GOP senator thanks Georgia for 'clear' support after finishing second

On Thursday, Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) said Georgia voters sent a “clear message” that they want to keep her in the Senate. But with nearly all of the votes counted, it’s clear that Loeffler came in second to her Democratic challenger, Reverend Raphael Warnock.

“Georgia voters sent a clear message Tuesday that they want us to continue our hard work in Washington, but our fight is not over. We need to finish this fight on January 5th!” Loeffler tweeted on Thursday morning.

Warnock received the plurality of votes in Tuesday’s special election. With about 94% of the votes counted so far, Warnock is ahead by more than 318,000 votes, and most of the remaining uncounted ballots are from reliably Democratic areas. Warnock won about 32.7% of the counted ballots to Loeffler’s 26.1%.

Georgia voters didn’t send a clear mandate for Donald Trump on Tuesday, either. With an estimated 61,367 ballots still to be counted on Thursday, Trump is barely ahead by about 18,500 votes — about 49.6% to 49.2% — out of more than 4.9 million votes tallied.

The next hurdle for Loeffler and Warnock after Tuesday will be a January runoff election — a race that could decide which party controls the Senate in 2021.

Last December, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Loeffler to the Senate after Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) retired before the end of his term. The Republican businesswoman, who is the current wealthiest member of the Senate, ran on her 100% pro-Trump voting record.

Loeffler has said she has never disagreed with anything Trump has done, and even defended Trump’s reckless COVID-19 superspreader events during the campaign. Last week, Loeffler claimed she wasn’t aware of Trump infamous Access Hollywood tape, in which he openly bragged about sexually assaulting women.

Loeffler has made headlines for her frequent attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement, and for bizarre ads bragging that she is even “more conservative” than Attila the Hun, the brutal fifth century ruler.

She has already started a smear campaign against Warnock ahead of their January runoff. “I am now running against one of the most radical Democrats in the country,” Loeffler tweeted on Wednesday.

The same day, Warnock released his first runoff ad, in which he predicted Loeffler would falsely accuse him of eating his pizza with a fork and knife, stepping on sidewalk cracks, and hating puppies — rather than talking about “why she’s for getting rid of health care in the middle of a pandemic.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.