I started learning how to play golf again having given it up decades ago. That was after holding my Cherokee Town & Country Club’s record for teeing off backwards and nearly incapacitating my friend then-Sen. Johnny Isakson with an errant shot during a round at Sea Island.
This time I’m taking real live lessons and playing less challenging courses. But I still know and freely admit how much I don’t know.
When it comes to Georgia politics– participating in it, polling it, and predicting it—I’m a bit more confident. In fact I unabashedly play a scratch game at it.
That’s why I have been constantly questioning during this runoff season why, sticking with my golf analogy, a Ryder Cup team would ever shy away from a talent like Tiger Woods.
Translated into the sport I am best at, that means: “Why in the world did these two Republican campaigns not go wall-to-wall with TV ads, robocalls, and every other means available using the greatest political motivator the GOP has ever seen— President Donald Trump?
Yes, I know, Trump was recorded talking with Secretary with State Brad Raffensperger– with Trump seemingly making demands of him. That may fire up Trump detractors, but it doesn’t impact the president’s Georgia supporters in the least. It just makes them more devoted to him.
Trump wasn’t made the team captain
For a huge majority of Republicans Trump is not a political leader, he is a religion. Rather than motivate the troops to turn out to avenge the electoral high jinks that took place in November, it was clear that these Senate efforts would dip a toe in the Trump political pool– but only when the water seemed warm. If either Sens. David Perdue or Kelly Loeffler (or both) lose, it will be because a Trump-centric Republican base realized these candidates not only didn’t make him captain of their team, they didn’t even make him a member.
The following explains why that decision leaves Republicans holding their breath on Election Day:
As a percent of the early vote, African-American voters make up almost a full three percent more of the total. The magic number for Democrats in Georgia is for that percentage when all votes are counted to be at around 29%. What should concern Republicans this time is that the African-American percentage in November never reached that level. Yet it was enough to create chaos, confusion, court cases and an Electoral College vote for Joe Biden.
White voters are the overwhelming base for the GOP. They made up northwards of 61% of the November vote. At of the end of early voting, they made up only 40%.
Every conversation I’ve had with longtime Republican political friends and former colleagues in the legislature featured the same description of the GOP electorate. They are not energized and not over an unfair election– one which top elected Republican leaders either refused to deal with or did so half-heartedly.
That’s a shame because Perdue has proved to be an able member of the Senate and Loeffler has survived a true baptism by fire which many a newbie to elected politics could not endure.
But their campaigns became the oh-so predictable battle against “radical, liberal, socialists” rather than a fight of revenge for the censorship by media and Big Tech, years of false attacks by Democrats in Congress and questionable election antics aimed at the president.
All the ads with Democrat candidate Raphael Warnock’s controversial statements from the pulpit only drove black turnout higher in early voting. As Robert Cahaly of the Trafalgar polling group noted, a failure to quickly embrace Trump’s request for an up-or-down vote on a $2000 stimulus check to individuals put both Republican campaigns in at least a momentary a dive last week. Even as late as Sunday prior to Election Day, Loeffler failed to commit to join the group of senators to challenge the Electoral College vote.
To the credit of the Perdue camp, it ran a strong ad in which they used Trump’s own words praising Perdue. And opponent Jon Ossoff is having trouble being embraced by black voters at the same level as Warnock.
Still, the Republican situation is extremely precarious.
A miracle “hole in one” by Trump?
So “what or who can save these two candidates?” The answer to “what” might be a group like Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom organization. It remains to be seen if evangelical Christians might be better organized and more energized than the campaigns and PACS that support them. From an organizational side, they are the best shot at a turnout miracle on Tuesday.
As to the “who,” well you know my answer. President Trump will attempt to rescue these two candidates with a last-minute appearance in the GOP stronghold of Northwest Georgia where turnout has been particularly anemic. The question is whether a single rally by the only real political superstar to most Georgia Republicans will be enough.
After all, the man can only do so much. Can one speech reverse what I suspect is a gut instinct among the faithful that even these senators don’t have the fervor for Trump that they expect. Only Trump can provide a miracle “hole in one.”
One thing is for sure. Arguing that the two incumbents need to be re-elected to “help Mitch McConnell hold the Senate” is off the table. After declaring that his vote to accept Biden as the duly elected president would be “the most consequential I have ever made,” McConnell crept back towards appearing to be another “Swamp Monster” to the Trump base. He sealed the deal when be blocked the stand-alone vote on the $2000 payments.
‘Two religions’ to rescue the GOP?
The runoffs come down to whether two religions can rescue the GOP in Georgia and in the Senate. The first would be the religion that had Georgians gathered in churches on Sunday. The second, which will put new meaning to the term “revival,” will come as the faithful gather in Dalton tonight.
GOP wins– which at best would be at a 15,000-vote victory margin and at worse would be losses for one or both– hang literally on a wing and a prayer.
Matt Towery is the founder and chairman of InsiderAdvantage Georgia
