It may not be the state that technically gave him the White House, but President-elect Joe Biden's sights are on Georgia as runoff victories for Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock could hand Democrats control of the U.S. Senate.
Biden, who delivered his closing message of unity and healing in rural Warm Springs just a week before the November election, trekked to Atlanta on Tuesday and urged voters to head to the polls early to deliver a more decisive victory for the Senate candidates than his 12,000 vote margin over President Donald Trump.
"Tell your friends, your family, just like you did in November, turn out the vote so it's not even close," he said. "Don't give them an excuse; don't let them take away your power. Vote for both Jon and Raphael."
Ossoff faces Sen. David Perdue and Warnock faces Sen. Kelly Loeffler, and the runoff also features a statewide Public Service Commission seat, where Republican incumbent Bubba McDonald faces Democrat Daniel Blackman.
Ossoff praised the Democratic activists and organizers that helped turn Georgia into a competitive state and said a vote for him would usher in change to better combat the coronavirus pandemic and build up the economy.
"Georgia sent Donald Trump packing and now we're feeling hope in our hearts, because for the first time in four years, we have the opportunity to define the next chapter in American history," he said.
Warnock, a pastor, echoed Ossoff's concern over the toll COVID-19 has taken on the country, and pledged to expand access to health care if elected.
"The four most powerful words ever in a democracy are 'The people have spoken,'" he said. "We've got to get this virus under control. We've got to distribute this vacccine safely and efficiently, we've got to strengthen the Affordable Care Act."
If the two Democrats win their races, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would cast the tie-breaking vote in the U.S. Senate, giving Biden more opportunities to pass legislation in the first two years of his term. With such high stakes, Republicans have focused on painting Ossoff and Warnock as extremists too liberal for Georgia, highlighting old sermons from Warnock and tying Ossoff to China through his past work as a documentary filmmaker.
For his part, Biden quipped at the start of his speech that he felt like he won Georgia three times, after the initial count, full hand risk-limiting audit and the machine recount requested by the Trump campaign all showed him victorious over Trump.
"Thank you for standing strong to make sure your voices were heard, your votes were counted and counted and counted again," he said. "I think all of you just taught Donald Trump a lesson: In this election, Georgia wasn't going to be bullied. Georgia wasn't going to be silenced."
So far, more than 482,000 Georgians have cast a ballot in the runoff, including 169,000 on the first day of in-person early voting Monday. More than 1.2 million Georgians have requested an absentee-by-mail vote.
