Pence, Biden Warn Of High Stakes In Ga. Runoffs

ARROW , WILL WEISSERT AND JEFF A MY

The Associated Press

ATLANTA - President-elect Joe Biden thanked voters Monday for making him the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia in three decades and urged his supporters to show up one more time for Senate runoffs today that will determine the balance of power on Capitol Hill and the reach of his administration.

"Folks, this is it. This is it. It's a new year, and tomorrow can be a new day for Atlanta, for Georgia and for America," Biden said at a drive-in rally in downtown Atlanta. "Unlike any time in my career, one state - one state - can chart the course, not just for the four years, but for the next generation."

The president-elect, campaigning with Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, was one of a number of political leaders who descended on Georgia on Monday for an eleventh-hour turnout push. Vice President Mike Pence campaigned at a Georgia megachurch earlier in the day, while President Donald Trump was due to hold a nighttime rally in north Georgia.

Trump, who has refused to concede his defeat to Biden, has sought to galvanize Republicans around his efforts to subvert the will of the voters and keep himself in power for a second term. Biden joked Monday that he had won Georgia "three times" because of two statewide recounts, and he alluded to Trump's maneuvering by declaring that "politicians cannot assert, take or seize power" by undermining legitimate elections.

Biden said he needs a Senate majority to pass legislation to combat the coronavirus, and he blasted Republicans David Perdue and Sen. Kelly Loeffler as obstructionist Trump sycophants. Loeffler says she will join other Republican lawmakers in objecting to the Electoral College certification of Biden's victory by Congress on Wednesday.

"You have two senators who think they've sworn an oath to Donald Trump, not the United States Constitution," Biden said. Earlier Monday, Pence told a crowd of conservative Christian voters the runoffs are "the last line of defense" against a Democratic takeover in Washington. "We're going to keep Georgia, and we're going to save America," Pence said at Rock Springs Church in Milner.

Perdue, who is seeking a second term as senator, addressed the church crowd by telephone while quarantining over coronavirus exposure, claiming that "the very future of our republic is on the line" and declaring the duty to vote "a calling from God."

Republicans need just one victory to maintain Senate control and force Biden to contend with divided government. Democrats need a sweep for a 50-50 split, giving the tiebreaking vote to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, who will succeed Pence as the Senate's presiding officer. That would give Democrats a Senate majority to go along with their control of the House and executive branch.

The stakes have drawn hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign spending to a once solidly Republican state that now finds itself as the nation's premier battleground. Biden won Georgia's 16 electoral votes by about 12,000 votes out of 5 million cast in November, though Trump continues pushing false assertions of widespread fraud that even his now-former attorney general and Georgia's Republican secretary of state, along with a litany of state and federal judges, have said did not happen.

The president's trip Monday came a day after disclosure of a telephone call he made to the Georgia secretary of state over the weekend. Trump pressured Republican Brad Raffensperger to "find" enough votes to overturn Georgia's election results ahead of Wednesday's joint session of Congress that will certify Biden's Electoral College victory. The call highlighted how Trump has used the Georgia campaign to make clear his continued hold on Republican politics. Perdue, whose first Senate term expired Sunday, and Loeffler, an appointed senator trying to win her first election, have run as unabashed Trump Republicans and spent the two-month runoff blitz warning of a "radical" and "dangerous" lurch to the left.

Ossoff and Warnock have countered with warnings that a Republican Senate will stymie Biden's administration, especially on pandemic relief.