November 22, 2022
Temperatures drop, Senate runoff heats up
The temperatures may be dropping, but the U.S. Senate race between Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker is heating up. Both sides are working feverishly to persuade their base voters to head back to the polls just four weeks after the general election.
To help push Warnock over the goal line, the Democratic Party’s biggest draw — former President Barack Obama — will return to Atlanta to campaign for him on Dec. 1, Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Riley Bunch tweeted yesterday. Former First Lady Michelle Obama and superstar director, actor, producer and writer, Tyler Perry, will be in town, too.
Walker boasts some good news, as well. Gov. Brian Kemp, after steering clear of the Donald Trump-endorsed former University of Georgia football star during the general election campaign, is now stumping with his fellow Republican. Kemp appeared alongside Walker for the first time on Saturday at a rally in Smyrna attended by a few hundred supporters.
Will it be enough? Kemp’s popularity and appearances by B-list Republicans will be needed to lure back the votes of the estimated 200,000 GOP voters who crossed over to vote for Warnock on Nov. 8, The Current’s Craig Nelson writes.
Or will the appearance of a former Democratic president and two of the nation’s premier political and cultural heavyweights in support of Warnock force the GOP to reconsider its opposition to importing Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis for campaign’s stretch run? One thing seems clear: Former Arkansas Governor and talk show host Mike Huckabee doesn’t match the Obamas and Perry in star power.
The Walker campaign also must also contend with their candidate’s awkward moments, ones that its velvet rope strategy of keeping all but the friendliest reporters away doesn’t entirely prevent. Walker’s comments about vampires and werewolves during a campaign stop in McDonough last week (“I don’t know if you know, vampires are cool people, are they not?”) were just the latest examples.
‘Eye of the beholder’
A Georgia appeals court yesterday threw out a request by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to stop counties from going ahead with plans to offer Saturday voting for the Walker-Warnock runoff. Still, the decision by Raffensperger to request the prohibition in the first place had Colin McRae scratching his head last week.
McRae, chairman of the Chatham County Board of Registrars, said he wasn’t taking a position on Raffensperger’s challenge to Saturday voting or Raphael Warnock’s lawsuit to keep it going forward.
But he said he understood those who say that barring Saturday voting and cutting in half the period between the general election are tantamount to voter suppression.
“To some extent, voter suppression is in the eye of the beholder,” he told reporters in Savannah. “And I’ve always taken the approach that there is validity to somebody who thinks that their right to vote has been suppressed.”
“I think that we have a very, you know, wide array of options,” said McRae, whose office oversees voter registration, absentee voting, voter ID and advance voting sites in Chatham County. “But if a voter thinks that their options have been limited, I can see where they’re coming from.”
In particular, McRae voiced puzzlement at the General Assembly’s vote to reduce the period between the general election and the runoff from nine weeks to four weeks, which drastically reduces the period which many voters must request, receive, and cast ballots.
“It would have been great for the legislature to give us those additional four weeks that we had in the past,” he said.
In addition to reducing the period between the general election and runoff, Senate Bill 202, signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in March 2021, effectively cuts the early in-person voting period, from a minimum of 16 days in 2020 to a minimum of five in 2022, while existing rules have ensured almost no new voters will be eligible to vote in the runoff.
Energy costs
In a full-page ad in Sunday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Patty Durand, a candidate for the Georgia Public Service Commission, blasts the panel’s failure to protect consumers as it weighs a request by Georgia Power for what the ad says are $2.9 billion in additional revenues.
“Georgia Power’s mismanaged Plant Vogtle nuclear expansion is now 7 years late and $14 billion over budget,” says the ad, which is co-signed by Durand and a group called Stop the Georgia Power Greed. “The Georgia Public Service Commission has required customers to pay $9.4 billion in profits just from Plant Vogtle’s delays.”
The request comes up for a commission vote on Dec. 20, according to the ad.
Durand was a candidate for public service commissioner (District 2) in the most recent midterm elections. But the contest for seats on the commission was postponed after a judge ruled that it disenfranchised Black voters. The state appealed that ruling. After that appeal makes its way through the courts, a special election will be held, probably next year.
Meanwhile, it seems the commission’s vice-chairman, Tim Echols, wants nothing to do with public dissent to the panel’s activities. He has blocked Durand from his Twitter feed.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Walker, Warnock ramp up campaigns as runoff nears
Political celebrities stream in to help Walker, Warnock campaigns encourage voters to show up.
Chatham official says state shouldn’t squelch Saturday voting
McRae said he believes the law can allow Saturday early voting, and that he was disappointed the state hasn’t found a way to allow it.
An elected Georgia energy regulator blocked her; now she’s suing
A complaint filed Tuesday in federal district court idetails how PDC member Tim Echols blocked candidate for his post from his Twitter, Facebook feeds after she tweeted criticism of Echols’ failed attempt to pass any of about a dozen changes to Georgia Power’s long-term plan.
RUNOFF VOTING IN COASTAL GEORGIA
Resources to help Coastal Georgia voters make informed decisions. Page includes links to our nonpartisan election reporting and access to tools that voters can use to conduct your own research.
Path cleared for Georgia to launch work requirements for Medicaid
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s reelection — and a surprising Biden administration decision not to appeal a federal court ruling — have freed the state to introduce its plan that would allow for a limited increase in the pool of low-income residents eligible for Medicaid.
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