Democratic Senate hopefuls Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock campaigned together in Clayton County Thursday with fewer than seven weeks left until the runoff elections that will determine control of the U.S. Senate.
Clayton County went heavily for president-elect Joe Biden and was the last to be counted on Election Night when Biden overtook President Donald Trump in the Georgia vote tally.
“Do you know how powerful you are?” Warnock asked the crowd about about 200. “You were the county that pushed us over the finish line and flipped Georgia blue.”
While moderate voters in Atlanta’s fast-changing suburban counties of Cobb and Gwinnett were essential to Democrats’ strength in the general election, both parties agree that the January runoffs will instead be a test of turning out base voters. Biden won 85% of the vote in Clayton.
As Warnock said that some politicians “don’t like what the people have said,” a man in the audience shouted, “Lock them up!” in reference to Republicans who had not acknowledged Georgia’s election results. But Warnock stopped the man from going on.
“We are not going to become that which we resist,” Warnock said, before delivering the rest of his remarks.
Ossoff used the event to slam Perdue over a report in the Daily Beast that the senator purchased a large amount of stock in a Naval contractor in the days before he assumed the gavel of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the Navy fleet.
“When he was heading a committee...that oversees the funding and operations of the United States Navy that’s responsible for the welfare of our sailors, he was pumping and dumping stock in the manufacturer of submarine components,” Ossoff said from the stage. “Is it too much to ask that those who serve us serve us, and not themselves?”
A spokeswoman for Perdue told the New York Times that the senator does not manage his own stocks, which are traded without his knowledge by an outside investment adviser.
Ossoff also asked the crowd, “Has anyone seen David Perdue?”
That’s in reference to Perdue’s thinner-than-usual campaign schedule since Election Day. Although he has attended Senate meetings and cast votes in Washington, Perdue has made just two campaign appearances in Georgia and has granted no interviews to local reporters.
The Perdue campaign also announced this week that he will not participate in the Atlanta Press Club debate against Ossoff scheduled in December.
That’s in contrast to Loeffler, who took multiple questions from Georgia reporters on Election Night said she would not only debate Warnock at the Atlanta Press Club on Dec. 6th, she’s open to doing more.
“I would welcome another chance to debate Raphael Warnock,” Loeffler told Fox News, adding: “Georgians need to know who he is and I welcome that chance to debate him as many times as he wants.”
Earlier Thursday, Perdue appeared in Perry alongside Loeffler and Sen. Tom Cotton.
Greg Bluestein contributed to this report.
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