The Price Republicans Paid in Georgia
The probability that Republicans will lose both of this week’s Senate runoff elections in Georgia crystallizes the risk the party has accepted by allowing Donald Trump to refashion the GOP in his image.
In a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 2000, Democrats now appear to have elected two on a single day by dominating the largest population centers, particularly the Atlanta metropolitan area, with the help of powerful turnout among Black voters. The electorate’s strong movement toward Democrats in more populous places allowed the longtime pastor and activist Raphael Warnock to oust the GOP Senator Kelly Loeffler, and also propelled fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff to a relatively narrow but likely insurmountable lead over the Republican Senator David Perdue. The Democratic candidates succeeded despite solid majorities, and even relatively large turnout, for the two Republicans in exurban, small-town, and rural areas where Trump remains revered.
In that way, the race functioned as a microcosm for the electoral trade that Trump has imposed on his party through four years of relentless turmoil, conspiracy-theory-mongering, and assaults on small-d democratic norms—all of which will culminate in today’s unprecedented attempt by dozens of House and Senate Republicans to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory.
Trump has expanded the GOP advantage among non-college-educated, nonurban, and evangelical white voters, a pattern that allowed him to
