana legislature containing many of the same men Clark had paid off in 1899 elected him again to the same term from which he had been forced to resign. After an undistinguished term, he retired from the Senate in 1907.

Clark’s blatant purchase of a Senate seat added momentum to the demand for the direct election of senators, and in 1913 the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution established that the power to elect senators must rest in the hands of voters. That measure was supposed to make sure that wealth could not buy a Senate seat.

That the ability to self-fund a campaign is once again a key factor in winning a Senate seat from Montana—and Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—seems to be history repeating.

—

[ausetkmt]

ATLANTA — Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock has built up an advantage in Georgia’s record-breaking early vote, putting Republican Herschel Walker in a position where he’ll need to deliver big on Election Day to win in Tuesday’s Senate runoff.

Georgians have been bombarded with TV ads, radio messages, direct mail and ceaseless fundraising appeals in the closely watched Senate race. Many of them are ready for it to be over.

“It’s been very, very exhausting,” said Ana Gomez, a sophomore at Georgia Tech who attended Warnock's rally on campus Monday.

Over the long and grueling campaign, the two candidates have employed different strategies, with Warnock putting a premium on appeals to moderates and independents as Walker seeks to energize the Republican base in this former GOP stronghold.

On the airwaves, Warnock and his Democratic allies have outspent Republicans since the Nov. 8 general election.

But on the final day before the runoff, it was all about juicing turnout as each candidate held a packed schedule of events, focusing on areas where they have the strongest voter appeal.

Warnock hosted events in the Atlanta area with Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., as well as 25-year-old Rep.-elect Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., and the rapper Killer Mike, with an evening rally scheduled in the heart of the city.

Meanwhile, Walker held a series of rallies in the rural outskirts of the city, where he needs to run up the score to withstand the onslaught of Democratic votes in the Atlanta metropolitan area, and was set to close with an evening rally in suburban Cobb County.

“Everyone says: Gosh, why did Herschel get in this? What has this been like for me?” Walker’s wife, Julie Blanchard, said to a crowd on Monday. “And you know what? Our country’s worth it. It doesn’t matter what it’s like. It doesn’t matter if you get attacked.”

“He loves this country. He loves God. And he wants to fight for our country,” she said. “We don’t want to wake up like Venezuela.”

Warnock is entering the runoff from a position of strength. He leads among likely voters by 4 percentage points in a CNN poll published Friday, and by 5 points in a UMass Lowell poll out Monday.

An early vote that topped 1.85 million showed other positive signs for Warnock, with Democrats enjoying a 13-point edge — larger than the party’s 8-point lead in November’s early vote, according to TargetSmart’s model.

But Walker is widely expected to win more of the votes cast on Election Day. The question is whether he’ll win it by a wide enough margin to overcome his deficit heading into Tuesday.

Robert Trim, a Cobb County Republican who ran unsuccessfully for a state house seat last month, said he’ll vote for Walker on Tuesday, because a 50th GOP seat is “critically important” for committee power and denying Democrats unilateral subpoena authority.

But Trim conceded he’s pessimistic about Walker’s chances, comparing his run to former Republican Sen. David Perdue's failed runoff bid in 2020, when he lost to Ossoff.

“I don’t feel very confident,” Trim said in an interview. “I never have felt confident in where he’s positioned. So I’m probably less confident now than I was before.”

He said Democrats clinching Senate control “probably does sap some energy” because “most voters don’t understand” why an extra seat for the GOP minority changes the dynamics in Washington.

On TV, Walker is running an ad that shows him standing with Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who handily won his re-election bid last month. Kemp is a foe of former President Donald Trump, whose early endorsement of Walker propelled him in the Senate race. But Trump, who became the first Republican to lose Georgia since 1992, has not campaigned for Walker in the runoff.

Walker “needs to win Election Day by double digits,” said Cody Hall, an adviser to Kemp, who said the Republican candidate will have to outperform his advantage from November's Election Day. “He’s gonna need to do better than that margin, which his team realizes.”

“Yes, the early voting looks good for Warnock,” Hall told NBC News. “But I would just caution everyone that base Republican voters in the last couple of cycles have liked turning out on Election Day. And I think that is going to benefit Herschel.”

Walker has struggled with independent voters, losing them by 11 points in the general election, according to NBC News exit polls.

He has sought to tie Warnock to President Joe Biden, who is unpopular in the state, and blame the two of them for rising costs and crime. On the campaign trail, Walker has leaned into cultural conservatism, blasting “wokeness” in Washington, the teaching of “critical race theory,” objecting to transgender athletes and inveighing against pronoun use in the military.

“Why are they bringing pronouns in our military? Pronouns? What the heck is a pronoun?” Walker told a crowd Sunday in Loganville. “I’m sick and tired of that pronoun stuff. Aren’t y’all sick and tired of that pronoun stuff? So why don’t we call this senator former senator? That’s his pronoun.”

Warnock has built his candidacy on a promise to work across the aisle with Republicans. Recently he has portrayed Walker as “woefully unfit” for the job, telling Georgians that he “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

On Monday, he told MSNBC's Joy Reid in Atlanta: “Given my opponent, this race is not even about Republican versus Democrat, red versus blue, right versus left. It’s right versus wrong, and I think people see that.”

The runoff election will be Warnock’s fifth time on the ballot in Georgia in about two years — one Democratic primary, two general elections and two runoffs. He won a special election in 2020 to capture the seat for two years, and the 2022 race will decide who holds it for the next six years.

“I started on this journey to the Senate about three years ago. And now there’s only one day left,” he said Monday at Georgia Tech. “But it all really comes down to this. We need you to show up. Are you ready to win this election?”

Walker also urged Georgians to cast their ballots on Tuesday, telling Sean Hannity on Fox News Monday night that his message to voters was: "If you don’t vote, you’re going to get more of Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden.”

While Biden has stayed away from Georgia, Warnock has received reinforcements from former President Barack Obama, who has visited Atlanta twice to rally voters for the state’s first Black senator. Frost, who was just elected and will be the first Gen Z member of Congress, rallied for him Monday.

“This isn’t a two-year term. This is six years of power — of a Black reverend organizer in the U.S. Senate for six years. So anyone who says it doesn’t matter is out of touch with the realities of what’s going on now,” Frost said in an interview. “It’s a numbers game in the United States Congress, and every number matters.”

[dynamicity-keysmash]

For funsies, I'm gonna formally make an election prediction and see if it's right in a few days.

The Presidency

I predict Harris 286 vs Trump 252 in the electoral college. She'll win Wl, MI, PA, NV, and GA while losing NC and AZ.

I think that Harris's increased strength with college educated whites and white women will deliver WI, MI, and PA. The Harry Reid political machine's insane turnout game will deliver NV. I think that a combination of enthusiasm, and the increased college-educated, suburban population will deliver Georgia. I think waning strength with minority men and the sheer inertia of historical Republican support will lose AZ and NC for Harris.

I predict that the popular vote will be 50-47 in favor of Harris (+2.5D).

The Senate

I think that the Senate will end up with a one seat Republican majority (51R-49D). I think that Dems will hold every seat except WV and MT and win all of the swing state Senate races. So Tester will lose and Brown will win. I don't think that Dems will flip any Republican seats, nor will Osborn win in Nebraska.

The House

I predict that Dems will win the house narrowly with a 5-10 seat majority. I think that most of the gains will come from recovering ground in NY and CA while holding onto some razor-thin swing districts they won in 2022.

[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.  

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

People are acting like trump's trial is going to make him more popular and win him another term, but I don't see it. He lost the presidency in 2020 by the exact same margin in the electoral college as he "won" in 2016, and his handpicked candidates consistently lose vital races. Democrats lost the House in 2022, but made gains in the Senate AND flipped multiple state legislatures AND held all the swing state Secretary of State and Attorney General seats. Michigan flipped both houses blue, Pennsylvania flipped one house blue, Wisconsin flipped their Supreme Court, Dems held their own in Arizona and Georgia, all because voters were sick of trump and didn't want his cronies to be in charge anymore. Florida is a lost cause and Virginia appears to be trending that way, but trump isn't nearly as popular as the media wants everyone to think he is. He always says "I got more votes than any sitting president in history, almost 75 million," which is only impressive on paper if you don't know that the population grows, and he leaves out the fact that Joe Biden holds the record for most votes ever, over 80 million. I'm not gonna stand here and say that 2024 is going to be a blue wave by any stretch of the imagination. I think we're gonna lose the Senate which is the single most important thing about the following presidential term (JUDGES!), but the House is competitive and Kevin McCarthy is unpopular, and Biden is at an advantage because he's stable and hasn't dropped the ball nearly as hard as trump did in 2020 (covid and the George Floyd protests and skyrocketing unemployment, 2020 felt like the apocalypse).

I think 2024 will be closer than 2020, but I don't think the republicans will be able to win. Voters rebuked them across the board in 2022 (the House was gerrymandered in their favor, including illegal maps in Ohio and North Carolina that were struck down by their respective Supreme Courts but which the legislatures used anyway, and yet they only gained 9 seats in what was expected to be a 30 or 40 seat blowout). I'm optimistic, though not enthusiastic, and I'm ready for disappointment, but I honestly think trump is going to get his ass handed to him. He will try to run again in 2028 (though he'll probably be a convicted felon by then), and even though he'll have been responsible for republican losses in 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024, magats will still worship at his feet. Federal prosecution will not make him more popular with independents, and he doesn't have any important secretaries of state in his pocket to deny the vote to Democrats. The only people stupid enough to believe his bullshit and take his side on the documents case are people who are already in his court to begin with.

He is incapable of growing an audience. He's a one-trick pony, he keeps "playing the hits" but people are bored and want new material.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal Constitution

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 18, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 19, 2024

The events of January 6, 2021, overshadowed those of January 5, 2021, but that day was crucially important in a different way: Georgia voters elected two Democrats, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, to the U.S. Senate. Warnock and Ossoff brought the total of Democrats in the Senate to 48, and since two Independents—Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont—caucus with the Democrats and because in an evenly split Senate the majority goes to the party in the White House, their election gave Democrats control of the Senate.

Without that majority, the Biden-Harris agenda that built the U.S. economy into what The Economist this week called “the envy of the world” would never have passed. There would have been no American Rescue Plan, no Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, no CHIPS and Science Act, no Safer Communities Act, no PACT Act, no Inflation Reduction Act. 

In an era when Republicans refuse to vote for any Democratic measures no matter how popular they are, control of the Senate is vital. The Senate majority leader decides what measures can come to the floor for consideration, so a leader can shut out anything his party doesn’t like. The Senate also controls the confirmation of federal judges, including members of the Supreme Court. 

During the Trump years, then–Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) stacked the courts with MAGA judges, some of whom are now so reliably handing down right-wing decisions that plaintiffs routinely “shop” for them to get the decisions they want. And with Trump’s three hand-picked extremists at the Supreme Court, challenging those decisions simply writes that extremism more fully into law. 

As Trump continues to crumble—he canceled another appearance today, and in a statement almost certainly designed to leak, an advisor said he was “exhausted”—and as Democrats are favored to take the House, Republicans are waging a fierce battle to take control of the Senate. 

They are starting with an advantage. There are 34 Senate seats on the ballot this year, and Democrats are defending 23 of them while Republicans are defending just 11. Republicans need to pick up one seat to control the Senate if Trump wins the White House, and two if Harris wins. 

The McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund PAC has, so far, spent more than $140 million in this year’s Senate races, with more than $136 million going to attack ads. In the four races that are most vulnerable for Democrats—Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—the Senate Leadership Fund has spent $17.85 million (MT), $55.5 million (OH), $38.1 million (PA), and $23.6 million (WI).

In each of those four races, that money is bolstering extremely wealthy Republican challengers. In Montana, Republican Tim Sheehy, running against Senator Jon Tester, would be among the ten wealthiest senators if elected: his financial disclosures put his net worth at between $74 million and $260 million. Republican Bernie Moreno, who is challenging Senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio, has a net worth between $38 million and $172.7 million. In the Pennsylvania race, David McCormick (who actually appears to live in Connecticut) reported assets of $116 million to $290 million in 2022. In Wisconsin’s race, Republican Eric Hovde (who lived in an ocean-view mansion in Laguna Beach, California, until he decided to run for the Senate from Wisconsin) would also be one of the Senate’s richest members. His financial disclosures say his net worth is between $195.5 million and $564.4 million. 

This is not a coincidence. Knowing that fundraising would be difficult this year with Trump steering funds from the Republican National Committee primarily to himself, Republican Party leaders actively recruited candidates who could pour their own money into their campaigns. By the end of June, Sheehy had put $10.7 million into his own race; Moreno had put in $4.5 million by mid-October. McCormick had loaned his campaign more than $4 million by the end of June; Hovde put in $8 million by the end of March. 

This moment echoes the late nineteenth century, when wealthy businessmen sought a Senate seat as a capstone to their success, a perch from which they could protect the interests of other men like themselves. In that era it was relatively easy for a man like Nevada’s William Sharon to buy himself a Senate seat because the Constitution had established that state legislatures would elect their state’s senators. Determined to win a Senate seat to protect his railroad interests “regardless of expense,” Sharon bought a newspaper to flood the state capital with his own praise. The legislature gave him the seat in 1874. 

By the 1880s, even the staunchly pro-business Chicago Tribune complained: “Behind every one of half of the portly and well dressed members of the Senate can be seen the outlines of some corporation interested in getting or preventing legislation.” In 1892 the newly formed Populist Party met in Omaha, Nebraska, “to restore the government of the Republic to the hands of ‘the plain people,’ with which class it originated.” They called for the people to bypass the corrupt legislatures and elect senators directly. 

In 1900, William A. Clark of Montana provided the kick their proposal needed. 

Clark had arrived at the newly opened gold fields in Montana Territory in 1863 and transferred the money he made as a mule trader into banking. He made a fortune repossessing mining properties when owners defaulted on their loans. He invested that fortune in smelters, railroads, a newspaper, and copper mining, becoming one of the state’s famous Copper Kings. In 1889 he was the president of the Montana constitutional convention, where he made sure that mine owners could run the state as they wished. 

By 1890, Clark had his eyes on a Senate seat. He failed to get the support of the legislature in that year, and for the next decade he and his rival copper magnate Marcus Daly of the Anaconda Company poured vast sums of money into influencing the economy of the state, the location of the capital, and the state’s politics. 

Clark finally won his election in 1899, but on the same day he presented his credentials to the Senate, his opponents filed a petition charging him with bribery. An extensive investigation revealed that Clark had bought his seat with bribes ranging from $240 to $100,000, equivalent to almost $4 million today. His representatives had paid debts, bought ranches, and even handed envelopes of cash to legislators. The investigation also showed that Daly had spent a fortune trying to block Clark’s election. 

Montana politics, it seemed, had become a rich man’s game.

Aware that the Senate would vote to remove him from his seat, Clark resigned in May 1900. In January 1901 a new Montana legislature containing many of the same men Clark had paid off in 1899 elected him again to the same term from which he had been forced to resign. After an undistinguished term, he retired from the Senate in 1907.

Clark’s blatant purchase of a Senate seat added momentum to the demand for the direct election of senators, and in 1913 the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution established that the power to elect senators must rest in the hands of voters. That measure was supposed to make sure that wealth could not buy a Senate seat.

That the ability to self-fund a campaign is once again a key factor in winning a Senate seat from Montana—and Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—seems to be history repeating.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[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.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Donald Trump saddled Republicans with a clearly flawed Herschel Walker as their Senate nominee in Georgia, but in the final weeks before the runoff election, the ex-president has not spent a single dime to help Walker — despite the nearly $100 million of donor money he is sitting on.

Some 100 groups have poured $69 million into the Dec. 6 runoff between Walker and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, according to a HuffPost analysis of Federal Election Commission filings through Thursday.

Ten have spent at least seven figures, led by the pro-Warnock Georgia Honor super PAC with $19.4 million and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund with $15.3 million.

But groups controlled by the coup-attempting former president, who cajoled Walker to get into the race in the first place, essentially clearing the field for the former football star, have not reported spending anything at all — that despite Trump likely having $94 million on hand between his Save America “leadership” PAC and his Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC.

“He’s not going to spend it. He doesn’t care,” said Martha Zoller, a former adviser to Georgia’s popular GOP Gov. Brian Kemp. “People are really resentful of how Trump has handled all of this.”

Trump staff did not respond to HuffPost’s queries.

Trump also has not staged a rally for Walker since prior to the Georgia primary in May — leading to a stark contrast between him and former Democratic President Barack Obama, who appeared with Warnock prior to the general election and again Thursday evening, five days before the runoff.

Trump has vilified Obama through the years, beginning with the racist lie that he was ineligible to run for president because he was not born in the United States, and later falsely accusing him of “spying” on him and his presidential campaign.

Informal advisers to Trump, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he likely saw polling suggesting that a visit to Georgia would hurt Walker more than help him because so many Democrats and independent voters despise Trump so intensely. Additionally, a Walker loss would then be blamed on Trump, which would further hurt Trump’s recently announced attempt to return to the presidency in 2024.

Trump, though, has not even reported spending on get-out-the-vote efforts, which would not risk bringing negative publicity to Walker.

“I’m thankful he’s not coming. We don’t need him here,” Zoller said of Trump.

Trump injected himself into the 2022 midterm elections by pushing candidates based on their willingness to spread his lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Those candidates typically won their Republican primaries, but many, particularly those running statewide, lost to Democrats in November. Among them: Senate candidates Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Blake Masters in Arizona, Adam Laxalt in Nevada, and Don Bolduc in New Hampshire; and governor’s race nominees Kari Lake in Arizona, Tim Michels in Wisconsin, Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and Dan Cox in Maryland.

Erick Erickson, a conservative talk radio host based in Georgia, said he’s sensing that Republicans are tired of losing and tired of Trump. “I think more and more of the GOP is starting to move away from Trump after the midterms,” he said. “They ultimately want to win. Trump and his candidates aren’t the winners they claimed to be. So it’s time to move on.”

The midterm losses come just two years after Trump effectively sabotaged both Georgia U.S. Senate seats for Republicans by claiming that the elections in that state were “rigged.” That depressed GOP turnout in the Jan. 5, 2021, runoffs, allowing both Democrats to win and handing control of the Senate to New York Sen. Chuck Schumer.

In that election, Warnock won the right to serve out the final two years of Republican Johnny Isakson’s term, after Isakson resigned in 2019, by defeating Kelly Loeffler, who had been appointed by Kemp to serve until the 2020 election.

Tuesday’s runoff will determine who will fill that seat for the next six years.

Trump is under investigation by the Department of Justice for his role in Jan. 6, including the scheme to submit to the National Archives fraudulent slates of electors from states that voted for Democrat Joe Biden as a way to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to award Trump a second term. A separate probe is investigating Trump’s removal of highly classified documents from the White House and subsequent refusal to hand them over, even in defiance of a subpoena.

In addition to the federal criminal investigations, a Georgia prosecutor is looking at Trump and his allies’ attempts to coerce state officials into falsely declaring him the winner in that state.

Trump, despite losing the election by 7 million votes nationally and 306-232 in the Electoral College, became the first president in more than two centuries of elections to refuse to hand over power peacefully. His incitement of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol ― his last-ditch attempt to remain in office ― led to the deaths of five people, including one police officer, the injury of 140 officers and four police suicides.

At rallies and in statements on his personal social media platform, Trump has continued to lie about the election and the Jan. 6 House Select Committee’s work, calling it a “hoax” similar to previous investigations into his 2016 campaign’s acceptance of Russian assistance and his attempted extortion of Ukraine into helping his 2020 campaign.