Are Georgia Democrats getting desperate, begging their party’s leadership in Washington D.C. for assistance? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Peach State Democrats are “pleading” to their Capitol Hill allies for support to defeat U.S. Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., who is up for re-election in November 2020.
Indeed, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York appears to be holding job interviews for Georgia Democrats who want to run for Senate. Multiple potential candidates including former U.S. attorney Ed Tarver of Augusta and state Sen. Jen Jordan, who represents a portion of Cobb County & Sandy Springs have reportedly taken trips to Washington D.C. to apparently explore options with Schumer and/or major Washington, D.C. Democrat donors. And the name of Michelle Nunn, the party’s unsuccessful U.S. Senate candidate against Perdue in 2014, is still being bandied about as is the name of DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond.
Several Democrats have already announced they will run against Perdue, among them the well-known Jon Ossoff who narrowly lost to then-U.S. Rep. Karen Handel in Georgia’s suburban 6th Congressional District. But national Democrats fear these announced candidates can’t gain statewide traction in order to beat Perdue, whose favorability ratings have consistently held in the 52-53 percent range.
There is also another Georgia Senate seat that will be on the November 2020 ballot, made possible by the early retirement mid-way through his term of U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga. It will officially be a “non-partisan” election – probably with a potentially crowded candidate field. Gov. Brian Kemp gets to appoint a temporary Isakson replacement who will be on that ballot, but the governor could delay his decision well into the fall. That makes it more difficult for Democrat to consider a run, since right now they don’t know who the GOP opponent will be.
